Restoring Rapport

In this post, I'm going to explain the difference between "expectancy" and "expectation." One exists within healthy relationship, and the other kills healthy relationship. "Expectancy" is the good one. It's the natural result of good relationship. Think about how you look forward to seeing your friends and visiting with them simply because they're your friends. There's a joyful "expectancy" and excitement that exists within the friendship. It's like a kind of happy anticipation. "Expectation" on the other hand, is something that kills good relationship. "Expectation" is when you begin placing standards on other people and expecting them to meet your requirements. And while that may sound very easy to identify and avoid, expectations have a way of slipping into our relationships without us realizing. We often don't realize we've put a standard over someone until they fail to meet that standard. Let m...

You've all heard it. Most of you have said it. "Church isn't a building." We think we understand in our minds that the Church is the Body of Jesus and not a building. We say the temple of the Holy Spirit is us and not the building we meet in. We say Church is an action and not a location. Yet despite all this, sometimes we still fall into the trap of thinking a building is the Church. Don't believe me? Let me ask you some questions. How many of you have heard people shout to children who were running in a church building: "NO RUNNING. Don't you know this is God's house?" WRONG. A church building is not God's house there's nothing more sacred about your steeple-crowned building than the meth lab across the street. We say we understand that "Church" is God's people and not a building or a business. But our actions speak differently. Still don't believe me? Let me ask you some more questions. How many of you think tha...

Oh boy. This is one of the single hardest yet most important things we can learn and practice. You practice it with your children, you practice it with your spouse, you practice it with people you interact with, and even people you work with. Correction and confrontation are unavoidable and important in life, and therefore, being able to correct and confront in the right way is a skill we all benefit from. It's something that's absolutely vital in any relationship. Without correction, we can harm our connection with each other, and without confrontation, we might not know what we were doing that is harmful. When correcting and confronting, it is absolutely critical that we keep the end goal in mind. It is crucial that we know what "correction" and "confrontation" are supposed to be, and what they are not supposed to be. The purpose of correction and confrontation should ALWAYS be to make the connection between people better and stronger. The goal of genuine...

What exactly is worship? That's a question that's been quite hard for me to understand for several years. In this post, as always, I definitely don't claim to have a perfect grasp of what I'm discussing. Worship is something that I've been trying to understand for a while, and I still have a lot of holes in my understanding of it. So take everything I say with an understanding of that. I believe one reason that it's hard for me to mentally understand worship is that it's hard to understand with the head. It's really more of a heart action I think. Choosing to express thankfulness, communion, and love for God and especially with Him. Worship isn't JUST a feeling that you get when you're worshipping your Creator either. Like so many other things in life, it's a choice to worship your Creator that then causes the feeling. The feeling is the reward of the choice. I'm not saying that we should make the choice to worship God JUST to get the f...

If you're an unmarried individual, have you ever wondered if it is healthier to get married when you're younger or when you're older? And if you're a married individual, have you ever wondered what it would have been like to get married younger or older than you did? Those questions seem pretty simple on the surface, but when you start to think about it, it really becomes more complex than you imagined before you started turning the gears of your mind. Haha. Let me further explain those questions by defining what I mean by "younger" and "older." I think of getting married "younger" as getting married when you're 18 (or younger) to 21 years old. I think of getting married "older" as getting married when you're about 25 to 30 (or older.) The range of 22 to 24 is what I consider to be about the "normal" age that people get married. My views on a lot of subjects are kind of heretical, and this issue is no exception...

In this post I'm going to come against a thought that I've struggled with a lot. If you've ever felt like your giftings and desires don't really count as "ministry", then I hope this helps you. Sometimes, I've felt like I'm not ministering to God's children simply because none of the traditional ideas of "ministry" resonate with my heart. I believe there is this thought in the christian community that suggests that only certain activities count as ministry. If you're passions align with those activities, congratulations! Everyone considers you to be doing God's work! If you sing for church, preach, teach Sunday school, feed the hungry, minister to drug addicts, run a VBS, or go overseas on a missions trip, you're doing what everyone thinks of as "ministry." And if you're passions don't fit into any of those categories, then you better pick one anyway, because that's what ministry is! Right?.........Well I...

Something I've noticed, about the Christian community in particular, is that we've dubbed certain subjects "holy" and other subjects "unholy." It's like we think it's our job to decide what's good and what's evil. (Haha.) And what makes it really interesting is the fact that, everybody decides different things are "holy" and "unholy." One follower of Jesus says that playing cards is of the devil, the other says it's fine. One christian says raffle tickets are gambling, another says they're supporting a cause, even if they don't win the boat. And I understand that everyone should have their own opinion and decide what is wise for them. I'm totally for that! I think it's absolutely imperative that we, as followers of Jesus, work through what we believe about certain things and decide what is wise for us. My problem is when we start saying that the thing itself (whatever "the thing" may be) is ev...

In this post, I'm going to point out a way of thinking that I believe has slipped into the mind of humanity. It's this idea that the "mind" should trump the "heart" (or vice-versa) in any decision making process. Some people believe emotion is better than intellect, others believe intellect is better. I believe both of those ideas are completely false. I don't believe the head is better than the heart, OR that the heart is better than the head. I would like to submit to you the idea that both emotion and intellect are equally important, and that both play vital roles in making you function as the human you were made to be. Emotion isn't better than logic, and logic isn't better than emotion. Without one or the other, we would be half the people we are designed to be. As always, feel free to verbalize your agreement or disagreement in an open way. The Head/Intellect/Mind: As I said just now, there is nothing wrong with the head. It's an am...

