Day 2

Man, I am for sure loving this church up in Southside! We are having an awesome time here worshiping with ATD and our speaker Jake! These kids are awesome and it is definitely easy to just hang with them! We played basketball with them today, band/jake vs. 5 kids, oh yea we won 35-18!! I forgot how to have fun a long time ago and these kids have made this entire camp just awesome! The first verse in Proverbs 2 is

"My son, if you will receive my words and treasure up my commandments within you."

Today I ready Proverbs 2. More about knowledge and definitely more that I hadn't thought about.

"For the Lord gives skillful and godly Wisdom; from His mouth come knowledge and understanding"

What I take from this verse is that if we listen to God we will understand Him. How many times do we hear from God and wonder what He meant? I know for me that usually happens several times a day! What we are being told is that he only gives us godly Wisdom, that if we pray and seek him we will understand him. Why don't we do this? God doesn't just want our nightly were exhausted going to bed prayer!!! He wants us when we are fully aware, when we can fully give him our all in our prayer time! Well day 3 of Mission Week is starting in a couple of hours and Day 3 of my 30 Day Challenge too!

Day 1

Wow what a day it has been. Definitely a tough day for sure. I didn't realize how hard this would be coming out of the gate!! Got to listen to an awesome worship service by my buddies and listened to our new friend Jake speak to this group of teens. Man is he knowledgable! One thing for sure is that I have already learned a lot. I have read through Proverbs 1 about 4 or 5 times already. Sitting on the dock on the river at the at our host home in Southside, Al I just stood in awe of God's beautiful glory. I got to verse 7 before I sat there unequivocally amazed at what I was reading.

"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction."

Proverbs 1:7 [KJV]. What is crazy is that I remembered writing a previous blog about this exact verse yet, I had forgot all about this. Fearing God. How simple is that, all we need to do is be simply quiet and show reverence to God's glory. How is that? Just by fearing God(listening to him) we can gain all sorts of knowledge of God for our life! This knowledge can help us do everything from making major life decisions about college, careers, relationships and everything in-between.

"Turn you at my reproof; behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you."

Proverbs 1:23. I use a KJV/AMP Parallel Bible and was able to see that this means "repent" and "turn to" God. Repenting of our sins and asking God's forgiveness and he will pour out his spirit unto us! How I crave his spirit in my life, I want to feel it every where I GO!! What is more simpler than this, simply to repent and pray for his spirt to fall unto us? It is easier than getting up off the couch to get a glass of sweet tea! So at the end of day 1 I am feeling a lot closer to God already yet, I know I have a long way to go! Day 2 starts in like 40 minutes so....we will see how it goes!
-Bishop

30 Day Challenge

So today is day one of my journey through the proverbs. I have been struggling with my faith recently and have felt like I don't have anyone to talk to. Everyone is mad at me for being so bitter but no one bothers to ask why? I felt like this was something I needed to do. So for the next 30 days I am going to play only Christian music, read the proverbs and except for school stick to strictly Christian books. I don't quite know where to start and I'm definitely not sure exactly how this is going to go but, hopefully you will join my journey for the next 30 days. Ironically enough I am starting this while I am with the band at a "mission trip" in Southside, Alabama.

Love Always

Love. That word can bring joy to many people and strike fear into the hearts of men everywhere. You can ask 100 people what love is and you will get 100 different answers. Ask a newlywed couple what love is and they will probably give you an answer that revolves around them and how they describe their love for each other. Ask a pastor and he will probably give you an response that revolves around Gods love for his children. I ask my 6 year old nephew what love is and hes gone give me something about his favorite tonka truck. Yet, I am saying that love doesn't have a definition. I believe that when you ask someone what love is they should say its what God's children show them, regardless of differences and beliefs.

I have been talking with a lot of people the last couple of weeks and we have been debating what is the Christians job in the coming years in speaking God's word to non-believers. For the most part our discussions have been mild with few hot tempers. I have come to some very real beliefs in my life.

