One word.

A tremendous amount of power and significance behind it.

The last few weeks I've not had much TIME to do anything more than work, study, work some more, and try to find TIME for family in there somewhere.  As the weeks of my studies drew to a close, TIME became more and more of a precious commodity because I seemed to have less and less TIME to get anything critically important done.  All things worked out though.  Barely.

March 14th was my daughter's ten-year-old birthday.  Every year on each of my daughter's birthdays, starting back when they were five years old, I began taking them out for an all-day father-daughter date.  Not this year.  I finally did get around to taking my oldest out on that father-daughter date - over two months later.  There just wasn't enough TIME on her birthday.  Maybe things didn't work out so well after all.

We had fun, but she noticed the difference.  She had counted the days.  She had counted the TIME that had elapsed between when we were supposed to go out on the date, and the day we actually went.

Its my fault.  I had no idea the classes would be so taxing.  Working a full-TIME job and trying to hold onto a part-TIME job to make ends meet certainly strained any free TIME as well because of my class load.  Seems to be an all-too common complaint.  I just don't seem to have enough TIME.

While talking with my daughter over some serious issues, one of the things that came up is TIME.  She can tend to get frustrated with her younger sister.  My youngest seems to pick the wrong TIME to want to be around my oldest who really would like to have some TIME to herself.  That's when I told her, what her younger sister really wants from her is some TIME.

When someone calls your name, they are asking for your TIME.  When someone calls you on the phone, they are asking for your TIME.  When you get an email, a letter, or someone tries to get your attention, what they are asking you for is your TIME.  It is up to you to chose whether or not to give some TIME to them or not. 

Some people take our TIME without asking and we can get frustrated with them.  The person who seems to never stop talking, the car that sits on a green light, the lines we wait in, the constant grab of advertising, all are trying to wrest from us what we really do not wish to give in those moments . . . our TIME.

TIME, it turns out, happens to be one of the most precious things you can give - if you really give it.  When we truly give someone our TIME, we slow down for them, turn to face them, actively listen and engage them, and give them our full attention.  The gift of TIME is a wonderful thing when given freely.  When you give the gift of TIME, you are telling someone that your TIME now belongs to them to use in any way they wish.  Because it is theirs, they can do anything they want with it, and giving your TIME to them communicates that they are important to you.  Not giving your TIME can communicate the opposite as well.  TIME is a powerful thing that way.

Who gets your TIME?  If you were at the end of your life, is there anything, or anyone you might wish you had not given your TIME?  Are there any blocks of TIME wasted, spent, or otherwise given to people or things that really did not matter?  What would you do if you could get that TIME back?

Alas, you cannot get TIME back.  You only have whatever TIME you have left. 

TIME, you see, is very limited.

What do you think of when you hear someone talk about church?  I'm sure there are those reading this that will say a local church is a local body of believers and part of the larger church which is the bride of Christ.  This is true, but is it really what you think of when someone else is talking about church?  I mean, really?!?!

I always hear people talking about going to church, as in the building.  There are activities at church, services at church, weddings at church, and worship at church.  For all those people talking about church, there seems to be a whole lot more talk about a building than a living organism.

When I was growing up, I was pretty much taught the same way.  "Church is people, not a building," was heard from the pulpit, and then a new building fund would be launched to build, well, a church (building).  So, like many people I went to church (building) with, I called all my fellow-believers my brothers and sisters in Christ and claimed them all as part of a larger family.  Only problem was that I usually only saw this family on Sunday, they always dressed in their nicest clothes, and we went through this kind of ritualistic greeting time before the service, a shaking hands ritual called "time of fellowship" at some point during the service, and after the service my church family would usually politely say goodbye as they headed for the nearest exit.

Outside of this building called church, it seemed what was supposed to be my church family blended away seamlessly into the world, and became so diluted you never heard or saw from them again until the next service.  Oh, each service they were plenty happy to see you, smile, shake your hand, engage you during the official time of fellowship, and then politely say goodbye.  Each service, three times a week, this could be repeated in case you did not get a good enough dose of church at any of the other services.  There are also lots of unspoken rules I'm not even about to get into.  Suffice it to say, a lot of people are putting a lot of stake into those rules.  If you think differently, by the way, you'd better not mention it because otherwise you're just causing trouble trying to change things.

