My new husband and I laughed when the name of yesterday’s sermon flashed on the large screen behind Pastor Justin. “The Honeymoon is Over!” Our knowing glance at each other said, “Oh, if he only knew!” 

The pastor’s message was actually quite timely. The Warehouse Church was founded a little over three years ago with just 127 people. Here we are now with around 1500 people who attend regularly. The numbers fluctuate continually as some people leave and others come. 

It’s just like any relationship. Those things that attracted you and caused great excitement early on eventually become irritating thorns in your side. You become critical of the very thing that brought you joy in the first place. The same can happen in a church. If you go to church to occupy a seat and be spoon fed a message, you are missing the message entirely. If you are there for the entertainment factor, you are missing a wonderful opportunity to be more Christ-like. 

Jesus didn’t walk around pounding his message into people. He was there to make a way for others to reach God and experience salvation. He didn’t gather holy men around him to sing His praises. He gathered the misfits and misunderstood around him and challenged them to go out into the world and reach more, and more, and more. 

I left the church at the ripe old age of seven because of a Bible-thumping preacher who screamed and jumped up and down trying to scare me into finding Jesus by promising Hell and eternal damnation. I actually came to be saved through a loving couple who made a way for me to walk in a relationship with Jesus. I was lured with love, not fear. 

I want to be a Way Maker. I want to be that friend that invites you to find the same joy I have found in my salvation. I want to walk along side you so that some day you to might have this same relationship with a God who loves you and only wants to draw you near Him. Then, you may, come in, be saved, learn to serve, and go out and invite, and offer a hand, and invite someone in who might be saved and learn to serve, and who will go out and invite and offer a hand and…. 

You get the picture? It’s love that changes lives. Not force-feeding and fear. Our church accepts you no matter where you are on your path. We don’t care what you look like, who you are, how you smell, what you are doing, how you are living, or where you’ve been. 

You may feel there is no way for you. But God makes a way when there is no way. And He uses us to be His hands and feet on the ground. I’m here and I’m willing. These boots were made for walkin’ and I’ve got miles to go and people to meet. ❤️

“See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.”  Isaiah 43:19 NIV