A Right View of God's Good Gift

DATE: 12:41 AM
Dear Mr. Joshua, I troubled about something. I know that church needs to be a plcae where the whole Word of God is preached continuallty and it also needs to be a place where people come together to worship God and to passionately seek His presence. However, Do you think that churches also need to seek be multicultural? When I say multicultural, I mean displaying different styles of worship and reaching out/intentionally seeking to relate to people of all backgrounds/cultures. The reason why I was writing was because it seems that the majority of churches are segrated (i.e all the blacks go to black churches and all of the whites go to white churches) and not alot of churches seem to be making an effort to reach people of all backgrounds. Please don't take me the wrong way. I know that the main things that should be happening at church are the teaching of the whole word of God and a passionate pursuit of His presence. However, it can honestly still feel difficult to adjust when it seems as if you're the only person in the room representing your culture (I'm black by the way). Though you're in a church where the Word is being preached, it can seem at times as if there's no real effort being put out to understand someone outside of the background that you were raised in. At times, when I've asked people as to why they're okay with churches being segrated or only having one style of worship (i.e.singing hymns or spiritual songs or contemporary/gospel music), the main answer that I keep getting is "That's what we're most comfortable with and God is cool with it..does it really matter as long as we're serving God?" Some people say that it would be nice if church was multi-cultural, but that's not realistic and it'll never happen. It seems as if many in the church are trying to stay in a comfort zone of what is familar. There are many things in church that I'm not comfortable with but I have to adjust to. For example, going to a church where people do one style of worship and the church is one majority of people can be uncomfortable when you're not used to it but I have to get used to it anyway. Howvever, to have the majortiy never really seeming to be diverse and to relate to others who may be a minority doesn't really seem right. I know that church needs to be a place where people's hearts should be for worship of the Lord first, but I've always had the impression that we should seek to reach out to people of all cultures and worship on earth as we'll worship in heaven. You know, I always thought that the church needs to intentionally find out about how to minister/relate to people from different cultures instead of having someone in the minority simply comform to people in the majority want and are used to. Alot of times, whenever my youth group has worship, it can honsetly get annoying because the same songs are being sung and, whenever someone wants to try something different, veryone puts the idea down and claims "Worship is Worship, so what does it matter?".In heaven, it's going to be all kinds of styles of worship and people from every tribe and tounge together glorifying God is so many different ways. Should'nt the church be seeking to immitate that here? Mabye I'm off..If you have the time, would you please share your thoughts on the subject with me? What's your view? Would you please help me out on this one? -Gabriel

DATE: 1:30 AM
Dear Mr.Joshua, I thought that the comment that you've gave on seeing sex the way God sees it was so cool and right on time. It's real easy to know what's true and yet still feel the wrong way about it. By the way, I just wanted to write to tell you that I appreciate you and all of the work that, by the grace of God of course, you've been able to accomplish. The book "Not Even a Hint" has been one of the biggest blessings to me in my battle for lust. Alot of books that I've read seem to deal with the symptoms of sexual sin while never really dealing with the disease/source of the issue, which is the heart of man. I really enjoyed and appreciated how you sought to discuss w the issues that people struggle with while also showing what causes those problems and giving practical solutions on how to deal with those issues. Most of all, it was so sweet seeing how the book always brough the focus on KIng Jesus and how true victory is only found through what he did on the cross. Not alot books deal with that. Thanks for doing so. Truly, You KEEPS IT REAL!!! Anyhow, I was wondering. How long does it take to truly get over lust in one's life. The information in your book and, above all else, the Word Of God have been helping me to deal with lust and to avoid it. However,doesn't the Word say that we should be dead to sin and alive to righteousness (Romans 6)? When you're dead to something, you're no longer alive to it and it has no hold over you nor can it truly tempt you anymore. Do you think there can ever be a point in a persons' life when lust no longer is an issue? It can be discouraging when you've read all the books in the world on how to be free of sin and yet still feel as if your sin is there and not ever going to go away. I understand that we have a flesh to deal with and that our flesh will always war against what the Spirit of God wants (Gal 5:16-25), but isn't there a point when an issue is no longer and issue and you're able to be free of it? Is total victory possible? What do you think? Anyhow, again thank you for the information that you've given. Most of all, thank you for allowing God to use/speak through you and for being willing to keep it real...that is, looking at life the way God sees it since that is what truly real! Much Love, Sir. Later....