Our country is burning
"Halleleujah"
Our people on fire
"Sing it again"
Mothers & children hacked
"Fill me up Lord"
Eating from the bags we throw our children's nappies into
"Preach it pastor"
Sleeping in sewers
"More love"
Clothed in tatters
"More power"
No shelter no justice
"More of you in my life"
Our own flesh & blood
"And I will worship you"
The image of God
"With all of my heart"
Treated worse than our pets
"And I will worship you"
The body of Christ
"Will all of my mind"
Disconnected "
"And I will worship you"
Wild animals & strays
"With all of my strength"
Have it easier
"You are my Lord"
They say that the gospel is good news
"Love the Lord your God ..."
Good news for who?
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
An Evangelical imperative in the Emergent debate.
A pastor friend of mine, David Lock, recently published an article in the Baptist Today explaining why he appreciates some aspects of the Emergent movement (http://gonubielocks.blogspot.com/2008/02/i-recently-wrote-article-for-baptists.html). The article was published alongside a critical piece against the Emergent movement by Tim Cantrell (http://www.honeyridge.co.za/node/148). The thrust of these articles can be read by clicking through the above links.
Dave’s article was gentle, balanced, well considered and non-abrasive. Dave can be critical, he is an intelligent person who can argue very well. But he does so in ways that do not resort to name calling, reductionism, labelling, witch hunting, judgementalism or quoting authors out of context. Not that I’m saying that Tim has, but you why don’t you decide for yourself. Dave it seems understands the Evangelical Imperative and Baptist Principle of Religious Liberty.
“No individual should be coerced either by the State or by any secular, ecclesiastical or religious group in matters of faith. The right of private conscience is to be respected. For each believer this means the right to interpret Scriptures responsibly and to act in the light of his conscience”.
Therefore he does not judge other Christians with different views to his own; he respects their views and if he has something to say about them he does so in ways commensurate with the deep and generous conciliatory harmonies of the victory of Jesus rising from his argument. Brian McLaren, in a review of Scot McKnight’s “A Community Called Atonement”, says this of Scot:
McKnight isn’t advocating a mushy “let’s all get along” evasion of the issues, which are many and important. But he is seeking to practice what we preach whenever we preach atonement: that God calls us to reconcile with God, ourselves, one another, and all creation. That means that the way we treat one another when we disagree about atonement can’t be separated from what we preach when we preach atonement. Theory and praxis are profoundly inseparable. This conviction helps explain why people with whom I imagine McKnight disagrees are treated in these pages gently, respectfully. McKnight prefers to “catch people being right” over exposing where he thinks they’re wrong, and thus seeks to build a community of atonement through his manner of addressing the issue. Normal academic discourse does not require this irenic tone, but in keeping with his theme, McKnight is seeking to follow a higher standard (http://www.jesuscreed.org/?p=2744).
This is pretty much how Dave conducts himself. Those sympathetic to the Emergent Movement value debate but let’s do so in “patience, kindness, gentleness and self control”. This is hard to do and I don’t always get it right but we must consciously try.
“By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35) (ESV).
Dave’s article was gentle, balanced, well considered and non-abrasive. Dave can be critical, he is an intelligent person who can argue very well. But he does so in ways that do not resort to name calling, reductionism, labelling, witch hunting, judgementalism or quoting authors out of context. Not that I’m saying that Tim has, but you why don’t you decide for yourself. Dave it seems understands the Evangelical Imperative and Baptist Principle of Religious Liberty.
“No individual should be coerced either by the State or by any secular, ecclesiastical or religious group in matters of faith. The right of private conscience is to be respected. For each believer this means the right to interpret Scriptures responsibly and to act in the light of his conscience”.
Therefore he does not judge other Christians with different views to his own; he respects their views and if he has something to say about them he does so in ways commensurate with the deep and generous conciliatory harmonies of the victory of Jesus rising from his argument. Brian McLaren, in a review of Scot McKnight’s “A Community Called Atonement”, says this of Scot:
McKnight isn’t advocating a mushy “let’s all get along” evasion of the issues, which are many and important. But he is seeking to practice what we preach whenever we preach atonement: that God calls us to reconcile with God, ourselves, one another, and all creation. That means that the way we treat one another when we disagree about atonement can’t be separated from what we preach when we preach atonement. Theory and praxis are profoundly inseparable. This conviction helps explain why people with whom I imagine McKnight disagrees are treated in these pages gently, respectfully. McKnight prefers to “catch people being right” over exposing where he thinks they’re wrong, and thus seeks to build a community of atonement through his manner of addressing the issue. Normal academic discourse does not require this irenic tone, but in keeping with his theme, McKnight is seeking to follow a higher standard (http://www.jesuscreed.org/?p=2744).
