Harvest Bible Chapel- roots

I really am so thankful for my church, its one of the primary reasons Jeff and I aren't living in Maryland today and decided to stay in West Michigan for 10 years. I was just flipping through some of Harvest church's photos, feeling grateful and thinking of a time years ago when I was actually booed out of the same space I worship in today. What caused people to boo me out of a building you ask? I stood up during a Q&A in this same building, under a completely different leadership. They'd had a political speaker come in to show us charts and graphs of different denominations and who they would vote for during the McCain/Obama election. I was a relatively new believer, maybe only a year in and just visiting this church for the first time. I was trying to find the box I'd fit into on his charts on the overhead screen and couldn't find the "Jew who followed Jesus" box. I was looking with no box to suit me, I realized something profound... that the Romans 2,000 years prior attempted to put Jesus in a box and he busted out. So during the Q&A and typical of a new believer still overflowing with Holy spirit boldness, I took my minute at the mic to explain my boxed in theory and that "John McCain couldn't save us, Barrack Obama couldn't save us. There is only one name under heaven that can save us, His name is Jesus Christ". They weren't as excited as I was about my box theory or proclamation that Jesus alone saves. The speaker abruptly yanked the mic from me and the entire congregation started hissing and booing until I left.

This building I worship in today obviously wasn't always a bible believing church. The church years ago had a leadership change, an Australian fellow who I became friends with in my Yoga class. When we first met, I thought for sure I was befriending a gay man because of the frosted highlights in his hair. That wasn't the case at all. He was married and straight and just had an affinity for frosted highlights, maybe its an Australian thing. We'd go to lunch and have these really intriguing conversations about faith...we both believed that all roads , faiths, religions led to God. He admitted he was more a Buddhist and atheist than a christian, ..."spiritual but not religious person" or SBNR as he would later coin it. I was greatly intrigued that he was pastoring an entire congregation with peril in his own beliefs. It made no sense to me. At some point in our friendship, he wanted to quit the church and go into business with me life coaching people.I thought it was a fantastic idea. Mind you, my own life wasn't working out very well, but somehow I had the blind arrogance to believe I had any business coaching others to success in their own lives. That was truly the height of my own foolishness.

Eventually I quit hanging out with this pastor after he had said a few things I was uncomfortable with as a woman, and we parted ways. He didn't see me again until I decided to visit his congregation one day and actually listen to one of his sermons.

I brought my bible with me. I sat in the front right 3rd row. I came early. The older man sitting next to me asked me about my bible, and I excitedly told him I was a born again believer. He let me know that he also used to believe the bible having grown up in this church under different leadership, but this pastor had really showed him that the stories weren't really true, it was simply just a book of made up stories. The church didn't use the bible anymore, they weren't in the pews, the pastor could pick and choose though what he wanted from them in his sermon. Then he asked me if I wanted to stone homosexuals. I told him I didn't. He seemed relieved by that at least, even though I could tell he was annoyed at the presence of my bible...in His church.

After the sermon, which I really only remember being meaningless to me and surprised to see a baby be baptized in the name of the earth, we had the political spiel and the eventual booing Jen out of the church time.

Over the next few months, I prayed over that church, I walked around the entire outer city block perimeter of that church seven times and asked God to reclaim what was His and pour His spirit back into this building and onto this community...to do something miraculous ....something I knew only He had the power to do. It was a real "C'mon and open up the floodgates Lord" prayer. I thought of the city of Jericho and its walls crumbling, I thought of what I'd read of God in the bible, how I'd witnessed Him move in peoples lives and in testimonies I'd heard over and over. Then I went home. Over the next year or so, that church took the cross down. The town was very upset about it. I personally thought it was good as I saw it as false advertising.

A small congregation that was meeting in a warehouse called International aid at the time took the cross that was removed and just held on to it, never knowing what would become of it.

Over the next year or so, the church went bankrupt...the pastor left and went back to Australia citing gun violence in America. The church sat there empty. Eventually it was proposed that this small church meeting in the warehouse of International Aid take possession of the now empty building. They didn't want it. But over time, it just kept coming back to them. They eventually got it, for $1. They completely renovated it. Took out idols, refreshed everything, carpet, chairs, paint..., covered the ground under the carpet with scripture...it was completely renewed.

It had probably been there operating under a new team of pastors at least a year before I ever decided to go check it out. The very first service I went to, a young pastor preached some straight up gospel. I distinctly remember only ONE thing he said about six years ago or so now .

"Theres no politician that can save you, There is only one name under heaven that can save us, His name is Jesus Christ."

