Hey girls! Tiffany Dawn here and welcome back to Tuesday Girl Talk!
And I'm here in Lake George, New York - so it's this beautiful lake in upstate New
York and my husband has a work conference here so I'm hanging out in the
hotel room and then I'm going to go edit some videos and write some blogs
down by the lake. So I'm very excited for this little retreat - work retreat for me.
So today I want to talk about church. There's seven places that's really easy
for our hearts to go when we're in church that I think are actually very
dangerous places for our hearts to go. I've personally experienced every single
one of these seven things in my own life. I've struggled with all of them and
so I hope they can encourage you. And please comment your thoughts below as
you listen to these seven things I would love to hear: What do you think about
these things? Have you seen any of them in your heart? Is there anything you'd
add to this list? Like I want to hear your thoughts. And as always feel free to
give this video a thumbs up if you liked it and hit subscribe to see more videos
like this. So check it out!
So issue number one is an individualistic approach to church. We
really value individualism, like being your own person, not needing anybody else,
and so I think there's this emphasis in the church, like "It's just me and God."
Like I don't need anybody else; I got this; it's just me and God; we're good. And
there is a really important element to our faith of that you and God time, like
that time together is so important. But our Christian faith was always talked
about and practiced throughout history and in Scripture in the context of
community. It was actually never meant to be just you and God; it was always meant
to be you and God but then these other people in your life too.
And that takes a lot of humility. So it's really easy in a church to kind of pull
back and be like, "I don't need you people, like this is too messy," because community
is messy and some some people in church are really like messed up, like me! Because
God comes, Jesus said, "I came for the sick and I came for the hurting." Like
there's a lot of broken people in churches and it's easy to want to be
like, "Well I don't want this community, mmm no." And I do that all the time. I even
realized I kind of do that with my church right now, like like, "Well I don't
need you people, like I've got my friends like I've got my family, like I'm good.
I'm gonna just like build a little wall. Like I'll come to church but I don't want
to really get involved with your life because that's like too messy." And I'm
realizing that that is the wrong way to approach church, and yet it's what I do
all the time. And so I think when we approach church in the individualistic
perspective of it's me and God and I'm just here on Sunday; stay out of my life during
the week -- that robs us of some of the riches of what church life is meant to
be about. But those riches are only found through the messiness of community with
other broken people. Which brings me to number two, which is unforgiveness or
bitterness. And I think it's really easy to get bitter and unforgiving in church.
I know it's happened to me so many times where I'm just so angry at the church or
at certain people in it. And my mom likes to say that it's because hurting people
hurt people. And so it's true: The church is full of opportunities for
unforgiveness. It's full of places where you're hurt, or somebody says something
or does something and you feel ignored or neglected or whatever. And it's so
important to practice forgiveness and just extending that love of God and
being like, "I'm gonna let this go; I'm going to give this to God." And I think in order
for this to make the most sense I would encourage you to watch my video about
how to forgive, because forgiveness is not about putting yourself in harm's way
again and again, or like trusting people who aren't worthy of your trust.
Forgiveness is simply giving it to God and saying, "Lord I let this go." And number
three is group think. It's very easy to be individualistic but it's also very
easy to fall into this group think, where everybody believes a certain way or the
pastor preached it this way, and so it must be true - and starting to base your
life off of what everybody else is doing. And that's also a very dangerous place
to be. Like you should always be thinking for yourself and searching out the Bible
to see if what has been taught in your church is actually true. And you should
surround yourself with people who do the same thing, like finds and close friends
and mentors who also are thinking for themselves and searching out the Bible
to see if these things are true, and not just going with what everybody else is
doing. Number four is where I want to spend a
little more time, and it is celebrity seeking. And this goes in two directions.
So the first one is when we are the ones seeking some kind of celebrity status.
We're we're the ones seeking to be seen. I'll give you an example from my own
life. I remember being at a church and leading a song in worship. And I'd led
worship before at other churches, but this was a church I hadn't led at before.
It was one of their campuses and it was a larger church, and I remember just
leading out and feeling like, "Yeah!" - affirmed like, I'm good enough, I can be a
leader. And I remember getting in my car afterwards and feeling like God just
said, spoke to my heart, like, "Tiffany tonight was all about you. It wasn't
about Me." And I felt like He was asking me to not lead a song the next morning.
And I knew there's someone else who could do it; it wouldn't put anybody else
out, but I didn't want to give it up because I wanted to be seen. And what God
has been teaching me over the past few years is if I'm looking to be
seen by other people and to gain their approval, there will always be this part
of me that's never satisfied. It will never be enough. The only place that I
can find satisfaction is in knowing that He sees me; looking to an audience of one
in a sense, instead of wanting to be seen by everybody else. So that's the one side
of celebrity seeking. The other side is where we go to church to see a celebrity.
