Where two or more are gathered in Jesus name .....

.. he is in the midst. And He is.. Our group is small but so very blessed.. I grieve so deeply for the Trudies of this world.. We must stop hurting and start helping. and Those of us who worship the God of love must speak out more... thanks George..hope your life is getting better...

i think i needed this post more than i realised :)
a book i read recently called the shack, it was a very different novel, but the messege in it was how God wanted us to have a relationship with Him, and not be with "religion" or what have you but to just have him in your life, and not worry or conform to what people say your supposed to be, and that even with the 10 commandments it's all about relationships, how to treat others with respect and love, and through that you feel how God loves, and learn to love and to live how He would want us to. i dont go to church, i find it hard to believe what people say, so this is a touchy subject for me, but it makes me feel so happy knowing there is someone who is real and can tell people it's cool to love God. :)
i dont know maybe rambling here :p sorry hehe :)

oh no.. you absolutely are right.. we preach so much that simply does not fit with "God is Love"- and we aresoterribly wrong.. and do so much damage.. Find a book called "The Ragamuffin Gospel" by Brendan Manning.. It changed my life.. I'll e-mail you a review I did..

You got that right about the love thing. You know I am not saying your better than all other preachers but I think you are more right than any I have came across. You know that it is ok to laugh as a Christian and you also are an unconditional friend here. I have not seen you judge not one. Some people take the Bible and twist it and condemn people and you do not. Thank you for being so right Pastor:)

I will never do what my Father will not.. we can, we MUST do better than this. I try Lana: It's my call.. I just weep at the stories I read.. so many Trudies...

I know you have felt moved to do this. Sometimes I read posts from people who do not know God, who do not WANT to know God and who don't want to hear about Him. I feel so sad and inadequate because so many of those people NEED God almost more than we do. God loves us so much it's impossible for us to understand it completely, but when you think about it, it should blow us away. You were right to remind us.

thank you Elaine.. sometimes I'm just impelled to speak up... Churches like the one Trudy left are why so many actively dislike Christianity.. my call seems to involve trying to repair the damage but it is wearisome work...

Love this post. It is all about God loving us so much. It is all about Him making the effort to have a relationship with us. He created us so that we would have a realtionship and we could come to him as a loving father, our provider, and our guiding light in the darkness.

When we take out the love relationship with God from our faith, then we take away the need for God to take on flesh as Jesus so that he could understand and sympathize with us. When you look at the lengths that god goes through to love us, how could we ever think it is about works or following a list of hard, cold rules. Obedience should come from the overflow of love, not the fear of being shunned by fellow believers.

May we all be mirrors and reflect God's love so people like Trudy who are weighted down by legalism my find freedom in a loving relationship with the Heavenly father.

Thanks so much for sharing.

Jenn

"obedience should come from the overflow of love.." yes.. so well put. understanding that truth sets us free.. and looking at Christ's words through the lens of love is the way to understanding.. hope all is well with you...

You're a good man, Mick.

I had the fan-f*ing-tastic idea of watching "The Exorcism of Emily Rose" alone in the dark in the middle of the g*d* night. Not sure how to take it since I've had a lot of that stuff happen.

Was taking a little break and came to your site and had to smile. Let's face it, most of the time it's not about epic battles with demons. Mostly it's the day-to-day stuff. Things like letting people know that there is somebody who cares about them, one force in the world that does not want to dominate but to provide guidance and care. A good spiritual guide, no matter where he hails from, should never neglect that.

Maybe you didn't wave a cross and yell phrases in Latin, maybe Trudy's eyes didn't roll up in her head and she didn't hiss at you... but you performed a spectacular service to her that night. You changed her life without special effects or Technicolor.

I hope so.. i truly do. and it's so damned ironic that the ones who would accuse her of being demon possessed are the ones who put it there.. I was accused in a phone call of being Satans tool today.. think I'll go down and mess with the thermostat. see if I can make Hell freeze over! did you get to meet Doug and Brad?

Didn't get to meet 'em yet-- dinner on Monday night though.

"Satan's tool." Really? Why would anyone say such a thing? I'm not exactly an expert but you don't seem like a member of the dark horde. They don't wear glasses, you know.