I believe that in order to see the lost saved and return our country to the Lord we need to stop being the battering ram. Many modern Christians believe that our job is to preach preach preach. And it is...don't get me wrong I would love to be a youth preacher one day but we have to be more loving. I look at spreading the gospel kind of like I do my future profession of teaching. How many times did teachers just berate us with the same information over and over but, it never stuck? Yet, if you ever had a teacher that put out the information and then tried to help you with your misunderstandings you know how great that is.

Our job is to be like a good teacher, preach then love. God commands us in several verses to love. In 1 Peter 4:8 we are told "Above all love, for love covers a multitude sin." Jesus even tells us in Matthew 22:39-40 that the second greatest commandment only behind "love the Lord your God." Is to "Love your neighbor as yourself." Do you think if you loved yourself like you treat other people you would be happy with that? Just ask yourself that way? I know I sometimes treat people a certain way and I know I would be mad if I was treated that way.

Shouldn't God's love through us be all people need to see the truth. Does it really take us force feeding Christian ideals down peoples throat for them to get it? I don't think so. I believe that we should be able to tell someone something once, then through our love for them and actions it becomes more than just words. Young people are leaving the church at a faster rate than ever before. Is this because they don't want to follow Christ? I don't believe so. I believe it is becausebthe church is regecting my generation as hell raisers and trouble makers. At church all you hear is condemnation and hatred why would you want to go back?

With all that said I believe the best way to win believers for Christ and expand our church with not just names but truly devoted followers. To do that I believe we need to get back tovthe simple core value of Love. A commandment given to us several times in the Bible and something that can be so easily done. I know there are sometimes those people that you just prefer not to be around but we even have to love them. It is hard for me and I struggle everyday but it has to be done to save the church!

A Good Man

So for the past 6 weeks I have been watching the Not A Fan Episodes on youtube. Now for those of you that don't know Not A Fan is a book by Kyle Idleman that discusses the difference between being a fan and follower of Jesus Christ. I have read the book and took some of it to heart and have watched the first 5 episodes and kinda sorta payed attention. However it was as I was sitting here watching the 6th and final episode that it really got me to thinking.


How do I want people to view me. If I were to die today what would people say about my life. He had a fun life? He skydived and kayaked? He partied and had a good time? Are these the things I want people to say about me? The Not A Fan episodes follow the story of a man who has just lost his life to a heart attack and his journey from fan to follower and the funeral.

In one of my classes this semester, EDM310, when had to make like a 20 second video with our sentence on it. Basically we had to stand in front of a camera and say what the sentence used to describe our lives was. I thought a lot about it but in the end I choose "He lived adventurous with no regrets." You know at that time I thought it was a pretty good sentence. Then I saw the Not A Fan episode, then not long after that a song by Emerson Drive called A Good Man came on my spotify. I got to thinking and my mind went back to this project.

"Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins"
1st Peter 4:8

1 John 4:11 tells us "Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another."

These verses are ever important to me. "Above all, love each other." Above all....most importantly...love each other. How many times do we really love each other. How many times do we let tiny things overcome our love for each other. Race, gender, age, religious affiliation, sexual orientation? "Love each other." That doesn't mean love someone exactly like me, or I can't love you because you're black or gay or your not from the south. It means LOVE!

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Right after Christmas in 2008 I got a call from a good friend back home in Georgia that his Paw Paw Sherrer had passed away. I had known this man literally my entire life, I had spent summers at his house with Dewey and more time in the pool than I could remember. I was heartbroken, this man was like a grandfather to me since I never got to see mine. I made the trip up for the funeral on New Years eve and when I got to the church I was shocked. This massive church that set well over 1000 people was packed. This man touched so many lives. I had the privilege of being with the family before the memorial service and the stories we were hearing were amazing. This man had shown love to so many people and people remembered that. Usually people do not go to the graveside for burial, yet here the procession was over a mile long to get to the cemetery! I had recently bought a cd for Rodney Atkins called "It's America" and on that cd is a song called When It's My Time hint. you should listen to it.


