Guest Post: Tyler Giesel
Tyler Giesel is our pastoral assistant at The Creek. I also count him as a friend. I asked Tyler to write about what he has learned since coming to The Creek. Initially, I was concerned that it may be a really short blog post. However, I think you will find his insights enjoyable. You can check out his other writing here.
My wife and I have been attending The Creek for just over a year and half and we have never looked back. There are so many things that people search for in a church. Music, Lighting, Small Groups, among other things. What gets left out most of the time is searching for God’s Word.
People tend to deny the affect that culture has on them when they are looking for a church. What I mean by that is that we live in culture that is completely inundated with shopping. Completely consumed with the next best thing. This isn’t always a bad thing, the newest thing tends to make life easier. Whether it be the new Kitchen Maid Mixer Deluxe 5000 or the new Samsung iGalaxy 7s (see what I did there…), life tends to be more convenient with the latest thing.
The negative thing is that the relationship between you and God isn’t always convenient. In fact, our sanctification (when we become more like Christ) is hardly ever convenient or comfy. God works in ways that are contrary to what the world would think he would work (1 Corinthians 2). And one of the ways that God can work in a way that may seem to be counterintuitively is through pain and suffering.
The Word of God is sharper than any two edged sword (Hebrews 4:12). It pierces. It hurts. When God confronts our sin through the Bible then many times we run. We think that God is going to punish us and if you haven’t placed your faith in the sacrificial work of Christ on the cross as he bore your sins for free then that is true. However, God confronts those who are his children not to punish them, but rather to bring them near to himself. The punishment is gone for those who have trusted Christ to absolve their sins.
So to bring it back to The Creek and the Word of God. When my wife and I visited the church we decided that it was going to be based on God’s Word and not preferences. When we came we noticed that Scripture was intertwined into everything. The singing, the preaching, the counseling. It was all centered around God’s infallible, inerrant Word. And that’s the way it should be. You want God to speak to you? He has! The bible is a collection of God’s Words preserved for you and me today.