This is pretty much how Dave conducts himself. Those sympathetic to the Emergent Movement value debate but let’s do so in “patience, kindness, gentleness and self control”. This is hard to do and I don’t always get it right but we must consciously try.
“By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35) (ESV).
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Walking in Memphis
This past week our church hosted and did joint mission with a team of North Americans from Germantown Baptist Church, Memphis Tennessee.
The team visited schools and taught life skills, travelled to prison and to convalescent homes, went to townships and tested eyes for reading glasses and taught youngsters about dental hygiene and ministered in our church and small groups.
The fruit of this visit was the establishment of a love relationship between our church and a few Southern Baptists of all people. But more than this over 50 first time commitments to Christ were observed. What impressed me most was the way in which the gospel was shared. Pastor Rob Mullins and Pastor John Longworth simply and gently told their own stories. There were no hard-sell fire insurance sales pitches, no Bible thumping and no coercion. The message these men shared and the way in which they shared it was so tender and vulnerable that anyone could have laughed it off, disproved it or ridiculed them. Their presentations were not dynamic, powerful and convincing. They were flawed, full of holes and easy to ignore. And yet when they asked if anyone would like to respond at every venue a significant number of people did.
I was struck dumb by two things. Firstly, that whether at a school or a prison or a Friday night youth meeting, when God calls someone into relationship with himself there must be allowance for awkwardness. If you can’t take your stand in these situations where can you and where will you? Those who responded were not ashamed of Jesus, not ashamed of the Gospel and not ashamed of themselves. Secondly, the power of the gospel has nothing to do with the way in which it is presented or who presents it. It is a work of the Holy Spirit and is therefore not dependant on eloquence and bling.
I have never seen something so ordinary and at the same time so extraordinary. But then again I obviously have a short memory for Scripture.
“And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty
speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.
And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were
not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might
not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God” (1 Cor 2:1-5) (ESV).
The team visited schools and taught life skills, travelled to prison and to convalescent homes, went to townships and tested eyes for reading glasses and taught youngsters about dental hygiene and ministered in our church and small groups.
The fruit of this visit was the establishment of a love relationship between our church and a few Southern Baptists of all people. But more than this over 50 first time commitments to Christ were observed. What impressed me most was the way in which the gospel was shared. Pastor Rob Mullins and Pastor John Longworth simply and gently told their own stories. There were no hard-sell fire insurance sales pitches, no Bible thumping and no coercion. The message these men shared and the way in which they shared it was so tender and vulnerable that anyone could have laughed it off, disproved it or ridiculed them. Their presentations were not dynamic, powerful and convincing. They were flawed, full of holes and easy to ignore. And yet when they asked if anyone would like to respond at every venue a significant number of people did.
I was struck dumb by two things. Firstly, that whether at a school or a prison or a Friday night youth meeting, when God calls someone into relationship with himself there must be allowance for awkwardness. If you can’t take your stand in these situations where can you and where will you? Those who responded were not ashamed of Jesus, not ashamed of the Gospel and not ashamed of themselves. Secondly, the power of the gospel has nothing to do with the way in which it is presented or who presents it. It is a work of the Holy Spirit and is therefore not dependant on eloquence and bling.
I have never seen something so ordinary and at the same time so extraordinary. But then again I obviously have a short memory for Scripture.
“And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty
speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.
And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were
not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith might
not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God” (1 Cor 2:1-5) (ESV).
Saturday, March 8, 2008
Living between three worlds
I am a pastor in a Baptist church. Every day I interact with people, Scripture and God. The people I live with in my world are not all from my world. The Bible was written for a world so far removed it feels like fairytale and yet its own claims about itself are that in some marvelous way it has been written for my world too. God is both very real and a mystery and although he lived in this world once he doesn't anymore, well not in human form anyway.
The people who live in my nearest community are made up of such differing generations that it can be said that they are from another time. There are normally around four to six such groupings (generations) in any normal family oriented Christian community. Just the people within this small, so-called homogeneous grouping, think differently, have different values and live their lives differently from one another. The place from which they come in this world profoundly affects the way they do everything; including the way they relate to other people, the Bible and to God. See http://www.futurechurch.co.za/item/generations-church/category/youth-and-culture for an excellent article in this regard. What about people in other parts of the country from other racial and cultural traditions than mine, what about communities living in China?