And it's almost like we worship the pastor or the worship leader, and not
even realizing we do it, but it's like we put them on this pedestal. We think
they're just so awesome, and if they invite us to hang out with them and their
friends it's like we're so cool. And we're always like name-dropping and like
I was at so-and-so's house this week and I was at so-and-so's house, and it's like
another sense of we want to be seen but we want to be seen through the people
were seen with. And that's celebrity seeking. It's not meant to be a celebrity! Like
Jesus is our celebrity, you know what I mean? Like we all have our role in
the church, but it's all for one head of the church which is Jesus. And so when we
start to make people into celebrities and have the celebrity mentality in our
churches, that's a very unhealthy place to be, because we start worshipping
people instead of worshipping our God. Which brings us to number five, which is
setting healthy boundaries. So our generation is really looking for
affirmation. A lot of us don't have good parents or good fathers and we're
looking for someone who can be that father or that mother figure - someone who
can approve of us and affirm us, and a lot of times we can find that in the church,
which is really awesome! But sometimes we are looking for it so much that we don't
set any boundaries in our own lives. So I've seen it happen in different
churches where they're always looking for volunteers - like there's so much to
be done and there's never enough people and so if somebody is willing to just give
and give and give, they will let you just a give and give and give. A lot of places
don't think to encourage you, "Are you actually okay in your life? Like you need
to set some boundaries!" And I've seen people whose marriages have started
falling apart because they sold their soul to the church and they didn't set
any healthy boundaries, to say, "No like I need to put my marriage first before all
this volunteer work at church," you know? I need to put my relationship with God
first. And serving in church is such a good thing.
I think there's also the extreme of never serving and never helping in any
way that also isn't healthy. But when we are just always there, like we have to
put other things first sometimes, like your walk with God, your marriage, your
family - like those things come before volunteering in church. And the
other thing is sometimes we get so caught up in just volunteering at church
that we're not even out meeting people who don't know the Lord, you know? Like
we're supposed to be showing God's love to people who don't know God, but if
you're just volunteering in church every night of the week, like when are you
gonna do that? Okay so here's the next one. Is this number five or number six?
Number six, don't expect perfection. Beth Moore once said that if a church was
perfect, then as soon as she walked in it would no longer be perfect. And I love
that because it's so true. All of us are broken, all of us are flawed, none of us
are perfect. And we are all part of the church together, so no church is going to
be perfect. Now I'm not saying that you need to go to a church that you just
like hate being there, you know? Or like if music is a big thing for you, I'm not
saying you have to go to church where the music is from the 80s, you know what
I mean? But like it's important to realize that no church will be perfect
and we ourselves are not perfect so we're part of the imperfections of our
church community. And the very last thing I want to share with you is cynicism. And
this is something I've seen a lot in my own heart. And basically cynicism is just
believing that everybody's out there for the good of them themselves, and not
trusting that any of them actually mean what they say. And the irony is that I'm
also that way. Like I also am self-serving in so many ways, and yet I
just look at other people and think that they're all out for themselves. And so
it's easy for me to be cynical about the church, and to just think like it's just
there to like make people into little clones and be celebrities and blah blah,
right? What I've been learning is that God is not cynical. Like we're cynical
because we have some of the information but we don't have God's huge perspective.
God, I really believe God is not cynical. Like you see how patient He is with us,
how long-suffering. I was in this worship service one time and I remember feeling
like it was just such a show. Like I was like, "Oh my goodness, like do these people
even like care about worshipping Jesus or is this just a
show to be seen," you know? And part of that was my own cynicism - a lot of that
was my own cynicism. And I felt like God just put in my heart like, "They're not
perfect, but I work through them anyway. They're
not perfect, but I'm glorified in it anyway." Just in the way that I'm not
perfect, but He's glorified in me anyway. And He's way bigger than that. Like all
our shortcomings, all our failings, like they don't limit God, you know what I
mean? Like He's limitless; He's huge! And so just because things aren't perfect
doesn't mean that God can't work in it. So friends thank you so much for being
here with me today and I hope that these things can really encourage you. I know I
personally have struggled with every single one of these seven things, and I
think they're easy to struggle with. And so if you're struggling with them, I
encourage you to bring them to God. Start talking with Him about them. Start
talking with one of your mentors or your close friends about them. See how you can
kind of work through it. And it does take time and we're not perfect and that's
okay; God is still working in our lives. So have an amazing day and I look forward
to seeing you again on Friday. Bye!
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