When I die I want that to be my sentence, that "Above all else, he loved." Life is too short for us to judge people. That doesn't mean we can't disagree with someone, that disagreement doesn't give us permission to hate and that we love through that. When it's your time what do you want people to say? Do you want people to be made better by knowing you? Or do you want them at your funeral just to make sure you're really dead? I would prefer the first honestly! I want people to know that I went to Heaven when I die. I don't want them to guess, I don't want people to talk about the things I did that involved adventures when I die. I want them to talk about how I loved above all else. Now it is my time to make the changes so that people can see that. What do you want your sentence to be? That you dedicated your life to serving others, or that you were a self serving jerk?

The Problem With the Church

The problem with the church does not lie totally within the church walls. A majority of what is wrong lies outside our walls and it is because the church doesn't want to do outreach. It is key to remember that the people that need saving are not in the church walls, they are outside of it. The church will fail if their goal is to go get the lost and bring them into the church to save them. You have to save them outside the church and then bring them in. Outreach outreach outreach is what we need to be preaching. The hymns of old will not be what brings or keeps the youth of today in the church. As I hear so often as an education classes technology is where we are headed and most churches are being left behind. Bibles on the iPad and Nook are common place and upbeat modern worship is where it is at. If the church does not reach out using the mediums of todays youth in 30 years you will see such a dwindling church we will comprise less than 20% of the populace.

The reason the muslim church is expanding at a dangerous rate is because they know how to reach young men. Many of these mosques are building community centers. These centers have computer cafes, full service gyms and outreach ministries for the young adults. This is what attracts the youth of today. If you want to reach the youth and young adult population if you have to ask the youth and young adult population what is needed. You have to make the young adults want to come to the church outside of sunday and wednesday or you will see a complete and total collapse of the church. Now I know I am not saying anything that hasn't been said before and it's like beating a dead horse but,vuntil the church takes a hint it will not grow.

Now don't get me wrong I love my home church but as I sit in the back now during altercall I don't see the young people are church needs. Many of these people have been going to this church for years. We are not bringing in the young adults we need to continue the church once the old one's have passed on. There should never be a Sunday where there are no new faces. This is an outreach failure by the church. I don't know what to feel when I see no one raise there hand for first time visitors. I have so many ideas running through my head but no way to see them come to fruitition. Ideas and outreach require money and I have none haha. However the church as a whole does and should be using this money to bring in more faces instead of keep the current one's happy.
Another problem with the church is we refuse to let leaders lead. I am not the Pastor so I am not going to tell the Pastor how to do their job and I don't believe the Pastor should tell the worship leaders how to do their job. If a Pastor has never dealt with leading youth he needs to leave that job to the youth pastor. Young adults and youth need to be allowed to reach out to their peers and invite them to the church for things that do not center around a typical church service.
Well, that's what I believe a majority of the problem with the church is. Hope you enjoyed reading. If you got questions you can tweet them to me @michbishop or message me on facebook or @michael.d.bishop2@gmail.com

Tiger, God and Us

What's up Guys! I have been so caught up in my classes and military duties that I totally forgot about writing on this blog. So we were chillin in the computer lab today working on some EDM310 homework when we started talking about golf. I recently started golfing again for the first time since high school and so my ears perked up and we discussed the coming Masters Tournament this weekend. We got on the subject of Tiger Wood's fall from grace and the #1 golfer in the world. Do we every think about our own fall from grace? We should because with God our fall from grace is daily. No matter how hard we try we do trip up daily anger, lust, swearing or any number of other things. Yet, it's amazing how we can ask forgiveness and truly repent and we are forgiven. Wouldn't it be great if everyone forgave us like that?

I can't imagine how many times I have fallen from someone's good graces and had to work to earn that trust back, but with God we don't have to do that. There are no payback times or sacrifices that have to be made just total and utter repentance. That's about it for today! And don't forget

“Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” (Hebrews 4:16)