Turning Point - official website: Blog

Today we say "See you later" to two friends who have not only helped TurningPoint out so many times in the past several years, but have also become great friends. Lou Oms has been playing Bass Guitar for the past 2 years or so with us and Traci Oms has played piano/keys for some of our shows as well. They bring with them a certain amount of professionalism and skill that has helped us to step up the quality of what we do.

This is also a double loss as Lou and Traci are key members our worship ministries at New Life Fellowship Church in Chapel Hill. We played the closing song for service on 9-27-08 and I think for all of us, it seemed like the final note of the song came way too fast as we slowed the song down for a final ritardando, no one wanting to resolve the final cadence. We would like to once again say thanks to Lou, Traci and now young Suzi for all they have given and dedicated to the TurningPoint music ministry. We wish them well as they move to Kentucky for new opportunities, ministries and adventures with gratitude for their service and with a bit of jealousy towards those who receive them.

Thanks a million Lou, Traci and Suzi,
God Bless,
TurningPoint

Have you ever wondered what the purpose of our life is? What happens if you don’t live up to what you are supposed to accomplish? What if you are a chemist but never succeed in making a great medicine or if you are a doctor but never bring someone back to life from the brink of death? What if you never finish your college degree or you never get that high paying job? See, we all want our live to be somehow significant. Filled with accomplishments and accolades. We want our lives to have purpose. Well, what kind of purpose? I have a very good friend who, in a nutshell, makes me look extremely normal. He is eccentric to say the least, spastic, INTENSE!!!, OCD at times but all in all a great person. So, every week at church he makes sure that every single person in the church is greeted with a handshake, hug and smile. Now what if he never gets the best job in the world or never becomes president, never raises a child to win a Nobel Prize? Well a great deal of his significance comes from how he touches peoples lives. BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY... the significance of his life is Gods problem. See, we have to realize that we need to just strive to do Gods will. Our true significance is in our relationship with Him (Philippians 3) and our significance on this earth is entirely for God to worry about, not us...NOT US. MAN!! Doesn’t that take a load off of your chest? Let God worry about the importance and significance of our lives.

I went to traffic court today as I do every so often when "the man" gets me for speeding. I had put it off several month loathing the day that I would fork over $125.00 to the state of N.C.

The first two times I went I had my case "continued" until the next available date. The second time I continued the case the District Attorney must have remembered me. You see, He was now the judge when I went back to court today. He asked me if I wanted a different judge since he was the D.A. on the last run of this traffic ticket. I said, "Im sure you are capeable sir"

It was kind of funny that the same man who wa once representing the State's case against me was now judging me. It reminded me very quickly of how much God loves us....

You see when we go before the judgement, Christ will not be the Prosecuting Attorney, but he will be the defense attorney. BUT, he will also be the judge! Wow! How much does God love us that he would send his Son to die for us, so that Christ could be the judge. How can you loose if the defense attorney and the judge are the same person?

Makes you realize how much God is willing to do for us and how important we are to Him.

It's no secret why some people don't want to be Christians. We as a community accept everyone into our fold but we often do not train out new brothers and sisters how to minister to others about who Christ is, or maybe some of us don’t really know who Christ is.

I went to the Casting Crowns concert last week in Raleigh. A very enjoyable Christian band. I would recommend them to anyone to see live. I went with two couples from church as my wife was out of town. While we were in line to get in the building this man who we had never seen before comes up to my friend and starts yelling at her..."Do you know for sure that if you died tonight that you would go to heaven"? My friend was startled by the man, as she replied..."Yep, I'm so there dude".
He continued to accost my friend by asking her why she thought that was so. She replied something to the effect of "Because I believe that Christ died for me". The man continued to harass her asking if she thought she was good enough to go to heaven. He then said that she did not have to be good enough to heaven. The man asked her something about what she was doing in her life. At this time my other friend’s husband, seeing that the girl was getting frustrated tried to give the guy an answer to make him go away. When that did not work I told him that the thief on the cross never changed his life and only said that he wanted Christ to remember him. He did not reply to my statement because it seemed to make too much sense to him and he babbled on more about things we did not care to hear from him.

I am truly glad that I did not invite one of my non-Christian friends to that concert. Because people as belligerent as that give all Christians a bad name. Why is it that we think we need to beat Christ down someones throat? Why do we not have enough faith in the Holy Spirit that He is capable of drawing all people to Him without us giving God a bad name?

I was coming back from a concert once when I got into a theological conversation with some members of a Christian Band. We started discussing our beliefs on a particular Bible subject when we came to a point of disagreement. Perhaps we should have left it alone at that point but we didn’t. So we began to ask questions like “how could you possibly believe something like that”. The conversation was still in good spirits when my companion started belittling my interpretation of the Biblical matter. He started laughing about it and gave it a slang name and kept repeating the slang name of my belief. The belief, or difference thereof at this point became unimportant and anything that the Holy Spirit might have tried to teach either of us was out the window.

