What Is Church?

We need to rethink our definition of “church.” When we come to “church” as an individual who is primarily a consumer we begin to view church as an “event” where we can consume spirituality or religion to meet our own personal needs. The alternative here is to move from church as event to church as family. When we approach “church” as individuals in a community where we are cooperating together for a common goal its almost impossible to think of church as an event. Instead a better metaphor for church, as we have talked about at The Well a lot recently, is “family.” A family cooperating together to care together for the individual needs, all for a common goal.

- Todd Hiestand pastor of The Well (From the Provocative Church blog)

Psalm 8:2

"From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise because of your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger."

SJB at Trinity Oaks

StillWaters Jazz Band will be playing tonight at Trinity Oaks ( 728 Klumac Road Salisbury, NC 28144) at 7:00. It will probably only be a one hour show, but we are planning to pack in as many songs as possible in that hour! Hope you can come.

We are also tentatively scheduled to play for a fund raiser in China Grove on Saturday June 7 (no concrete time for this one yet) and for Farmers' Day in China Grove at Dixie's coffee house. I'll have to check on the date for that one, but it is usually the hottest day of the year... we'll be making it hotter!

Very Cool Video

Fearfully And Wonderfully Made

You can see a picture of the molecule over at Deborah's blog, Thoughts Along The Way. That's where I found the video.

Quote Of The Day

Prayers are deathless. The lips that uttered them may be closed to death, the heart that felt them may have ceased to beat, but the prayers live before God, and God’s heart is set on them and prayers outlive the lives of those who uttered them; they outlive a generation, outlive an age, outlive a world. That man is the most immortal who has done the most and the best praying. They are God heroes, God’s saints, God’s servants, God’s vicegerents. A man can pray better because of the prayers of the past; a man can live holier because of the prayers of the past; the man of many and acceptable prayers has done the truest and greatest service to the incoming generation. The prayers of God’s saints strengthen the unborn generation against the desolating waves of sin and evil.

—Edward McKendree (E. M.) Bounds

The Path Less Traveled

Found this on one of the blogs I regularly read and thought it was so appropriate. Hope it stretches you!

"Nothing (truly nothing) hurts more than to see people reject the hard road in search of an easier one. We get lazy when things are too easy - and it's far too tempting to do that. It breaks my heart when I pass by someone's house on Sunday that used to attend our church - and notice that all of their cars are still in the driveway. Who knows if they are attending at an odd service time, but it still hurts to know that they could be missing out on what God wants to do in their life. It hurts to see a family teach their children that they are more important than God - by switching churches based on a kids program and not the leading of the Holy Spirit. It kills me to hear critics complain when they themselves have not shared the Gospel (much less invited someone to church) in years.... All in all, God wants our spirit to be broken so He can fill us with His. You cannot experience true brokenness while you are working to feed your own ambitions in life.... Sacrifice, risk, and the Gospel are partners that spend a ton of time together.... and they cannot be separated! "

- Patrick Gillen @ Active Pursuit