The Firehouse Church

There are the two main jobs that I held before surrendering my life to Jesus.  The Vineyard and the Firehouse. I was a project manager for a vineyard management company in the Sierras of California for many years and later I would go on to become a firefighter in some of the most rugged and dense wildland urban interfaces in California, and I absolutely loved both of these jobs. It is an odd thing to peer back into time and gaze over a life that I somehow know and have detailed memories of but at the same time seems so foreign because I am not the same person that I once was. I'm not. That person does not really exist any longer because he was put to death and he has been made new.  But at the same time as I look back I now see that Jesus was with me the whole time and there are things that I put my hands to and were drawn to that would prepare me for the moment I'm in right now.  And God does not waste anything. So one morning as I was sitting with Him, He began to take me on a journey back and show me amazing things about my time in the vineyard and my time at the firehouse and how they correlate with his word and the Kingdom. So as I sat with the Lord on this particular morning He was speaking to my heart and this is what I wrote pertaining to the Firehouse.

The Firehouse is a house where men and women live, eat, sleep, train, learn, and lay down their lives for those in their community.  They are on mission and are willing to pay the ultimate price to lay down their lives to save others physically.  They are willing to respond to others needs at a moments notice no matter what time it may be and no matter what the circumstance. They are in essence living sacrifices. The Firehouse and those that live in it are connected by a common purpose and live by certain codes: Honor, loyalty, integrity, trust, commitment to mission, excellence, service, and brotherhood and sisterhood.  Some traits associated with firefighters: they are physically fit, good at communication, they are flexible and adaptable, dedicated, team players, tolerant, understanding, compassionate, and they have a desire to train and teach others,  They are stewards, and they offer up their lives as an offering.  They are living sacrifices.
We all cooked together, ate together, laughed together, cried together, and mourned together. Everything we did we did  together.  Our engines, equipment, tools, and station were not ours but we were stewards of them and we took great pride and honor in stewarding those things well.  We knew each other so well all we had to do was look at one another and we knew what  the other one needed. We consistently trained and equipped others by studying, training and then actually doing ,

I  could go on and on and there is so much more to be expressed and learned here,  but maybe this will get us thinking a little about how something of the world that is not centered on Jesus could quite possibly resemble so much more of the kingdom and align with Gods word than what we see in what we call churches or the church today.  Lord I pray for a Firehouse Church to arise that would be prepared for the days that lay ahead.  I believe these type of communities will be required for those days.  

Maranatha.