Page 2A
Tri-County Sentry
Friday
MARCH 14, 2014
Around the Tri-Counties So You Love God, But Hate the Church? Words to Live by
Dr. Lonnie G. McCowan, pastor of Miracle Center of Ventura
By Pastor Lonnie G. McCowan It’s a common statement in our generation people who say they “love God, but hate the church.” Or at least don’t feel very excited about the church. God seems cool. The local churches they’ve been to seem very boring. But the church is Gods’ bride according to the bible. Can you imagine telling your friend - you’re awesome, but I hate your wife, she’s boring and irrelevant to me. Really? That friendship would end fast. And while you may still feel how you feel -
your friend wouldn’t feel very liked at all, because you hated on the most important thing in their life part of their very flesh and soul, and the greatest joy in their life. Don’t get me wrong. Sometimes going to church is difficult, even painful. Here are some thoughts on why we must choose to love the church, if we claim to love God: 1. Its just two hours a week. While church is more than just about a weekly service, we are talking only 2 hours a week worshiping and listening to a sermon. Even if you don’t like music and the sermon is poor, it’s just 2 hour. I can’t help but wonder how anyone who really loves God would be unwilling to give 2 hour out of 168 hours in their week to God’s bride. If it’s important to God (and he says so in His Word), then it should be important to me if God is Paid Advertisement
important to me. 2. Its okay if it doesn’t feel ok. There are times for all of us, when church doesn’t feel fun or exciting, and sometimes it even feels painful, like going to the dentist. (But all of us know the dentist is important even though it’s painful. Same with the church.) It’s okay to not feel okay, but we should go to church anyways - those might be the times we need it the most. Don’t base your faith on your feelings. Feelings will come into line by God’s power and grace in our life over time, and we will realize God knows best - every time. Yes, we need to fight for joy in obeying God’s commands, but sometimes this is a process. Some season’s church is a great joy to us, and life-giving community, and other seasons it feels like we are carrying a cross. CHURCH, See page 12A
We Are More Alike Than We Are Different Inez Knows
Inez Lanns
By Inez Lanns As people, in general, we often find reasons to divide and separate ourselves from one another. We like to point out each others’ differences and focus on what divides us. We remain divided by race and ethnicity. We even go further with that and will separate based on the color of our skin – for instance, there are several shades of Latin-Americans, African-Americans, AsianAmericans and we will even separate even more within those groups. We divide amongst each other when it comes to social economic status or clas-
sism. People are divided by their religion, separated from one another through denomination, beliefs or practices. But in reality we have more in common than we do not. Although we were individually created and possess unique qualities, we carry common characteristics and share many common goals. Although we have different color skins, we all bleed the same color blood. We have the same internal organs - 1 heart, 2 lungs, etc. For the most part, we desire for our children to be well educated, to be their best and succeed in life whether that is educated on the streets or in the suburbs we want our children to know what they need to make it. We want to be safe and protected - we want to survive and want our offspring to survive. Whether we take action or not, we desire a lot of the same things. Although we take diverse paths, we are striving for many of the same end outcomes.
We are passionate about different things, but we all desire to have a thriving community to live and recreate in. One person’s passion may be feeding & clothing the homeless and another person’s may be youth & education. One person may be enthralled about making sure music & creative arts stay alive in our community while another is adament about stopping gang violence. Whether it is making sure people receive fair wages, fighting for health care of all, or any of the issues that plague our society, the end results of each of those things contribute to our community being a better place for everyone to live in. Although the specificity of our goals may not be exactly the same, many times each of us can reach our final destinations a little faster if we work together, as opposed to against each other. If we can find out what we have in common and use that commonality as a connector, we will be ALIKE, See page 12A