While I know some reading this will say "Not at MY church!" the truth is, I believe this church experience is exactly like this for most people who walk in from the world outside church doors.  All of last year my family visited around to many churches in my area.  The pattern seemed to repeat itself everywhere.  People gathering in a building smiling and greeting each other, singing songs, time of fellowship, service, polite goodbyes, and then (poof) everyone left.  For each successive service, simply rewind and repeat.  For all the differences churches like to promote about themselves, they are quite surprisingly very much the same as all the churches they say they are different from.  Anyone who could stick around long enough to figure out this pattern could become an excellent church member in good standing in no time at all!

There was one exception, and it redefined what church meant to me.

When we first started going to this church, we were asked to simply give them a chance to get to know us, for us to get to know them, and to make an effort to attend for six Sundays to help accomplish this.  We agreed.

In those six weeks, we did get to know some people there, and some of them came to know us.  While we were not ready to commit to anything right away, something felt distinctly different.  I felt like these people really cared.  Fast forward to the beginning of this year, and as my wife and I talked about all the different churches we had visited, that one church kept coming into my mind.  I wanted to go back to see how they were doing, like checking up on an old friend I had not seen for some time.  We did.  Then we went back again a couple of weeks later.  After a few more weeks, I felt I simply could not go anywhere else and feel like I was going to a building where people met.  I had found a real church, and this Sunday, my family became members of a body of believers known as Redeemer Church in Oxford, AL.

This was no small decision on my part.  I had determined to either find a real church, or not go to any church and simply start one myself.  I had become so frustrated with what church had become, I could not tolerate it any longer when I knew what it could be.  What it is supposed to be.  What God created it to be. 

I am glad my family has a church home now.  We will meet in a building, but it is very obvious to anyone who visits here that Redeemer Church is not a building, nor will it ever be.  The focus of Redeemer Church is, and I believe it will always be, on the glory of God and the joy of all people - not just the ones who walk through its doors, but those far beyond the walls of whatever building they will meet in.

They do not say they care about people.  They simply care about people, and their actions speak louder than words.

So, really think about that question I started with.  What do you think of when people around you start talking about church?  If you get a picture of a building in your mind, maybe you need to start looking for a real church.

You can have some pretty interesting conversations with kids as they can come up with some pretty interesting questions out of the blue.  Just such a conversation happened earlier this week with my oldest daughter.

During our little talk,  I asked her to imagine what would happen if an unbreakable chain was suddenly formed between the earth (presumably nearest the equator) and the moon.  Her little mind raced with different thoughts, none of them good for the planet earth, and we finally concluded that anyone who lived long enough to survive the catastrophic events in the immediate term would certainly be doomed within 10 hours as the coil of chain reeled in the moon until it collided with the planet.

"That could never really happen though," she informed me.  I smiled.  "That's what you call a thought experiment.  It makes things interesting and can lead you to think in different ways about the things around you."

She asked for another one, and so I asked her to imagine what it would be like to have a million dollars, but you couldn't spend any of it.

She talked about all the things she could buy with a million dollars, but I had to keep reminding her that she couldn't spend any of the money.  If she had a million dollars, but couldn't spend even one penny of it, how would her life be different than it was right now?  She puzzled it over, but she never could let go of the thought of actually having money you could not spend.  I reminded her again, that this too was only a thought experiment, and that the value of something that was never to be used was equal to the value of nothing at all.

I also told her that people who wish for a million dollars are not really wishing for a million dollars just to have a million dollars sitting around.  There is something they want to do with that million dollars; something they want to change about their life.  What they want to change is the real reason they want a million dollars, and they think having that money to spend will allow them to change something that they see as a problem in their life.

We talked some more, but my own mind began to wander.  As I listened to my daughter, I thought about all the things in the past that brought her into my life.  How many different scenarios could have played out, different choices with different outcomes, and that I would trade none of them with the moment I was sharing right then.  I look back on my own life, and I can see that by any standard I had it rough growing up.  Without getting into details, I can say there are very few people who would wish to trade places with me if they knew everything about how I grew up.

In my own little thought experiment, I sometimes wonder what if . . .

What if this had been different, what if that choice had been made instead, what if I went here instead of there, and on and on the "what ifs" go.  The reality is that I am here now because of all that has been.  As the conversation winds down, it occurs to me that it is not the "what ifs" in life that really matter.  Those "what if" moments in your past are like a million dollars you can never spend.

You cannot count on "what if" to change your life as it is right now, nor can you blame "what if" to change your past.  I look back and see that many people in similar circumstances in life never seemed to be able to break out beyond the thought experiment of "what if", as they continue to blame the past for everything that happens in their life today and in the future.

What matters now are not the "what ifs" of the past, but the concrete decisions you make to ensure real change moving forward from here.