Is it enough?

Generally, I like to have blog posts written in my head before I decide to share them with the world. This time, however, we're dealing with more of a jumble. At the suggestion of my dear friend, Alice, I've done a "brain dump" on paper, but it led to more and more questions.

So now...I'm bringing it all to you, dear internet. Make of it what you will. If you have answers, I'd love to hear them.

A couple months ago, I was driving along a nearby stretch of road. I've driven this road many times before and often marveled at the amount of churches that could lie along one roadway...it seems almost every Christian denomination imaginable is represented on this ONE street. There's even a Christian bookstore!

On this day, though, instead of just noticing the amount of churches, I had another thought: why isn't our city different? How can there be this many churches on one road, not even one block between them, representing only a fraction of the churches in the area...and our city not be on fire for God? The "Bible Belt?" The nation?

Then, last Saturday, Josiah and I went to worship at Freedom Life Church (FLC) in Hampton because he had to work on Sunday. We caught the second of a 4-part sermon series called "I Love My City."

I love the book of Nehemiah. Josiah and I were talking about it just the other day. Nevertheless, it was a different passage of scripture Pastor Cyon brought to my attention that totally rocked my world. It's Isaiah 58. Here it is almost in its entirety.

See if you can read it without it rocking YOUR world, too.

"Shout with the voice of a trumpet blast.

Shout aloud! Don't be timid.

Tell my people Israel of their sins!

Yet they act so pious!

They come to the Temple every day

and seem delighted to learn all about me.

They act like a righteous nation

that would never abandon the laws of its God.

They ask me to take action on their behalf,

pretending they want to be near me.

'We have fasted before you!' they say.

'Why aren't you impressed?

We have been very hard on ourselves,

and you don't even notice it!'

"I will tell you why!" I respond.

"It is because you are fasting to please yourselves.

Even while you fast,

you keep oppressing your workers.

What good is fasting when you keep on fighting and quarreling?

This kind of fasting will never get you anywhere with me.

You humble yourselves by going through the motions of penance,

bowing your heads like reeds bending in the wind.

You dress in burlap and cover yourselves with ashes.

Is this what you call fasting?

Do you really think this will please the Lord?

"No, this is the kind of fasting I want:

Free those who are wrongly imprisoned;

lighten the burden of those who work for you.

Let the oppressed go free,

and remove the chains that bind people.

Share your food with the hungry,

and give shelter to the homeless.

Give clothes to those who need them,

and do not hide from relatives that need your help.

"Then your salvation will come like the dawn,

and your wounds will quickly heal.

Your godliness will lead you forward,

and the glory of the Lord will protect you from behind.

Then when you call, the Lord will answer.

'Yes, I am here,' he will quickly reply.

"Remove the heavy yoke of oppression.

Stop pointing your finger and spreading vicious rumors!

Feed the hungry,

and help those in trouble.

Then your light will shine out from the darkness,

and the darkness around you will be bright as noon.

The Lord will guide you continually,

giving you water when you are dry

and restoring your strength.

You will be like a well-watered garden,

like an ever-flowing spring.

Some of you will be known as a rebuilder of walls

and a restorer of homes.

Isaiah 58:1-12, HCSB

Church...people of God...'Merica...did you hear that?

Did you FEEL that?

God says he sees us coming to church, entering and serving every time the doors are open, offering ourselves up as a sacrifice, showing him how much WE do, but our hearts are prideful and our offerings are rejected.

We act like pious, godly people, but we're still fighting and quarreling and name calling on the internet.

OUCH, right?

He wants us outside the walls. 

He wants us ministering to the lost and lonely.

He wants us feeding the hungry and sheltering the homeless.

He wants us to free the oppressed from their bondage.

He wants our hearts, not our paltry sacrifice.

Then, He will hear us.

Then, He will heal us.

Then, He will guide us.

Then, He will shower us with streams of living water.

Then, He will make us rebuilders of walls and restorer of homes.

God is speaking to us Newport News, Hampton, Hampton Roads, United States...church.

He wants our hearts to reflect His, and His heart is broken for the lost...is yours? Is mine?

Here's where I get more personal, though. I have a lot of questions that have been building for quite some time. 

It's been months since I've written...and longer than that since I've written much of consequence, with fire and passion. A couple years ago I wrote a series on passion, vision, mission, and goals. What has happened to mine? And is my writing "ministry" even enough?

I love reaching out to people and seeing their lives changed through my business, but it's not really reaching the lost and feeding the hungry is it? I supposed you could call it "freeing the oppressed from the bondage" of their own fatigue and constraints, but is it really enough?

We're volunteering with the FamilyLife Weekend to Remember team in Williamsburg. That ministers to the lost and broken, but once again, it's not sheltering the homeless or clothing the impoverished. It doesn't feel like enough. Is it enough?