In this post, as always, no pressure to agree with what I say. It might help you and clarify a lot and it might not. I hope it's at least thought-provoking for you. If you are for "Dating", or for "Courting", or against them both, I encourage you to think hard and listen to the voice of the Spirit regarding this subject. In this post, I'm simply going to explain what I believe "Dating" and "Courting" are, and list some problems that I have with the former. Ideology #1: Dating When I hear the word "Dating", here's what comes to my mind. A boy or girl (often quite young) has a "crush" on somebody, so they "ask that person out." They go to see a movie or out to eat or something. Sometimes they are middle-schoolers who don't even have enough money and can't drive, so they just say they're "dating" without actually going out on a date. (Haha.) Other times, even when it comes to hi...

In this post, as always, I'm just going to give my experience and opinion. My experience is not necessarily truth, and I'm sure many people have had a much different experience with "altar calls" than I have. However, I am also just as certain that many other people have had my same experience (or at least a similar one) with "altar calls," so I'm really writing to them as my primary audience. Feel free to ignore this post if you don't fit in that audience. The term "Altar Call" really first began to gain popularity in 1830s. So it's a fairly recent invention. But it's become an irremovable tradition in many church institutions today. It's been known by many different names. In his anti-revivalist tract (1843), theologian John Williamson Nevin called it the "anxious bench." It's also been known to some as "hitting the sawdust trail." Charles Finney is credited with inventing "the anxious seat,"...

Honest, open, considerate communication is one of the most important skills that we, as Children of God, need to practice. Jesus models it perfectly for us. We have a totally open channel with the Godhead that never gets shut off. There's never a time God won't receive your broadcast, because He knows that good communication = good connection, and good connection with his children is always at the center of His heart. If you've ever heard of Danny Silk (he's one of my favorite authors and speakers of all time), then you've heard of "Maintaining the Connection" and "Making Relationship the Priority." Relationship MUST be a priority for us because it's one of reasons we were created. We were designed to be in relationship with God and others. And that's why communication is so important! Because without communication, connection dies; without connection, relationship dies; and without relationship, we're missing the very thing we were c...

Now, I AM NOT trying to degrade youth groups in this article. In this post, I'm just going to give you my opinion and the reasons why the "youth group" never worked for me personally. I am sure that youth groups work very well for some people and teach them a lot. I'm not slamming the idea of youth groups in a malicious way or anything like that. Some of my very best friends were youth ministers! I have no ill will against people who are positively affected by them. I'm just going to give my experience and explain WHY it didn't work for me. Youth groups are probably great for some people, and not so great for other kinds of people. It really all depends on the person. I should also point out that all youth groups are probably different. But I believe most of them have several things in common. Here are the main reasons that "Youth Groups" were not a good fit for me. So if you're a parent, your child might be different or similar. The idea that...

This is a subject that I'm quite passionate about. In this post, I'm not really going to take any certain stance regarding eschatology or say what I believe is correct and true. I'm simply going to focus on HOW it is portrayed to our children and the harm that it can and does cause. And you might be thinking, "Why Seth, you're not even a parent yet! How can you know how it is portrayed to our children?" And you've got a point. I haven't been a parent. But I have been a child. So I will speak mostly from the child's viewpoint. I'll just go ahead and say it plainly and then give my reasons. Teaching, focusing, and fixating on "End Times" teaching can be downright harmful, detrimental, and (I believe) even torture and abuse. Especially when it comes to children's soft, mold-able, sensitive minds. (Although it can affect adults very negatively too.) Here are the reasons to back up my claim. This is how "End Times" teaching ...

If you've ever wondered what God's "Plan" for your life is, or what that means exactly, the truth is you're probably already doing it. Because while it might seem hard to find sometimes, really, it's all too simple. What do you enjoy doing? What are you passionate about? Those desires were put in your DNA for a reason. I think a lot of people (at least I do) get all to stressed out about what they should do, when really, there is no ONE answer. I don't believe you have a single "destiny" in the sense that you have one purpose that you must achieve in your life, and if you miss it, your life was a waste. I believe God gives us 100 different "destinies" and then lets us choose which one we want.  Now, I know MANY different authors and speakers have discussed this issue, but I just wanted to talk about it a little bit because it is quite important for us to know. Especially when you're my age and you're having to make a lot of deci...

This is a topic that I've thought a lot about for a while. It probably first popped into my head around 4 or 5 years ago, and it's not really ever gone away. Mostly because it's an issue that has had great relevance in the last decade of my life. The subject I'm referring to is what I like to call "Segregation of the Sexes." It pretty much means: "Girls, you go over here and interact with each other in a little bubble. And guys you do the same." When I was younger (probably 14 or 15 or somewhere in there) I began to notice something. I had grown up my whole life playing with boys AND girls, and as my friends and I grew older, we started to hang around our same gender more than our opposite gender. Now, YES, I know there are reasons for that and I understand that relationships between opposite genders does change and perhaps become more awkward as children grow older and mature into young adults. But if I'm being honest, I think we are using that ...

A little bit ago, my dear Mother told me that I should start a blog. I have lots of ideas (some of them a little bizarre) and I do enjoy sharing them with my intimates, so I thought it would be a good idea. But first off, I want to say that if you read what I write in this blog, try to understand the heart of what I'm trying to say. Don't listen to my words, because sometimes they will be inaccurate. Listen to what I'm trying to COMMUNICATE with my words. I will probably also say a good deal in this blog that you do not agree with. Haha. So, just eat the grapes and spit out the seeds. Absorb what you think is good and wise, and ignore what you believe is incorrect. I'm only 19 after all, and I don't know everything. I just want to share my opinions and ideas and thoughts and ponderings regarding several subjects. I'm also pretty plain and I don't really mince my words and I just sort of say things as they are sometimes. So if reading my writings and opinions...