You Say You're A Virgin, So What's Your Definition Of Virginity?

Father`s Day Devo (My senior pastor asked me to write it for our church newsletter)

When I consider that God is spirit and has no biological relationships like humans do, I realize that the only reason God calls Himself “The Father” is for our benefit, to help us understand the relationship between God and people. God is described as many things: as our healer, provider, savior, and king; as a potter, a warrior, and a shepherd. However, our primary understanding of the identity of God is “God the Father”. So why is “Father” His preferred label? 

I came to the conclusion that if we were looking for something on earth that most closely resembled our relationship with God, It would be our relationship with our fathers. So I looked at my relationship with my dad. My dad’s the type of person who would move heaven and earth to help someone out. For example... 

-Last week he drove to Corner Brook to build a deck for the mother of one of his employees.  -Last summer I got a flat tire on my car while I was at work and he had it changed before I even finished my shift.  -When I was in grade 11, I had a public speaking competition the same weekend as the church youth retreat. He picked me up at Burry Heights, brought me to the competition in St. John’s, and then brought me back to Burry Heights after the competition. 

Truthfully, I will probably never know how much time and energy he puts into taking care of me when I’m not looking. That selfless devotion to taking care of our family and of the people around him is the essence of a father’s love. Fathers are spiritual models for how God loves us. The identity of a Christian father is imitating the character of God. The love that they demonstrate towards their children is a self-sacrificing love. That love puts their children before them. It’s the very same love that Jesus demonstrated when He died on the cross. 

In Matthew 7:11, Jesus says, “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!” This is a father who literally can move heaven and earth to help us out. Like in Isaiah 38, when He made the sun go backwards, or Joshua 10, when the sun and moon stood still. Just picture God pinching the earth between His thumb and pointer finger to make it stop spinning. He interferes in the solar system for us! More importantly, He died for us. We will never grasp the vast and overwhelming love of God, but if we want a tiny glimpse, we’ll find it in our fathers.

God is calling YOU.

I decided today that I resent the phrase “full-time ministry” when referring to pastors. ”Full-time” ministry, as opposed to everybody else who’s only part-time? I believe that EVERYBODY’S ministry should be full-time. I believe that witnessing and outreach should be a way of life, not a job.  I have many friends who want to be pastors or did want to at some point (the official count is up to six at the moment.) And sometimes I think that people feel like if you’re a Christian, the only job God can call you to is to be a pastor or a missionary - like those are the only “Holy” jobs. Like you HAVE to do one or the other to truly be a good Christian. Because, for a long time, when my very best friend was absolutely 100% certain of God’s calling on her life to become a children’s pastor, I felt like I didn’t have a calling on my life. I think I know what it is now. :)

I want to put it out there that God calls all types. I believe I have friends who are called into social work. God calls doctors and nurses. God calls business men. God DEFINITELY called my mom to be a teacher. She says she knows that teaching is where she is supposed to be, with junior high kids who are messed and lost and just need love and guidance. I know people who have a heart for kids and want to love on them so they’re going into social work to help children have better lives. And I want to be a pediatrician, because I love children and I want to help people.

God gave you talents and interests and skills and passions for a reason! And whatever He calls you to do, it’ll probably line up with whatever He’s already equipped you to do well. He might call you to be a stay-at-home mom, or a lawyer or a plumber!

"I think that if you're a half decent person, you'll get into heaven."

So guys I was thinking today: 

If someone says they're a Christian and then they look at me and they're like "I just think that if you're a half decent person you'll get into heaven." .... I honestly have to wonder if they've read the bible. The phrase you just uttered undermines the entire foundation of Christianity. You can't "get into" heaven by being a "good" person.

I mean, first of all, NO ONE is a good person. We're human. We're imperfect. We're mortal. And by default, we are literally incapable of being truly good. I mean, you can be alright and not like, kill people and stuff. But how do you define sin? I mean, where's the line between good people and bad people? Can you still be a good person if you've held a grudge against someone, judged someone or lied? Cause see, all sin is equal in the sight of God. There are no degrees of sin to God. It's a yes or no question. Have you or have you not done something that is not of God? The answer will always, irrefutably be yes. Romans 3:23 says "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."

And so...and this is very important, so listen up...if you could "get into" heaven by being a good person, Jesus would never have had to die on the cross. 

So if you believe that you can get into heaven by being a good person, I guess you believe that the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is completely meaningless. And if Jesus Christ, being fully God, stepping into a mortal body, bearing the weight of all the sins of all the people who ever were and are to come, going to Hell, stealing the key and coming back to life to give you eternal life means absolutely nothing then what do we even believe in? 

Do you get the fact that Christianity is ALL ABOUT God reconciling the separation between sinful man and perfect deity? Do you realize that that is literally EVERYTHING that we believe in? 