Futhermore (and this is truly my core concern, I think), how many passions and missions can one person really have and still be effective? 

Can I minister to my family AND marriages AND write AND help people with my business AND sing eventually (because, honestly, that's been on my heart a lot lately, too)?

Can one person do all those things and really do any of them well...with 6 children? Is that a thing?

I know some would say that my main ministry right now is fulfilling my roles as wife and mother. They're not wrong. Biblically, I know how the priority list is supposed to work: God, husband, children, etc.

But that's not enough either, right? I mean, if everyone only concentrates on what's going on in their own homes and families, then nothing is getting done outside. Wouldn't that give half the body of Christ a "free pass" not to do much of anything in the world?

I want to feel a passion and a purpose again, but instead I feel a little torn and twisted. I want God to light a fire in my soul, but I'm almost scared because...really? One more thing?

And, finally, at what point does all this business on my part turn into me looking at God and going "See? Look at everything I'm doing! Look at all MY WORKS."

Faith without works is dead (James 2:17), but it would seem works without a passion for the heart of God are useless.

There's a fine line somewhere...I'm just looking for that line.

So, dear, wonderful friends who have gotten this far: what's the answer? How do you find the balance? Was your heart moved by the passage in Isaiah as much as mine was?

I want desperately to hear from you. This is one situation where I just don't feel like I have the answers: a missing page in the blueprints of my "Life Under Construction."

I'm praying hard for answers, and I'm praying for YOUR hearts, too! 

Corinthians 3 Thursday: Mission IS Possible

I'm about to be blatantly honest here. Are you ready?

I'm getting tired of writing these Corinthians 3 Thursday posts.

There, I said it.

They're not really fun posts for me to write. There's not even some big revelation about myself or "lesson learned" moment.

We're just plodding along through the coaching process, trying to plan out where we want to go.

And that's precisely why this is important. If I hadn't committed to writing these posts each Thursday, then I probably wouldn't be going through the process at all.

It actually took me a bit to come by that little tidbit of divine revelation. I was thinking to myself yesterday, "I don't even want to write that stupid post. No one reads them or really participates anyway. With The Art of Marriage conference coming up this weekend, I have a lot of other stuff I could be doing. I don't really have the time to waste."

AHA...there's the kicker. I prayed and prayed and prayed about these posts, and while I have to say the public response has been...um...underwhelming, this blog ISN'T Seeking the Symphony yet. It isn't the ministry's blog yet. It's still Alissa's Life Under Construction, and what that means is that He's still working on me. (Obviously, He'll still be working on me after the transition as well, but that won't really be the total point of the blog.)

I need to go through this process because I need to go through it. If not one other person reads this or follows the steps, having a dedicated day to pursue this journey holds me accountable and keeps me on task.

However, if you ARE reading this, then maybe God wants you to take some time to do some assessment, too. Just sayin'....

Now, for the meat of today's post: what is my mission?

Last week we talked about God's vision for our lives. As a refresher, mine was "I want to share God-given words that will change people’s hearts, draw them closer to Him, and give Him glory!"

To know your mission, you must have a vision because the mission is simply how to get there. In other words, the vision is the destination, and the mission is the road map.

There is a chapter in Christian Coaching, by Gary Collins, on "Moving with a Mission," but I'm going to veer a little from that because...um...I don't like the way he wrote it. 

Haha...look at that...Alissa questioning the expert.

Here's the deal, it's a FANTASTIC book, and I highly recommend it, but this one section didn't really do it for me. It was about writing a Mission Statement, and while that's all well and good, it came out really close to the vision statement, and therefore, is kind of redundant.

So, here's what I say...take your vision, and then figure out specifically, using action words, what you need to do to get there.

Make sure you pray first. Always pray first...hard.

Note: these are not goals. Think of the mission statement as an intermediary between your vision and your goals. Does that make sense?I hope so because I don't really know how else to put it. 

Let's take a look at mine so you can see what I mean.

In my vision statement I talk about sharing God-words, but what does that look like practically? What do I need to do to share those words? This is what I've come up with:

I will share the words God puts on my heart by dedicating myself to regularly posting on my blog, becoming a published author, and speaking to groups of people at events or seminars.

Now, please notice, those are not goals. We'll talk about goal-setting next week, but as a preview, goals detail steps that are specific and have a time frame assigned to them. For example, I might set a goal of writing blog posts at least three times per week. But as I said, we'll talk more about that next week.

So, what does your mission look like? Where is God taking you on your journey?

I'll leave you today with some words by Laurie Beth Jones from Jesus, Life Coach (but I'm reading them in Christian Coaching):

People with clearly defined missions have always led those who haven't any. You are either living your mission, or you are living someone else's.

Man...how powerful is that?

It's your turn! Please comment or link below! And feel free to grab my button on the right, too!