He gave the congregants a time to line up in front of a mic and read from their bibles specific biblical scriptures that were speaking to them. Then I saw them, people with their bibles in hand, lining up , one by one...the man accusing them of wanting to stone homosexuals nowhere in sight , and they were just proclaiming what God said. It was such a confirmation of the BIG AWESOME GOD I have who hears our prayers and MOVES. Oh you with little faith, what are you missing out on on today? WHAT are you waiting for?? COME and SEE!! Ya'll are LOVED.

You're a very bad man

Years ago in a land far far away I had a neighbor on my street that I knew but wasn't really close to, nice family. My twins were a little too quirky for their kids...so my boys would yell from the street at the edge of their property to their son..."Hey want to play?!" and the kid, and it was really impressive actually, he could come up with a new excuse every single day of why he couldn't play with my boys...and he only  was like 5 years old! It happened at least 438 times before I told them to just give up, this kid was too smart for them to break through the barrier. So we weren't necessarily tight or anything with the family.

So one summer Friday afternoon, I'm out in my yard raking or something and I notice the dad and his friend gearing up for a night out...and this is weird, but I remember the thought in my head was..."I wonder/I hope he doesn't mess around on his wife"...the wife had been out of town for a few weeks with the kids on summer vacation visiting his parents in Colorado.

I ended up driving to my moms house in Detroit with my kids that same weekend. Sunday  afternoon, I receive a text from a good friend: "Hey, is so and so getting divorced?" 

 "I don't know, I don't think so. I think the moms just out of town." I replied.

My  friend continues, telling  me her sister went out with a friend over the weekend and her sisters friend went home with the dad, at night, after they were both at the same bar. The dad told her he split up with his wife. Her sister was reiterating the events to my friend who thought it wise to call me and ask me because she knew we were in the same neighborhood. She wondered, as a married mother herself, if I should tell this wife, my neighbor. I didn't want to touch it with a 300 foot pole. I hemmed and hawed over it. In the end I decided, I just didn't know them well enough and I wasn't there. Even though I trusted my good friend...it was still hearsay at that point. I ignored it and went on with my life.

A month or so later, the wife found out from another friend , a very good friend of hers trying to do the right thing. This friend of my neighbor opening up this can of worms also says to her "Jen knows about it, she was told too!" or something to that effect. Now this made sense that her own friend might tell her about it hearing the details,...that's what a good friend does...as hurtful as it would be. I'd hope my good friends would tell me if they knew something as disastrous as this. If it was a good friend of mine, I'd probably do the same.

So the neighbor wife comes over, finds me in my back yard doing yard work  and asks me what I know. Yes, I am ALWAYS doing yard work, I should have bought a condo...I have no business buying houses with yards as big as they are, I grew up in Detroit with tiny yards and in apartments...oh wait I'm getting off topic here. 

So my poor  neighbor, with tears in her eyes, and in complete grief and  shock, asks me if I heard about this. I couldn't lie, I felt trapped. I told her only what I'd heard....what would you have done? But I explain to my neighbor that I didn't see it, I wasn't home that weekend, I don't know the person who allegedly went home with him. I don't mention the fleeting thought I had about her husband just a few days prior to this alleged event. I personally wasn't home that weekend and saw nothing. "Is your friend a liar"? she asks. " NO, she's not a liar, she's someone I trust greatly" …but that's just me.

She asked for my friends phone number which I gave her. So now she's calling my friend questioning her and my friends texting and calling me trying to fill me in. I'm at home just feeling TERRIBLE for my neighbor thinking of the probability that this is true. This goes on for at least 24 hours. My friend calls me, and exclaims "she's really hurting Jen, I think she needs a friend, you should go over there". Against all human instinct, because my heart strings are being tugged on, I go over and knock on her door. We're literally talking for like three  minutes on her porch before her husband shows up with all his young kids in tow and starts spewing profanities at me to get off his property. I'm OUT of there.

At the end of the day, she didn't believe it and accused my friend and the gals for making up the entire story. The most convincing evidence was that the woman who went home with him described in perfect detail to her a tattoo her husband had on his abdomen. But she still denied it happened and accused everyone else of lying, including me. I felt terrible, this is why I hate being involved in stuff like this and tried to stay completely out of it. Situations like this are  messy.

I feel like I get twisted up into these types of things way too much...maybe not this exact scenario. I'm a bit of a forthright person and I'm human myself, and I never know if I'm handling any situation the correct way.

My husband loves Seinfeld and swears I'm the combination of the shows creator, Larry David , (more recently know for Curb your Enthusiasm) and Elaine. I wonder sometimes if you went though my life and interviewed all the people in my wake, it might look like this video clip. I'm okay with it, I please an audience of One, God knows my heart, my confessions, my apologies, my failures, my strengths and weaknesses. But I do wonder, in the court of public opinion, if you could find a handful of people with these exact same sentiments towards me.


Copy and paste the short clip for a view:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VN29X2HCKpU