Showing posts with label Action. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Action. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Faith Into Action








By Neil Schori

Over the last few weeks, I've had some incredible opportunities to put my faith into action.  Two of my greatest passions came to fruition in an interview with WGN about serving abused women with the Evidentiary Abuse Affidavit, then leaving for Haiti a day later to offer hope to the poorest people in the Western Hemisphere.  These things bring me a lot of life.  I could not be more grateful!

When I help people, I'm always helping myself in the process.  Do you know why?  Because when I help others, I'm reminded of what is truly important.  I get distracted by what is important each day.  Money, cars, well-manicured suburban yards---all of those things and more get in the way of the things that are the most important.  And when I serve the needs of others, it helps me to put a different lens into my near-sighted frames and I start seeing and living purpose again.  And THAT is a sweet spot.

What is it that motivates me to serve?  A man in the Bible named Paul of Tarsus wrote this in the book of 2nd Corinthians 8: 8,9

8 I am not commanding you, but I want to test the sincerity of your love by comparing it with the earnestness of others. 9 For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich.

What Paul was saying was that Jesus modeled what true service looks like.  Jesus had everything but chose to become nothing so that we could have everything.  Jesus gave up the riches of Heaven so that we could be forgiven.  Jesus served us first.  Now, I serve to honor him.

Why do you serve?  Maybe it is because it makes you feel good.  Or because you want to do your good deed for the day.  Those are fine reasons, but I don't believe either of those reasons will keep you serving for more than a very short time.  Why?  Because feelings are fleeting.  But when your service is based on the truth of God's love for you, your serving tank will not run dry.

Serving with Gratitude,

Neil



Neil Schori serves as lead pastor of Naperville Christian Church, and is a remarkable advocate for those in abusive relationships.

Friday, February 18, 2011

Your Road to Healing: Simple Steps to Get You Off to a Great Start





By Pamela Chapman

It’s easy for coaches, ministers and experts to tell you it’s important to find your way and life-purpose. It’s easier said than done. Isn’t it? In my previous blog, I told you that no matter how difficult or challenging your journey, you lack nothing. Every good thing has already been prepared and given to you for your healing. Today, I’d like to share some road-trip steps that have assisted me. Remember, this is my experience. These tools helped me and continue to be a part of my path to abundant living. However, I am confident if you follow, are consistent and dedicated you will see and begin to live the change.

Become Aware - You must first become aware of the dysfunction, unhappiness, and chaos in your life. I like to call this the drama in your life. Here are a few questions I’d like you to contemplate.
1)                  Are there traumatic, stressful, debilitating, and catastrophic events always occurring in your life?
2)                  Are you always worrying about something and when there’s nothing to worry about, you worry because you don’t have something to worry about?
3)                  When life is calm, are you bored?
4)                  Are you often asking, “Why me?”
5)                  Are you always the martyr, always the victim?

You need not share your responses with anyone, but the next step to finding your road to healing, your road to abundant living, is honesty. If you can’t be honest with yourself then who can you be honest with? Bill Watterson puts it this way. “It's not denial. I'm just selective about the reality I accept.”  Humorous? Yes. But, not when it begins to negatively affect your finances, impede your happiness and stifle your abundance. Why pretend you’re fearless when you’re fear-filled? Why say you’re free, when you’re oppressed? Why say and recite truths when, in reality, there is very little evidence that what you’re reciting is having influence. Is it just mindless utterances you are in the habit of quoting?

Once you’re honest about what you’re wrestling with, get an understanding. If you struggle with debilitating fears, attempt to get to the root. Did the fear come from mom, dad, or another authoritative figure? If you settle in your relationships, work, or affairs ask why? Usually this stems from low self-esteem. How do you really feel about yourself?

