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Thursday, July 19, 2012

Building Intimacy with God

Originally posted on www.crosswalkchurch.com

Ever have those moments of stagnancy in a relationship?  They are the moments which seem like the relationship is not what it could be, or used to be.  You become guarded and seek a comfortable position and the intimacy just isn’t there.  I can have those moments in my relationship with God and it is a challenge to get it back.
 A while back I was really struggling in my relationship with God.  I wasn’t out breaking the law or doing anything bad per se, it was just a lack of intimacy in my relationship.  I was in a stagnant place and could not figure out how to get closer.  One of the passages I came across in my daily reading was the Parable of the Sower in Matthew 13:1-23.  Part of what makes a parable so powerful is that the listeners know they are represented in the story. 
I had heard this parable hundreds of times since childhood so it did not feel like a particularly interesting read.  This time however, instead of just reading it, I imagined myself as a part of the audience actually looking at Jesus and listening to Him.  Which soil would I relate to when hearing the story?  When looking Jesus in the eyes?  And those eyes, looking at me: I know he would not look upon me with conviction or to provoke guilt, but in knowing the truth and forcing me to be honest with myself. 
 Examining my life can be tough sometimes because I don’t always want to be honest with myself.  If I had not imagined myself looking into the eyes of Jesus I probably would have said I was the good soil because it is who I wanted to be.  But being honest with myself, which of the soils was I?  I was stuck in the weeds.  My life was centered on long hours at a stressful job and paying the bills so we could own a house.  Those were my weeds.  This wasn’t a case of desiring the biggest car or the newest gadget; it was simply an intense focus on “this job is stressing me out, how can we change?”  I was more focused on how to get away from my job than how to strengthen my relationship with God.  This was my challenge. 
 Once again I thought about being in that crowd, listening to Jesus speak.  Emotionally, how would people in the audience have felt knowing their relationship with Christ was not reflected in good soil?  How would Christ have felt about those people as He looked upon them? 
 Here comes the disclaimer: I am in no way saying anyone out there is a soil which does not produce fruit.  In fact, the parable itself is not even the point of my story.  The point is that your relationship with Jesus is not going to be everything it can be unless you are challenged sometimes: challenged to be more authentic, more vulnerable, and more truthful to both Jesus and yourself.  To have an intimate relationship with Jesus, you have to go deeper and deeper.  Think about the best moments you have had in relationship with your parents, your spouse, your best friend.  Were those moments when you were simply engaged in small talk?  Or were they moments when you had those deep, intimate conversations?  I bet they were the deep conversations where you felt like the other person really understood you.  It is a wonderful thing that you can have intimacy with God as well.  How do we grow intimacy in our relationship with Christ?  In service with brothers and sisters, in worship and fellowship, in prayer and in reading Scripture – God reveals himself to us in action.  It is our choice of whether or not to be truthful and vulnerable to Him.  It is our choice to be intimate with God, to take action and seek a relationship with him or to be one of those other soils in which the seed dies.
I pray we all grow through this challenge.
Mark Juanes
Pastor of Administration

Thursday, July 5, 2012

Transformed Through This Church

Big life changes - we have moved back to Northern California and I have a job at a church now. One of the things I do in my new job is to post on the church blog - so I have less of a need (and time) to post on this blog as well. So I will be copying the posts over from the church website - mainly so I can keep a record of my own writings and thoughts and see how they evolve over time. This was originally posted on www.crosswalkchurch.com

God first brought me to Crosswalk back in 1999.  I was a quiet young man who was bad at holding a conversation and angry at a world which didn't seem to accept me.  Worse, I had no purpose in life.  But I was also aware of those traits, and acknowledged them as barriers to a fulfilled life so I wanted to change.  Religion seemed to be the best way to affect change.  I was interested in Christianity (though not yet a Christian) and had been church shopping for a bit.  I visited a few other churches but was generally unimpressed by what I had found.  When I visited Crosswalk there was one thing which set it apart for me: the people.  A quick scan of the crowd revealed a diversity I hadn't seen at other churches.  People from different races and age groups accepted each other and actually spent time together (which seemed like a rarity at the time.)  I also noticed as I watched people interact, that they actually wanted to be there.  I was brought up in a church which felt like people were there out of obligation rather than choice (it was a Catholic church).  Crosswalk was a group of people who wanted to be with God and with each other - they were engaged.  By the end of the first service I was hooked, this was not just a church, this was a community.  A community of people with a genuine heart for God and each other where people were connected.
I spent about seven years as a member of Crosswalk and went through a lot of life changes and growth during that time.  I received Christ into my heart and did the other things people do when they connect with a church community: serve on a ministry team or two, attend church events, go on a missions trip, and join a small group.  I made a lot of close friends, I even met my wife at Crosswalk. I connected with people whom I never would have even spoken to had it not been for Crosswalk.  Over that period of seven years I was transformed by God through Crosswalk.  God blessed me with a real purpose to my life and allowed me to drop my poor attitude.
In 2006 we moved away to Southern California for a job opportunity.  "Church Shopping" was even more complicated for my wife and I after Crosswalk.  Other churches just did not feel like they matched up.  Sure there were several churches with more style and better music, some churches with more programs and better resources.  The people though, the people are what made Crosswalk special and it was so tough to find that again, especially in Southern California.  Eventually, we did find a church we could get excited about and again it transformed us.  
Crosswalk set a high standard in what I have been drawn to in churches.  It took my wife and I over a year to settle on a church in Southern California.  The high standard is why I was a little bit nervous when, a few months back, I was gifted with a job opportunity at Crosswalk.  What if the people don't care anymore?  What if the church I loved so much was different?  After being back for almost a month I can happily report that it has changed in a lot of ways; but that emphasis on diversity and connecting with each other has not.  And as a church we will continue to grow and change, just as God would expect an individual to.  There are some exciting things happening here at Crosswalk and this blog is a part of that.  We are finding new ways for you to learn about Crosswalk; both the staff and the community.  We believe that one way to do that is to express ourselves through writing: about our beliefs, faith, experiences and stories.  We love how God has molded us over the years and we look forward to sharing that with you.  I am truly excited to be back at Crosswalk because I have always considered it my home church, but I am also excited to see how God will continue to mold me, you and the rest of the community here at Crosswalk.