Don’t just go to church…Be the church!

Music Video: Build Your Kingdom Here!

I’ve been thinking about this blog lately and I really want this to be a place where I can come together in fellowship among friends on here, but I also would love this to be an open fellowship place where we can share thoughts and ideas about sharing the Love of Christ to this world.  The main goal of my blog is to be able to share openly and honestly about what we are feeling and how we can help each other out. So, I would love for you to link up here with me or if you like message me your email and I will add you to my email list here also. 
I love the song that comes on the radio every once in a while, Build Your Kingdom here.  I love how this song reiterates that, We are Your church.  We need Your power in us.  Because honestly speaking, that’s what it is all about.  We are the church!  We are the people that God sent to spread HIS WORD!  We were created for this.  It shouldn’t matter what building we are in, whether it’s a nice, pretty on the inside and out, or typical church building or just an old abandoned warehouse building that needs a lot of tender loving care to keep it up.  If we are all really serious about getting out there and ministering and serving our community…nothing else would matter.  We do this because we love God!  We are humble in what he did for us when He sent His Son to save us from our past and sin.  We are grateful and we want to share this wonderful gift that has been given to us with everyone we come into contact with.John 3:16 says that, “For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. Our question to think about is how can we get these great words from God out to the people of this world?

It’s all ties into us being the church, and having that reminder to us that each one of us have gifts and we don’t all have the same gift.  We all have been given different gifts so we can come together with our gifts and help people as one body of believers.  When we come together as a church, we come together to help and build up each other as one body so that we as one body can go out and reach those lost in the world.  We work together in unity so that others will see that love penetrate from our hearts to theirs. 
In Matthew 28:16-20, (The Great Commission), Christ tells us to go out into the world to share the good news.Then the eleven disciples left for Galilee, going to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go.  When they saw him, they worshiped him—but some of them doubted!  Jesus came and told his disciples, “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth.  Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.  Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
1 Corinthians 12:27 says, All of you together are Christ’s body, and each of you is a part of it.


We are never alone when we talk to people.  Even as we are chatting it up with a random stranger in the grocery store and we have nobody physically by are side; we as followers of Christ, having studied God’s Word, have God with us 24/7 giving us the words to speak and the wisdom to say them to the people that we come into contact with on a daily basis.  Which is why it’s so important to find a daily bible study or devotional to study on your own every day.  Our time with God is the most important time we have available to us and our number 1 priority.  I love starting my day out with God. I find that if I make it a point to wake up just a little bit earlier before my day starts, grab my cup of coffee, my Bible and my journal and spend that time in reading and praying with God, I tend to be in a happier state of mind through out my day.  Now mornings may not work for everyone, some may prefer afternoons, evening or nights.  I’m just saying that we need to make God our #1 in our life. 

I love the last verse to the song, Build Your Kingdom here.  **Build Your kingdom here. Let the darkness fear. Show Your mighty hand. Heal our streets and land!  Set Your church on fire!  Win this nation back.  Change the atmosphere! Build Your kingdom here! We pray!**This verse can really show us that we can go out to the streets and minister to people.  Don’t be afraid of what’s out there because God’s got us.  He can help us share.  He doesn’t call the qualified…He qualifies the called.  He does this through the gifts He gives us that I mentioned earlier.  So let’s go an win this nation back.  Let’s set out to do this work that was set out for us to do and not worry about ‘our circumstances.’  Let’s take US out of the picture and put GOD into the picture. It is not about us, but it is all about HIM and we are building the Kingdom of God!
So let’s get out there and BE THE CHURCH and serve.  I pray that we can have the strength and courage to step out of our building we meet in during our worship times and be the church out on the streets and in this world we live in.

 Grace and Peace to you all,
Blessings!

Sharing Christ through drama….

Christian Drama has been my passion for several years now.  I’ve loved performing for my whole life, but it was at a Women of Faith conference that I saw sharing skits in a whole new way.  Being able to witness and share with people on so many different levels through each skit that I perform.  It’s so amazing to be able to share my heart to the hearts of other people through stories of laughter, prayer and sometimes even through tears. 

I was able to be apart of the Good News Players (serving as President for a term as well) while I was living in Southern Indiana, where I was able to gain even more of an insight about being able to work with and minister to so many people around me. We not only traveled from church to church, but we attended youth rallies, and youth all-night events, and there were times we came back extremely exhausted but all the while loved what we were able to do. :)  We were able to share at drug/alcohol meetings, and just be there for our community and the communities we were traveling to, where we were able to pray for and with them as well.

It was also such a blessing to be able to share skits with The Remedy (my church while I was in Southern Indiana). To be able to be apart of a great church family while away from home was so amazing and to be apart of sharing Christ to 'the world' with them.

Here is a skit that I shared while I was in the Mid-West….

This is Rocks!…..