I’ll tell you that even today I remember how that Christian made fun of what I believe. It is so true what my pastor says…that “it is scary that we are the only representation of Christ that some people will ever see”. We can very quickly justify all of the reasons why people don’t believe in Christianity in our actions. What a responsibility we have as professed Christians to know that we are the closest image of Christ that some people will ever see on this earth.

I’m sitting here writing this tune and the words are just kind of flying out of my head. Not sure exactly where this song is going but I know the thoughts I am trying to express.

See I have had something on my heart for the past year or two and it keeps getting stronger and stronger, the conviction I am getting. My conviction is this...

The church that we attend every week, is in essence a hospital for the spiritually "ill". Those who are "ill" have the best chance of getting better if they go to this "hospital" and soak up the healing. We want sick people to come and hopefully we can share in part of what God is doing in their life.

The funny thing is that some ill people come into our churches as we do, and the nurses...(church members) and doctors (church leadership) do not want to help because we don’t respect or appreciate the particular "illness" that someone is suffering from.

Let's talk simply. Why do we think that some people do not need to be in our churches? Why do we think that some peoples' sins are worse than ours? Why do we think that our sin is not so bad compared to that of "those people"?
My wife is presently serving at our church as the clerk, transferring memberships and the like, taking attendances and the like and sending the info to the state church conference. She was at a work weekend in the fall of '05 where all of the church clerks in the state come together for a day or two and learn new software for online transfers. She overheard one of the other clerks talking about a man, a non church member, who was participating in Bible studies and was requesting information about Baptism and joining the church and he was very excited about giving his life to God. The clerk was telling how that particular church wanted him to be baptized and become a member if only he would stop smoking...
....
.…
Yeah, that's what I said. So my wife can no longer hold her tongue and says, "so, Jesus accepts this man where he is but you do not? Thay's fine, you need to send him to our church in Chapel Hill N.C. we'll take him".

See these are the attitudes and misunderstandings we are facing. We have somehow come to the point where we think it is our job to convict people that what they are doing is wrong. We think that somehow we are supposed to be performing the job of the Holy Spirit. Isn't this absurd?

I don’t care if they are murderers, drug dealers, homosexuals, adulterers or what. They will fit right in to the church body with the rest of the proud, fornicating, abusing members, which fill our pews weekly. The only difference is that we as church members have “white collar” sins, pride, lustfulness, lying, abusive… and some of our non churched counterparts have more “blue collar” sins, alcoholism, drugs, smoking.

It makes me sick to my stomach that we think that we are any better, or even worse that these people don’t need Christ as much as we do. See if the church does not accept the sinner with open arms, the world sure will, and we know who is really in charge of this world.
Rainey B.

Spring is finaly here and the mornings are mildly warm while the days are not yet too hot. God is truely beautiful and amazing if we stop and look around for a bit. I had to do some work o­n my wifes car today so I went out and bought a set of "Craftsman" tools. It felt nice to have the best tools (for the common person at least). I have always had Kmart sockets or something cruddy like that and as I walked out of the store I was happy beacuse I would never have to buy these tools again. They were going to last forever. As I started using my new tools to do the automobile work I discovered that o­ne of the rachets were locked up and would not move at all. I took it back to Sears and they eagerly replaced it with no problem. As I drove home I started to recall how the Bible says not to store up treasure o­n the earth, but to store up treasure in heaven. Sometimes we get very consumed, even as Christians, with our "stuff". We think..."Craftsman is going to last forever". Sometimes we have to pause and remember that everything in this world will o­ne day be gone and the o­nly thing we will have is the treasures we have stored up in heaven.

It wasn’t until about 2 months ago that I even knew what the term “blog” meant. For those of you who dont understand yet, it is a cyber abbreviation of the term “web log”. Ok, now that the formalities are out of the way. I guess these letters o­n this Christian music web page are supposed to be about how much God is working in my life every moment. But I believe they will show the struggles of a person who is as common as they come. So if you are reading this for some type of inspiration, than it will o­nly be from God above and not from anything I try to write.

It is fall and the seasons are just beginning to change from that hot August sun to a milder climate here in Raleigh N.C. o­ne cool thing about God is that He always has something in store for us. I was at REI this evening and I saw a lady from my church whose house burned down last month. She and her family escaped unscathed but they lost everything. She told me that o­ne of her sons was graduating this year and she lost all of his baby pictures. She wanted to make a collage or slide show but it was all gone. It is weird how God works in our lives. Many times we don’t understand what he is doing in His grand scheme but He uses things like this to give us the opportunity to witness His Character to others and as paradoxical as it may sound, suffrage it is a privilege.