I apologize for stepping into this unprepared, I did ramble on in my post without enough prayer prior. I do feel compelled to right something then move on. Hope it helps.
The reason the Church is set up the way it is set up is to prevent heresy. The checks and balances have worked unbelievably well for 2000 years. No Government anywhere can claim the same. When a new sect shoots up challenging Orthodox Christian belief we have the reliability of the Catholic Church to counter their false claims. Why do other sects keep popping up? Why do other Christian sects mis-read the scriptures? Place their own meaning into them? Its about power, they want what the Catholic Church has, but they want it as their own. (The Fall of Mankind) There is power in opening another church. In order to open another Church one has to set itself apart from the original, the authentic. . They corner themselves into telling souls why they are better. They will say and do, even lie to make themselves stand apart from the truth in order to attain or to keep this power. The core of the Catholic Church is human powerless, we are powerless. We have no one to point to saying we are better, we are more righteous etc…. We are who we are in God
After we are transformed, we can look back and see that we were guided through this process by Another who is choosing us, desiring us, and is infinitely wise and compassionate. That means you do not have to figure out all the patterns ahead of time. You do not have to be that smart, that good. You just have to surrender. Good spirituality is not about being good. It is about God being good. When you keep your eyes on the reality of God’s goodness, then God rubs off into you. You start being good almost in spite of yourself, but you do not even care about it anymore. You are not checking whether you are better than the next person. You have got something so much more wonderful to be excited about.
Richard Rohr
When we evangelize we don’t have to be on top of another faith, a bit better than another faith, a better breed of people, a nicer friendlier people. Plain and simple we are just a bunch of fallen people who surround ourselves around Jesus, He makes us better. All we need do is speak of our sin and how Jesus has transformed are lives. Because in the end all we have is Him. We do not have to change the world into believing as we do. All we are asked to do is love others,….simple. When I learned this faith I wanted to run out and tell everyone about it. What I have learned is that most people don’t want to hear about it. But then one person asks a sincere question out of the blue…remember this….we have the sincere answers. It’s amazing!
They listen and it all makes sense. Here in Northern Utah the Church is growing, souls are asking, lives are being changed. What they are hungering for most is a personal relationship with Jesus. They realize for the first time that He is always with them, not when they do something right or achieve a certain level of success. That they are loved right now, just the way they are right now. In that the Holy Spirit moves them towards a deeper, spiritual awakening. The Church understands that this is a matter of development, it takes precious time to fall in Love with God, after that nothing else really matters, a new life begins and we are all converted a bit more because of it, because we are all connected to Him together. (Trinity)
www.utahmission.com