              

Tami Gregor (ME) sharing Rocks! (Skit) at a church in Illinois with the Good News Players (Oakland City University)

 

Sometimes you just need to be rescued…

Isn’t it true though?  I know many of us have felt that way at sometime or another. ‘I just want to be rescued!’ ‘I need someone to save me!’ "’I can’t do it by myself!’ But yet we still work and work.  We try so hard to do it on our own, then we simply just can’t take it, and we can’t do it anymore by ourselves no matter how hard we try. 
I love this verse from the book of Romans (10:9-10) in Message Bible:
      “That's it. You're not "doing" anything; you're simply calling out to God, trusting him to do it for you. That's salvation. With your whole being you embrace God setting things right, and then you say it, right out loud: "God has set everything right between him and me!"
That’s it?  Is that really all it takes? Yes!  When we call out for help we can be rescued, we can have our knight and shining armor come into save us, when we just surrender our hearts to Christ, he’s there to save us.

I love being able to share Christian Drama to anyone I come in contact with!  Anytime I have the chance to share…I am totally on board!  I feel so blessed to have been involved in OCU's Good News Players, as we were able spread the words of Christ through drama through out several cities and states. Traveling to different churches all over sharing our ministry and being able to pray with the people we had met.
It’s simply amazing that there’s pretty much a skit out there that most everyone can relate to--in good times and in bad ones. Sometimes we just need to laugh and sometimes we just need to cry. I love being able to portray different people through drama--whether it be a teen girl with struggles, an overworked mom, a southern coffee shop waitress, a housewife or a business woman who doesn't know the princess she really is. Each character I portray has a story to tell of their life and the trials and tribulations that they face. It's an awesome feeling when somebody can relate to something that I have performed, by myself or with friends.
Sometimes we just need to know we are loved and know that we can be rescued.  Each one of the characters that I interpret has been rescued from loneliness, heartache, fear, sadness, and anger.  Sometimes we just let things build up so much that we don’t even realize we’ve completely isolated ourselves from everyone around us.  It’s when we realize we can’t do it all on our own and that we need help, it’s then that our rescuer comes to save us.  He’s been there all the time, we just have been so preoccupied doing it on our own, we don’t always see that God is always with us.  He will never leave us!

After performing and sharing a drama called “Lifeboat,” there are many lessons we can actually learn from this skit.  We learn that though we may seem small, God can have bigger plans for us if we just accept Him.  Just when we may want to give up, there is always something else we can do or someone else we can help.  Just like the lifeboat was there to save the two girls when they needed it.  When they reached out  for help, there was a lifeboat to rescue them.  Jesus is our “lifeboat.”  He’s there to rescue us from out sin.  All we have to do is admit we’re sinners, believe in that Jesus came to rescue us and confess and tell people how Christ changed out lives.  Answering to our calling and living our lives for Christ full of love and ministering to those who haven’t heard is better than sitting all alone in a lifeboat by ourselves waiting to be rescued, when all we have to do is reach out just like we were reached out to and we can do so much more!

Challenge:
Who can you reach out to this week?  Who can you help see God’s everlasting love and promise?  What can you do to share with this person?

Tami and Shelli performing “Lifeboat” at The Beacon! A dramatization about needing to step out and reach out to others no matter how small we are or may seem! Even if we are a small group of people we can do a WHOLE LOT! And, show a lot of LOVE along the way!

Romans 10:9-10 -- If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by confessing with your mouth that you are saved. (New  Living Translation)

I am Free!

Freedom By:  Tami Gregor

“So if the Son has set you free, you will be free indeed.”  (John 8:36)

We have the free rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, but we also have the freedom to choose Christ as our Savior.  Choosing Christ is a different kind of free; that can never be taken from you!

We have the choice to get up on Sunday mornings and evenings to attend a worship service, or attend a worship service or Bible Study during the week and the freedom to read God’s word without being thrown into jail!

If you get up out of a warm bed and a good nights sleep.  If you ate breakfast or even just had a cup of coffee in the morning.  If you got up and walked out to your car and drove to church, work or to a friends house.  You’re not only luckier than over half the population in America, but you are considered rich to millions of people in other countries!

We have the freedom to choose Christ as our Savior.  We have the freedom to tell the world that “I Choose You.”  I choose today to live for God and I choose today to do something about my faith.

Some show their faith through singing, some through acting.  Some write their feelings on paper, in a novel, in a poem, in a song or maybe even in a script.  Others preach the gospel; whether it is in a small church or a heavily populated seminar. Some lend a helping hand to those in need and some are gifted through prayer.  How are you showing your faith?Are you putting your faith into action?What can you do to help that person on your mind?|How do you want to show your love for Christ and show that you choose Him?

 “Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” (John 8:32)

“for, ‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’” (Romans 10:13)

Life, Liberty, Speech, Press, and Religion, we have all of these freedoms and rights in this country, but the freedom to choose Jesus Christ as our Savior and to worship God through out our lives, is the best kind of freedom that is ever given to us because no one can ever take it from you, no matter what.

Christ died over 2000 years ago for our sins to that we could spend eternity in Heaven with Him; all we have to do is ask for forgiveness.  Christ died for all of us so we might be free and live for Him. 

LOVE
my
Indiana FRIENDS!!! :)