We wrestle not against Flesh and Blood . . .

These past couple weeks, I have been thinking about spiritual warfare. They have been some hard weeks - can you tell?

I lead some things in Pearland - The on Campus Christian Club Booster club, the Pearland Youth Ministry Alliance, See you at the Pole and Saw you at the Pole and Baccalaureate. They are all things, where people from various churches come together. I convince people to work together, in the community and out from the church walls.

I see it as simple. Necessary. Part of being the Body of Christ. An expression of Christ's Love. Just simply bringing Christians together from various churches to work together. Does that sound like a warfare strategy?

I don't always see it as an open attack on Satan's turf.

And then, stuff starts happening. In August 09, I coordinated a meeting between the on campus Christian Club sponsors and the local youth pastors. Just a way to help the sponsors meet the youth pastors and hopefully develop some connections for speakers for their clubs.

Does this sound like warfare?

3 of the 4 club sponsors had last minute conflicts and couldn't show up.

The day of the meeting, I personally walked out to a car with a flat tire.

As I walked out to the car, I was aware my home AC was not working right.

The host church got mad because the room wasn't reserved thru proper channels.

Does it sound like there was serious opposition to this meeting now?

Example number 2: Baccalaureate - another name for Spiritual warfare.

Since 1999, I have chaired the Baccalaureate Committee. Once again, convincing people from multiple churches to work together to provide a wonderful Baccalaureate Service for our graduates.

Does this sound like warfare?

Every year, there is some kind of opposition. It is unbelievable. The pastors argue. One church gets mad because I didn't audition their youth band. (I didn't know they had a youth band!) The school totally changes the rules 10 days before Baccalaureate. The school sends us a rental bill - 2 days after Baccalaureate, after they had agreed to let us use the space for free.

Last year, I was begging people to attend. I was begging people to bring cookies! It was like I was hosting the event no one cared about.

This year, unknown to me, there was a independent youth pastor group planning Baccalaureate . . . Some of them were meeting with the Baccalaureate Committee, but we didn't know about the additional meetings until we were at our second meeting.

There aren't words to describe how stressful this all was.

But there is a word that describes it: Warfare. Spiritual Warfare.

And the enemy doesn't fight fair.