Everything reproduces after its own kind

The other day, I walked into the sitting room and I see Samuel reclining on the sofa.  He is sitting there watching Wallace and Gromit with his hands behind his head.  How funny I thought, and then I realized, He's copying me. 

Genesis 1:11-12 And God said, let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in its self upon the earth, and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in its self, after his kind, and God saw that it was good.

Reproducing after their own kind is something God programmed into creation and we can see it all around, forget what you've been told, Have you ever seen a Giraffe being born to two Black birds?  Never.  

Whether it be in our character, or 'taste' our children will largely be influenced by the things around them.  This is important for us as parents, just as Samuel has started to do something harmless, Eliza threw a play punch at me the other day.  She didn't know anything about it, and she didn't intend to harm me it was just something she must have seen on the TV.   

When it comes to man and our relationship to God, God's desire is just as we were created in his image to reason and have an understanding of right and wrong, He desires for us to reflect him by the work of the Holy Spirit to be doing works of righteousness and exhibit the fruit of the Spirit of God.  

“He has given us His very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires” (2 Peter 1:4) What is the corruption of the world?  We see it all around us; we even see it in us.  The world is all about self preservation, God's way is serving others, not counting yourself higher than anyone, to be the least of all and to love God and our neighbor as yourself.  As we give our lives over to God and to serve Him as a living sacrifice, this means his will, his glory, his fame is paramount.

When my children are older, I want the training we instill in them as children to become their characters to be noble and gentle and be strong in the Lord.  When they are out and more mature, their character will reflect onto Beth and I as their parents. 

So what has all of this got to do with my series on the church?  The image the church presents itself is how the world rightly or wrongly see's God.  Are we acknowledging God and his ways before men?  I heard something today relating to the fundamental narrative of creation - the Church has compromised the truth of the scriptures to be in line with the world, in a hope that it will gain favor with the world, but in actual fact what has happened the world has seen, so you compromise on the Genesis of creation, what else will you bend on?   That's a personal challenge to all of us in everything, does the righteousness of the Lord reflect on the world corruption or do we look like them, act like them, smell like them.

What we do in secret is a true test of a disciple of God, not when others are near us. 

Our witness is not for the Church, It is for the world.

Matthew 5:16 let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.

I wanted to touch on Church websites, we live in the digital age, there's no going back now, every church or church ministry usually has a website - a 24/7 sign post on what was deemed important when the thing was designed.  A website takes craft, sure you can slop it up but I have to say that most of the church websites I see these days are slick state of the art media centers which have had some money spent on them, they are seen as important so there has been some time taken on designing them.  A flashy logo, catchy titles for the latest series, core values, where we meet........the gos...

I can write more on this another time, I don't actually expect many non-Christians to frequent www.flashychurch.com/near you just as I don't expect non-saved persons to frequent a church service, but that's OK, God didn't design the growth of the church to be done through weekly services.  This is a remnant of ‘Finneyism’, where a pragmatic emotional service was orchestrated and boy it worked because people got saved right?   So, in the modern pattern we see around us, a Church website is seen as something to get 'someone to the service' there seems to be something hugely lacking in the technical arsenal - the gospel.

That's right, you may not come to our service but you may find yourself looking at our site, but the one thing we are meant to be about is absent but what else is there?

Means of donating money, in this 'career path' mentality of ministry needs to be fed, it costs money to pay all of these cutting edge Pastor's, admin staff, worship leaders, children's staff and media pastors.  Media what now?  Media is a tool but there is big money to be had in serving in church, so why with all of the media there is no textual presentation of the gospel? 

When the site was designed, something thought we need a means of getting someone to give their tithe (a whole other conversation) but didn't think the god news of Jesus, I want that up there.  But no one will read it, says another...but I LOVE the gospel says the first.