Margaret River

I love the south west corner of WA. Any chance I get I will be there. It’s only been a recent love affair, although we always used to spend Easter at Busso. It seems that just in the last few years I have begun to just love making the trip more than ever.
This past weekend we made the annual pilgrimage down to Taunton Farm, just north of Cowaramup/MRV. A big crowd of about 80+ connected with Whitford Church head down there this weekend every year. It was an interesting crew because some of them had left the church and gone elsewhere since last time we holidayed together. I did not want to have a weekend of church sledging, but I was open to some good healthy conversations about “Churchiology” and doing mission better.
I got a bit of both I think. Not too much church sledging, certainly not any Senior Pastor Sledging, not near me anyway. I think people are not too sure about where I stand on the whole Church opinion thing. I like it like that. Sure I have issues with things, some are new issues that have come about from recent influences for sure, some are same old same old issues with the way church is done and the monster that needs to be fed. But hey, find me somewhere in which I wont find issues. Maybe you would say ‘I will find you somewhere with less issues!!!’ True maybe, but I’ll stay here thanks, at least for this week.
Hey I could not go anywhere, just do my own thing, start my own church.
Right now, I think if I did that it would be a form of idolatry, with me as the god to be worshipped!! I have no calling to do such a thing, no desire to do this now, to do so would be merely self serving, self gratification, self worship.
Oh it’s easy to “get a call to leave” when it is all pear shaped. What’s this idea of calling out anyway? I get real uncomfortable with people who say “God called me to leave.” (Sometime he does, I grant you that) But how often do you hear, “We left the church and went to X Church, we left because we would be in sin to stay as we wanted to gossip and slander, we wanted to undermine and cause disention, we knew that we had already done enough damage so we cut our losses and ran. New Church? Yes we have found one that meets our needs coz it’s all about us and until we can do other than serve ourselves and be driven by our desire to consume church ‘services’ we will keep being restless”.
I love it when I hear of people who leave when it’s all going brilliant, they leave to go to some out of the way place like Beverly, York, Eucla (imagine starting a church there!). “But you can’t be hearing from God, he’s got you in this brilliant vibrant church of 900 people with all the fruit. You can’t be hearing from God…what a waste!” – What a crock!

No I feel all messed up about “hearing from God” on things at the moment. Oh don’t get me wrong, I do hear from God, but I rarely like what I hear. Most times I just get confused about what I hear. Oh yes it lines up with the bible all right, but rarely with my church culture.