LaRosa Johnson {dot} com

I’ve been thinking about this topic lately, and I thought about it some tonight while I was driving to my Hebrew class. Am I too nonchalant about things?

For the most part, I’m a calm guy and it takes a lot to get me riled up (my kids are another story, LOL). Life is stressful & busy, but even that doesn’t bother me or make me lose my cool. I roll with the punches and keep on going. Sometimes, though, I wonder if this is such a good thing. A perfect example would be my finances. My money is tight, sometimes in the red. Does that bother me? Not really. Sure, it concerns me and I do what I can to better manage my money, but I don’t let it get to me or bend me out of shape. I remain cool about it all. I’ll find out about stuff that’s going on with my family, like when my grandfather passed away from cancer. Was I sad to lose him? Yes, but I was still calm about it, almost too calm if you ask me.

The more I think about it, I realize that it’s probably the way I should be. The more I study Scripture, it makes sense. If I’m focused on my Father’s business and heavenly things, then the rest of what happens in my life is an afterthought. The bad things? Momentary light afflictions that pale in comparison to what God has in store for me. The good things? Highlights that give me opportunity to thank the Lord for His kindness. I sometimes wonder if this is how Jesus was while walking the earth. Stuff was happening around Him, but He didn’t let it phase Him.

Whether it’s good or bad, I’ll keep walking this way because it keeps me from being anxious (a command from Scripture) and from fearing. My faith is in the Lord, and I’ll keep rolling with whatever comes my way because I realize that it’s all part of God’s design for me & my family. Maybe being nonchalant in a Christian way can be a good thing…

Tonight while I was eating dinner with my family, I had a thought. I started to have a thought about the future and possibilities that may come my way. In particular, I was thinking about the very real chance that I may be called by the Lord to pastor a church in another city or state. With that, I started to think about the very real possibility that the church may not be in a position to support me financially; what would I do? I immediately looked at my current job and wondered about the chances for me to maintain full-time (or part-time?) employment with WORDsearch Corp. working remotely while I pastor a church elsewhere. How would WORDsearch react if that were ever to become a reality? The thought isn’t so much about my job per se, because I know the Lord will provide regardless; but, I must admit that I love my job and what I do and would ever hate to leave it.

Anyway, the thought came to mind as I was looking through some old photos (back in my skinny days) of when Robin & I first met and when we were in our house in Jacksonville, NC. It brought back some nice memories and the very real thought of how much I enjoyed living there. Then I thought about when I found out about Jacksonville Bible Church a couple months ago, and wonder about the probability of God presenting me with a pastorate at that church. That would be wild and I wouldn’t put it past God, and that’s part of what made me think about working remotely. Why? Because I remember what the job market was like when I left, and I wouldn’t want to change jobs if it was a church that couldn’t pay me to be their pastor.

Another reason that all of this comes to mind is that I think about my own pastor and how he worked the night shift at the sheriff’s department during his first few years of pastoring our church until they finally came to the decision that they wanted him to solely focus on being a pastor & dedicating himself to studying the Word. I keep that in mind for myself. It’s definitely not something I’m opposed to because I realize that I’m definitely not in this for the money and am only worried about being where God wants me to be, paid or unpaid.

In talking with my friend, Antoine, tonight, I told him that I’d even be perfectly content if all that God ever had for me was Trailblazin Ministries. I look at other people I know who are ordained and have never pastored a church or had to wait for years for that opportunity. I don’t know what God has in store, but I do know that I’m going to remain diligent and focused whatever my ministry assignment is. All of this is just speculation on my end, as I have no clue what God has in store; all I know is that I will keep my prayers centered on keeping myself in His will. Amen.

This morning I received an email in my inbox. Nothing unusual about that, but the email itself was interesting. It came from a Christian website that I joined to investigate why my site was getting so much traffic from them. It turns out that this website was designed to pirate Christian music and software. Anyway, I wanted to share the email with you because I found it rather amusing.

Dear _______ member,

I’m writing this announcement to inform you that in the following couple of days ______, ______ and ______ websites are going offline for an indefinite amount of time. It may be for a few hours, it may be for a few days, it may be for some months… no one can tell at this point. The reason for going offline is that our current host won’t host us anymore for reasons that I don’t agree with but I totally respect.

We’ve been through much trouble as a community all these years and if it wasn’t for God’s grace covering us, and some people’s dedication and really hard work, we would have been just a distant memory by now. Whatever your feelings are, please pray for this community as a whole, for the individual members, and for us the administrators as we all really need it at this point.

If anyone has any hosting solutions, suggestions, or connections, please let us know.

The only official way to contact us for the time being is by e-mail on _________

"May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all" – 2 Corinthians 13:14

Thank you all for your continuous support,
_________

Seriously?! You would think that their webhost is trying to tell them something. Most webhosts only take your site down because of excessive bandwidth (which wasn’t their problem), pornographic material, or illegal activity. Given what the site was engaging in, it’s definitely option number three. Yet, these people continue to think that what they’re doing is legitimate and covered under the grace of God. It amuses me how people try to justify their sins, lusts & evil desires, especially when it’s under the guise of doing a work for the Lord.

It’s my hope that this site and others like it don’t come back online and that any other host keeps them off of their servers. It’s definitely my prayer that while the site is offline that the Holy Spirit will prick them and make them aware that what they’re doing is wrong and cease any attempt to move or resurrect the site.

Right now, I’m up to my eyeballs in the training of my pastor-teacher gift. In the process of training my gift, I’ve been doing a lot of study and have grown quite a bit. One of the things that I’ve been really getting firm on is my understanding of the Bible and keeping a literal hermeneutic when studying Scripture. This has really been beneficial and I’m grateful for all the studies I’ve undertaken thus far.

With all of this comes the temptation to get proud and go spouting off everything I’ve learned. To a point, I think we all get that way when we learn something new; but, I think it has helped me that I’m an introvert and not a very confrontational kind of person. It’s very tempting to get into debates and heated theological discussions, but I hate arguing, so it hasn’t become an issue. I mean, a lot of times I’ll get involved in a discussion and quickly bow out when it turns into debate mode.

To get to my point, I’m glad that being a pastor-teacher doesn’t mean that I have to be someone who constantly debates over theology and doctrine. I’m glad because that’s really not who I am, and I’d rather just spend my time teaching the Bible.

One of the things I’ve really noticed in the course of my studies is how averse some people are towards certain theological views. Sadly enough, a lot of this comes from a particular branch of theology and their seeming dislike for anyone that isn’t of their camp. For instance, I was watching a youtube video last night of a pastor answering a question about the beliefs of another theological system of interpretation and he was pretty harsh in his comments, and in many areas off in his assessment of them; in many ways, his comments weren’t fair to that view and were spun in such a way to make his beliefs look superior. What’s worse, it seemed as if he even questioned the salvation of some of the proponents of this theological view.

I hope that if the time ever comes for me to have to do the same that I can be more gracious, loving, & fair in my statements. I don’t ever want to come off as a know-it-all or someone who bashes others’ theological points of view. Although I believe that I have a better hermeneutic & understanding in some areas of Scripture because of my theological background, I pray that it never comes off rude or arrogant. I want to be fair to each side when I discuss an issue, which is something I’ve come to appreciate in reading Chafer’s Systematic Theology. So, if you could, keep that as a matter of prayer, as I press on in my studies, that I would remain humble & teachable as I search & study the Bible and firm up my theological beliefs.