[The Lemon]

I have to admit, on this forum and in life, I have had the tendancy at times to focus more on the negatives, and it is certainly not productive. In fact just thinking abut it makes me want to repent! It is, in my opinion, human nature to focus on the negative, although that is not an excuse.

Sitting here and pondering the subject of this thread, I can't help but think that organization is not the root problem, in many cases it is the religious aspect that spawns the issues and the burnout. If we are supposed to keep the gift stirred in our lives on a personal level, how much more should we be changing and moving in the natural so that life with God is fresh and new as much as possible.

Let's face it, we are all different, but if as a church body, we could somehow embrace the diversity, and if uniformity could be squashed, I think we may not only be more tolerant of differences, but we would also function in more harmony with grace.

I was talking with my wife and I was thinking about the scripture on not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together. My thought to her was, where does it go on to list how many "services" we are supposed to have in a week or month? There is no time line or hard fast rule in gathering - we, as humans have made the rule every Sunday, Sunday Night, or Wed. evening. Could it mean a forsaking in the heart which leads to the attitude and action of never assembling, or does it literally mean every time the doors are open?

When you sit and really think about the way we sometimes do things, and the justification we use, it does not always show up in the Word, and maybe that is part of the issue..