The times between my writings seem to be getting further and further apart. Life seems to be getting busier and busier. I’m back at home from college now. I’ve been back at work for a couple weeks now. I’m attending our Spanish services at my church. I believe that the Lord has called me to the service of missionary work someday although right now I don’t fully understand the messages. I love Latinos. They seem to flow with constant happiness and delight although their happiness is dampened by their ignorance of true joy. I have been praying about the opportunity to work with Spanish speaking people. I thought that this might be my chance. My girlfriend is down here now from MI and sometimes the Lord uses those close to you to direct you. In this case, that happened. My girlfriend was a little frustrated because neither one of us were able to get the whole jist of what the sermons were about. Well, during the week my days off work are Sunday and Wednesday. this week my sister is at a camp in NC and her birthday is this week. I wasn’t able to make it to her b-day on her b-day so I thought that I would go up early. When I was at the camp, I saw several people from my church. One person is someone whose house I had worked on before and they are in charge of the singles group at church. She said that we (my girlfriend and I) are welcome to go there. She mentioned to me that they have been having some Spanish speaking people come to church and they have no way to communicate to them because no one speaks Spanish. I can speak a little and the people that are in charge are great, so I guess I see this as an open door for me. Pray that the Spanish speaking people, who haven’t been back will see God’s hand in this situation and keep coming.
     My brother, who is more of a mentor than anything, has been finding such a joy in the true fellowship of other believers recently. I find myself longing for that. What is the body??? Have we lost sight of Christ? What happens when everyone loses sight of Him? What happens is no one is encouraged. No one is uplifted. Another thing that has been coming up lately is what about the teaching? We have people in the church that may have never gone to Bible college or may never go to Bible college and don’t know the basics of God. What about those people? Do we just leave them to hunger and thirst by just feeding them the cotton candy instead of the meat (metaphorically)? One problem that I have run into at school is my Theology teacher was constantly saying things like yeah we can’t get into that because that would fly over all your heads, or you wouldn’t be able to grasp that, or you don’t know anything about that. Why? If we don’t know, teach us. That is what we are throwing all the money to the school for. Granted, a lot of the teaching was very good. I enjoyed it a lot. His purpose in saying those things was because he was dealing with many different people with many different backgrounds and levels of understandings of God. He is right in some cases. Some people would not be able to get past the basics and I saw that for myself. It goes back to the parents and the church. It seems to be that the church is nothing more lately than just a pop-a-pill church as opposed to the true source of healing. 1 Corinthians 14:12 says, “So with yourselves, since you are eager for manifestations of the Spirit, strive to excel in building up the church.” Eph 4 :9 – 16 clearly says, these things. ”

(In saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.) And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.”

So what happened to that philosophy? Did we just toss it out the window? I was warned to not come home from college and think I know it all and try to find everything wrong in church. The problem is that I have not even learned any of this in school and all this is rooting from the desire and the hunger for true discipleship and teaching in the church. Most colleges I know don’t even teach classes on that stuff in the freshman year anyway. There are some churches out there that do teach. For instance, in my girlfriend’s church the youth pastor actually took a day out a month and taught and discussed with all the teens doctrines of the Bible. What an incredible opportunity to grow in wisdom and to learn your God!
     Well, these are just a couple things that go on through my insignificant brain. God is good! God is so good! I know that changing your environment does not solve problems that dwell in you, but I am looking forward to trying to fellowship with those around and begin a habit of true fellowship with those that are around me in my new settings. Actually, I just got back from break here at work and we had the greatest time just sitting around discussing things of God and church with some of my friend here at LevelOne. They go to the church that planted my brother’s church. It is very encouraging halfway through your day. Anyway, I think I’ve said enough for now. Hopefully, I’ll update the design soon.

Still seeking Him first,

Josh Blaha