The Bible is a collection of God-inspired writings spanning thousands of years, written by a myriad of different authors and edited by many different editors. What is more many books of the Bible are written in styles that are unfamiliar to us. The one very well known style is that of story (narrative), another is that of letter (epistle). But what about poetry, wisdom, apocalyptic and history. What about literary devices like exaggeration, pathos, parallelism, comedy, foil, simile, and metaphor. And how did someone who lived as a Middle-Eastern nomadic farmer use these writing devices and for that matter how did that kind of a person live and think. What symbols and values were important to such an ancient, foreign people. How did all these things influence the way they wrote Scripture. And how would the people in my community interpret these writings from their worldviews. Is the disciplined work of interpretation even necessary?
The God we worship as one is actually three, but really only one. Before anything, before the big bang and before any matter or elements God existed. God is not human but he can communicate with humans and vice versa since we believe we are made by him. He is not male, neither is she female. God is not defined by gender because God does not have a body. He is simply called he because the world up until very recently and is still sadly a very chauvinistic and male centred world. God did however become a man once, 2000 years ago. She became a Jewish man of all things. She became a man because she was born into a world where a man's testimony was infinitely more acceptable than a woman's. He is no longer around in body but in Spirit, dwelling inside us, leading us into all truth. The Holy Spirit is a whole other world inside me and inside you. Perhaps the Holy Spirit is the most important of all these worlds. She is God after all, together with Father & Son.
So with these three not always so crystal clear worlds we live in and that indwell us we are called to live. To live with God and Scripture and people. We are all on a journey in the same direction and have to find some common ground to hold us together as we go. This is life in the same old new. Millions have worked out their salvation in "fear and trembling" before us (Phil 2:12). Now is our time.
This blog is firstly an outlet for my thoughts as I travel together with the frustrating and rewarding trinity of God, Scripture and us. But it is also a forum for your thoughts if you would like to share them.
Only, acknowledging the enormity of the task lets agree to have proper humility and respect for one another and for those who have gone before us.
The people who live in my nearest community are made up of such differing generations that it can be said that they are from another time. There are normally around four to six such groupings (generations) in any normal family oriented Christian community. Just the people within this small, so-called homogeneous grouping, think differently, have different values and live their lives differently from one another. The place from which they come in this world profoundly affects the way they do everything; including the way they relate to other people, the Bible and to God. See http://www.futurechurch.co.za/item/generations-church/category/youth-and-culture for an excellent article in this regard. What about people in other parts of the country from other racial and cultural traditions than mine, what about communities living in China?
The Bible is a collection of God-inspired writings spanning thousands of years, written by a myriad of different authors and edited by many different editors. What is more many books of the Bible are written in styles that are unfamiliar to us. The one very well known style is that of story (narrative), another is that of letter (epistle). But what about poetry, wisdom, apocalyptic and history. What about literary devices like exaggeration, pathos, parallelism, comedy, foil, simile, and metaphor. And how did someone who lived as a Middle-Eastern nomadic farmer use these writing devices and for that matter how did that kind of a person live and think. What symbols and values were important to such an ancient, foreign people. How did all these things influence the way they wrote Scripture. And how would the people in my community interpret these writings from their worldviews. Is the disciplined work of interpretation even necessary?
The God we worship as one is actually three, but really only one. Before anything, before the big bang and before any matter or elements God existed. God is not human but he can communicate with humans and vice versa since we believe we are made by him. He is not male, neither is she female. God is not defined by gender because God does not have a body. He is simply called he because the world up until very recently and is still sadly a very chauvinistic and male centred world. God did however become a man once, 2000 years ago. She became a Jewish man of all things. She became a man because she was born into a world where a man's testimony was infinitely more acceptable than a woman's. He is no longer around in body but in Spirit, dwelling inside us, leading us into all truth. The Holy Spirit is a whole other world inside me and inside you. Perhaps the Holy Spirit is the most important of all these worlds. She is God after all, together with Father & Son.
So with these three not always so crystal clear worlds we live in and that indwell us we are called to live. To live with God and Scripture and people. We are all on a journey in the same direction and have to find some common ground to hold us together as we go. This is life in the same old new. Millions have worked out their salvation in "fear and trembling" before us (Phil 2:12). Now is our time.
This blog is firstly an outlet for my thoughts as I travel together with the frustrating and rewarding trinity of God, Scripture and us. But it is also a forum for your thoughts if you would like to share them.
Only, acknowledging the enormity of the task lets agree to have proper humility and respect for one another and for those who have gone before us.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