Don't get it twisted: I'm not telling you that you're a bad person. I'm not telling you that you can't get into heaven. I don't think that I'm better than you and that I'm going to heaven and you're not. Because believe me, I am acutely aware of my own deficiencies. I KNOW how much I need grace. I'm just telling you that we are all human, and we all need Jesus if we wanna go to heaven. If you don't wanna go to heaven, well..I can't help you. :P

Lots of love :) Peace y'all! -Katherine

Shrinking Women - Lily Myers

Societal Conditioning?  New Rant yayyyy!!!  Today I filmed like four rants and this is the first :) 

I’ve always had trouble with this idea of “hearing from God.” I always side-eye those super A+ put-together Christians who were hearing from God every week, and somehow I was outside the door of some secret club where God was throwing around fortune cookies full of His life-changing secrets.Let’s consider that God does speak to us every week. Let’s consider photosynthesis, the spinning of atoms, the burning of stars, the breath we just breathed, your child’s messy drawing, the twitching of your neurons to fire off emotions, a hug from your best friend. Let’s consider the sustaining of our molecules, which is purely by His grace. Let’s see all we are missing when our eyes are locked on a screen when the world is unrolling around us, as God makes His glory known through nature and coincidence. Let’s consider Christ, who is God’s spoken word and His very own glorious radiance (Hebrews 1:2-3). Let’s consider that God is already within the silence, and that even when we do not “feel” Him, God is okay with this too.

J.S. from this post (via yesdarlingido)

Everything feels awful right now but it isn't really. We still don't officially have a winner, but regardless of how the presidential election ends up, I wanted to take a minute and find what lights I can in the 3 a.m. darkness. Here's what I know:

* Kentucky overwhelmingly rejected an attempt to undermine the public education system by offering private school vouchers:

Louisville Public Media

Kentucky rejects Amendment 2 to allow private education funding, passes Amendment 1

Amendment 2 to allow public funds to go to private and charter school education was rejected universally in Kentucky counties when the Assoc

* Delaware has elected a transgender woman to the House of Representatives, the first out trans person of any gender ever elected to congress:

the Guardian

Sarah McBride becomes first out trans person elected to US House

McBride wins Delaware’s at-large House seat against Republican candidate John Whalen III, a former state police officer

* For the first time in history, two Black women will be serving in the senate at the same time, and they are only the fourth and fifth Black women ever elected to the senate:

the Guardian

US will have two Black women serving as senators for first time in history

Democrats Lisa Blunt Rochester from Delaware and Angela Alsobrooks of Maryland both saw victories

* New York State has passed a constitutional amendment enshrining the rights of pregnant people (including the right to an abortion), LGBTQIA+ people, the disabled, immigrants regardless of legal status, and other at-risk groups:

Gothamist

New York voters pass Prop 1, enshrine abortion rights into state constitution

The constitutional amendment faced a tougher-than-expected fight after a right-wing campaign against anti-discrimination protections.

* Democrat Josh Stein has beaten self-avowed Nazi Mark Robinson to become governor of North Carolina:

NPR

North Carolina’s Josh Stein wins race for governor over Mark Robinson

 Stein is the current attorney general and he noted his work winning opioid settlements. But it was controversy over Robinson’s inflammatory

That's everything I know off the top of my head. It's not many bright spots, but it's not zero. I'm going to try to find more and I'll add them to the post. It's the only thing I can think of to do that isn't sobbing and throwing up or looking up Canadian immigration rules.

If you know more good news, I encourage you to add it in reblogs.

The Law and The One Who Made The Law

On Sunday, I was helping out with the kiddies program in the morning church service. I LOVE being with the kids, but this morning I felt that there was something wrong. The lesson was about sin, and I think that the message the kids were supposed to take home was "Don't Sin." We told them stories about people who did drugs and stole stuff and ran away from homes and discussed the various mistakes these people made, and defined sin and then told them that the people in the stories met Jesus and cleaned up their lives and went on to do a whole bunch of really great things for God. 

I'm sure it sounds like a very positive message at first glance, but something really unsettled me about it: 

It's all well and good to tell the kids to obey their parents and tell the truth and share and don't do drugs and stay in school. However, why are we so focused on all these rules for how we should behave and not on The One who made the rules? 

Cause see, the gospel is not a behaviour-control program. The church does not exist to make sure that everyone is following the rules. And Jesus didn't die so that we would have to be perfect. 

What I'm trying to say is that instead of telling these kids what they can and cannot do, we should introduce them to Jesus, and tell them about his amazy-crazy, upside-down inside-out, spin-you-all-around LOVE. I think that we should tell them that Jesus knows them better than anyone else in the world and that He loves them more than anyone else in the world does. I think we should tell them that they are His precious treasure, His beloved son/daughter, the apple of His eye. I think we should tell them that He has an awesome plan for their life and that He's gonna do great things in them and through them. Finally, I think we should tell them that He loves them so much that He died for them, so that their sins would be repaid and they could go to heaven. Don't you think that such a message would be far more effective than "Don't do this. Don't do that." I feel like if they knew the one who made them and loves them, they would be naturally less inclined to seek fulfillment in thrills, drugs, alcohol and sex ANYWAY, and we wouldn't have to try and hammer it into their skulls so much. 

Don't get me wrong, we do tell the kids all the stuff I said up there. We tell it to them all the time. My church is not remiss in informing the children of their infinite value to their creator. I just think that if Sunday morning's service was the only one a child had ever been to, they would think that church was just a list of Do's and Don'ts. So I believe that instead of just talking about sin, we need to prevent a more holistic view of the relationship between God and humans. I think we need to present the gospel to these kids in BIG BOLD ITALIC CAPS every single time we see them, because knowing the love of Christ is infinitely more important than knowing the rules. 

That's all.  Peace and love!  -Katherine

God is using this podcast to heal me and breathe new life into my queer christianity. Can't recommend it enough.