Cool! gonna post a poem about the incident.. these clowns don't like losing...

Finished up the movie... at the end it was just... very... sad. Especially compared with the real-life events. Poor Anneliese Michel. From a psychologist's perspective the poor girk was so sick.

If I were there... hm... never have told her "your faith is wrong," because that would have been a disaster. Her faith was the very foundation of her existence.

Throwing pills at the problem didn't do any good.

In my opinion, the girl needed a good therapist to sit down and just listen to her. Why did she feel the need to atone for everybody else's sins? Why this odd swinging from devotion to God to believing she was as far away from him as anyone could possibly get? Why not eat? Why the bizarre behaviors?

In my opinion (and this is counter to 90% of the psychologists in America) understanding the person is essential to understanding the behaviors-- not the other way around. The whole "we can look at behaviors to determine the mind" thing is very well and good with the sane. Then you have both pieces of the puzzle, so it's like having a cheat-sheet. With the mentally ill, suddenly the cheat-sheet disappears and you discover that the first piece (behavior) doesn't neccessarily tell you much about the second (mind) after all.

Anneliese Michel's actions were apparently senseless. To *us.* Not to her. If someone had bothered to LISTEN TO HER, to understand where she was coming from and what events were going on with her inner world, then her behaviors would not have seemed so strange.

Maybe the devil caused it, maybe it was schizophrenia. Since she's dead, they can fight about the "cause" until the cows come home. I don't know and I really don't care.

If someone is so very concerned about making a diagnosis, with matching the behaviors up with an abstract "cause," (whether it comes from the Bible or the DSM) he misses the person sitting there in front of him.

Anneliese's actions made sense to her. It's all about finding out about how her behaviors and problems relate to *her,* and the world *she* percieves. Once a therapist understood the way those things made sense to her, he could enter Anneliese Michel's world with her and pull her out of that terrifying loneliness and isolation. The first step in therapy and in being a pastor (do you agree?) is letting people know that they are not alone in a howling wilderness. Yes, things are bad. No, we can't wave a magic wand and make the problems go away. But they don't have to stand in isolation while everybody else argues about what "caused" it.

It's a lot more important to help the person standing before you.

Satan is such an easy scrapegoat.. it is much easier to blame something than to do the hard work of trying to understand how something that doesn't make sense does.. the human mind is incredibly complex.. we have less than no clue most times.. to say we do is hopeless overconfidence.. most Psychiatrists i know I wouldn't let anywhere near my head. and yes.. the only solid,if tenous connection we can make is to dissapate loneliness.. the people of the first century were probably closer than we are.. they saw demons.. we manufacture them. the demons caused by combat are the worst.. God help you exorcise them..

"... In my opinion (and this is counter to 90% of the psychologists in America) understanding the person is essential to understanding the behaviors-- not the other way around... "

Altho I am taking away from this post and ALL the comments so much more than just the above quote from your comment....

I want to mention ~ try being the 10% who believe we need to understand the person ..... sighs ~ I guess that statement just touched me becuz I fought tooth and nail for patients to be understood for who they were. And I feel like I failed..... well at least failed with the colleaques.

Anyway I was off topic.... and honestly I am taking away so much more from this entire post with comments.

there is never failure in trying to achieve the unreachable.. and I stand with Dreadnaught too. and I think opposed to 90% of psychologists.. and 99% of Psychiatrists.. is a good place to be.. thanks Kate.. your quiet wisdom is so welcome..

Well Mick have you noticed that there are a lot of preachers out there now who are watering down God's word... and they only say what many people want to hear and nothing more... A friend of mine over here went around to many churches to see what was been said, he was so supprised to hear nothing about love yes love. He went to about 6 other churches, and they were all much the same.

He said that my our church was so different, as we show and speak love.

God loves you
so do I
Raymond

yes.. most mainline churches are losing people because they get no spiritual food.. but they starve on the spiritual junkfood of fundamentalism.. is it any wonder they leave the table unfulfilled? we must give the the real gospel, real spiritual meat and potatoes.I'm glad your friend found your group.. and Trudy found mine..