Don’t be afraid to go inward. The answers lie within. Yes, God is Almighty, All Creator. Yes, He is in complete control. But, it is also finished. It is my belief that all things have been prepared. It is either finished [completed, ended, done] or it’s not. This means your path, your life-purpose has already been created. It is up to you to find it. You must find your own yellow brick road. God is not behind a magic curtain or invisible hemisphere waiting to react to your every wish, whine or whim. You have the power, all the power you’re ever going to get. You have the authority and ability to co-create for your life. Thwarting responsibility—either waiting for God or blaming the devil—can leave you needy, wanting, and powerless. Go within. Find the God-given power within. Be relentless. God power is in each and every one of us. Empower yourself.

Take Action. While God helps those who help themselves is not an actual Scripture, in every example of Christ healing or helping others, an action was required. For example, the woman with the issue of blood had to press through the crowd and touch the hem of Christ’s garment. The blind man spoken of in John 9, after Christ made a mud/saliva salve and put it on the man’s eyes, he was told to wash in the Pool of Siloam. Even when there was no affliction but a party, action was required. Christ’s first miracle of turning the water into wine, Mary, His mother told the servants to do whatever He, the Christ, told them to do. He instructed them to “fill the jars with water,” and then “draw some out.”

You can’t stand idly by waiting and hoping for your healing. Yes, change is a process, and your road to healing is a process; but, isn’t “process” a course of action? Ask for divine guidance which requires quiet time with you, and then MOVE with unbridled faith and energy.

Raise Your Energy. EVERYTHING is energy. You want to raise the abundance in your life, raise your energy. How? Incorporate lively, positive music into your life. Dance like you’ve never danced before. Shout life-changing declarations at the top of your lungs with great enthusiasm. Pray, Mediate. Laugh. Sing. And, when life tries to slap you down, jump up and slap it back. Declare, I AM Invincible, I AM an Overcomer, I AM more than a Conqueror. Get excited. Be excited, and Remain excited.

If you take these first steps, remain consistent, dedicated and focused I promise you will embark on a life-changing journey of happiness, love, and abundant living. YOUR SATISIFCATION IS GUARANTEED.

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Churches: Walk the Talk, Take the Risk

encouragment Pictures, Images and Photos

By Neil Schori

Have you noticed that most people don't have a problem with talking too little?  It isn't too often that you have to ask a suburbanite their opinion about something, is it?  We talk about how our bosses are unfair and how the political system is so corrupt.  We also talk about all of our big ideas to make everything better and the latest cause we've adopted and how we are going to make a difference in our families and in our schools and in our churches and in our lives. 

But how much really changes?  Not a whole lot, really.  Bosses are still good targets for complaints and politicians are never short on corruption for the most part.  Churches can start to care more about songs on Sundays instead of caring for people on Mondays.  So what's the deal?  Is it that our world is past the point of redemption?  I don't buy that for a second.  I see small incidences of redemption all the time.  So what causes change?

The Bible talks a lot about this very subject.  James 2: 14-17 says this:   

What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him?  Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food.  If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it?  In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

James is telling us what most of us really already know in our hearts: that our actions show what we really believe.  If we truly want to make a difference in our own lives and in the lives of other fellow strugglers on this journey of life, then we need to act.  And we need to do it now! 

What does that mean for me?  Over the past week, God has shown me in so many different ways that the church (all churches) has been complicit in relation to the treatment of women in horrible domestic violence situations.  We talk about justice for the oppressed, but we're scared to do the hard work and praying and planning that it takes to make changes in the lives of victims.  Many of us are fearful for the implications that standing up against the abusers could have in our own family.

Are there risks for me and Naperville Christian Church in saying 'yes' to what I know I'm supposed to do?  Of course there are.  But at this point the risk of NOT doing something far outweighs the risk of doing something.  So what is that you need to do? 

If you are being abused, call me at the church and we will help you.

Peace,

Neil Schori
630.983.5600

Neil Schori is the Pastor of Naperville Christian Church.  Follow Neil on Twitter!  @neilschori for all the latest!
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