Overflowing generosity and goodness...

As a Christian I want to care about the defenseless and vulnerable in society. I want to speak up against the injustices we see and seek after mercy for those in need. As a Church family I hope we would take the lead in supporting ventures that seek to love and show compassion.

Our Father God has loved us with an everlasting love. He loves us at our worst. He shows us mercy at our worst. No conditions. No strings attached. It should be our prayer to love like he does. To show compassion like he does.

We are having a Christmas Market at Church by the Bridge in a weekends time, where we are selling Fair Trade goods and I have been thinking more and more about why I want to do it. I don't want people to think we run these stalls simply as a bait and switch tactic to get our community to like the gospel. We want to speak up for those who are vulnerable and in this case those who are voiceless in the global market and susceptible to exploitation. We hope to promote Fair Trade and lead our local community to think about our individual purchasing choices and the impact that can have on others.

I hope and pray also that our initiative might open the door to conversations and diaglogue with our local community, as we share with them our motivation to support Fair Trade and other good deeds. (See Titus 2:14, Ephesians 2:10 and Matthew 5…) We should want to adorn the gospel of God with deeds of love and justice that many might see the kindness of God in us and be drawn to a Saviour who can so fully satisfy the hearts of his people that this overflows in generosity and goodness to others. (1 Peter 2:12)


www.tribesandnations.com.au
www.fairtrade.com.au

Important Events...

What would you consider to be some of the more important local, national and world events?

eg. Olympics, Christmas, World's Biggest Morning Tea, Big Day Out, National Sorry Day, World Cup, World Smile Day... etc!

God and Art...

Replenish 08 is coming up in July - 4 week training term for CBTB.

As previously mentioned on my blog, I am creating and running a course on God and Art, with a couple from morning church.

We came up with the 4 weeks and it's content the other week:
WEEK 1: The Creative Genius

• The Perfection and detail in His creation (the intricacies of root systems & complexity of humans)

• The Variety in His creation (not one type of bird but many, not one colour but many!)

• The Abundance in His creation (stars, flowers, sand, water)

• The Innovation in His creation (to create out of nothing)

Art practice: Convey, with paper, what you learn about Jesus from a section of a gospel narrative?

WEEK 2: Christians in Art

• 3 guest artists: Visual Artist, Ceramist & Dancer. Each will share how they use their gifts in creativity in their medium, how they make moral judgements, use their art for gospel/mission and how they might engage with the secular world using their art.

Art practice: Express a characteristic of yourself in a shape using clay?

WEEK 3: Engaging with Art

• Excursion to the art gallery.

Art practice: Detail your response to an artwork: in prose, ink or discussion!

WEEK 4: Art in Controversy.

• How does the Christian reconcile the difference between the nude and porn?

• How do we respond to artists like Jule Rrap, Andres Serrano & Jeff Koons etc?

• What are the boundaries? How can scripture shape our response?

• If artists are provoking us to think about what we believe, How can Christians be provocative for the gospel? How do we engage the world to consider God and his worldview?

Art practice: Installation Art!

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Another 'arty' thing I am doing at church is offering a 4 week community course (maybe 6 if I have enough material) in August or September, on Acting in the Everyday.

My aim is to have fun, teach a few drama techniques that will help increase and boost confidence - and provide opportunity for relationships to develop between the adult students that come along. A big part of the course will be teaching my theory on the Art of Conversation that I developed over the last two years...more on that in a later entry!

Please be praying that God be glorified in all these activities.
May the name of Christ be made great!

Total Church & Community...

Over the Christmas holidays I read TOTAL CHURCH by Tim Chester & Steve Timmis.

I found it an easy and enjoyable read - although there were many bits throughout that I got frustrated by, actually I don't think it's the book that frustrates me but that the book had to be written and that Christian leaders might see this as new information.

Sorry if that is harsh, but some concepts and ideas presented were so obvious that I was surprised by how many 'greats' think this is a radical, insightful, and punchy book! (Having said that maybe it is a great book for some church contexts and countering big problems of churches in the areas of the authors churches.)

This book shares aspirations and theory of The Crowded House church plants... the authors are keen to make it known that this isn't necessarily a 'how to' do church right and have all the practices in the book as an off-the-peg model, but instead a biography of the life of their church.

In the beginning chapters and introduction the reader is introduced to the two principles: Gospel Centred and Community Centred > which pretty much speak for themselves. Together these principles act as a coathanger, from which all other chapters hang.

Chapters including topics: Evangelism, Social Involvement, Church Planting, World Mission, Discipleship & training, Pastoral Care, Spirituality, Theology, Apologetics, Chn & Yng People & Success.

Especially having just completed MTS I found the Discipleship & Training chapter a good read... but throughout it thought much of what was written was common sense to one who reads the word and wants to live it out!

eg. TEACHING ALONG THE ROAD... that we cannot just bash people from the pulpit and not get down into sharing in the messiness of life with each other:
"truth cannot be taught effectively outside of close relationships... the truth of the gospel becomes compelling as we see it transforming lives in the rub of daily, messy
relationships."

This is a principle that has been modeled to us by the apostle Paul - not only does he delight to share the gospel with the Thessalonian but also his life as well! (1Thess 2:8) And it applies to discipling the Christian and witnessing to the non-Christian. People are curious to the hints and clues you might have to get through life, and if they see you Praise Jesus in the way you respond & wrestle with the trials and joys that life throws you, it speaks sooooo powerfully!

And as we share our weaknesses, struggles and joys we become vulnerable to the other person, which in my experience deepens friendships, yields great opportunities to build trust and intimacy, within which the big things of life like the gospel and godliness can be discussed sincerely and shamelessly.

As I write this I reflect on the past 2 years and the comments that I received from people who said they felt it to be privilege to know my fears and anxieties and struggles... Is it because Christian leaders are often seen by parishioners as super busy, task driven, super godly and all we do to counter this is to speak about how we aren't really perfect and that we too are sinners but not actually stop to share real examples of how we strive for godliness in dependence on God? Or do we not intentionally share our lives, not let people in, so people can't even see real examples because we keep our barriers up to maintain our dignity and pride?

Let's share our lives in intentional ways so that people can see us wanting to have Jesus Lord over all areas of our lives! Who doesn't want real and genuine friendships where you talk about the things that matter? I know I do... so I love that the chapter encourages us to share our lives with gospel intentionality. Bring it on!

Whatever friend, think how you can encourage them to take a step forward in cherishing Christ. This applies to your non-Christian friends and Christians friends AND STRANGERS alike.

Which leads me to my favourite quote from the book I am currently reading: God's Passion for His Glory - Living the vision of Jonathan Edwards, by John Piper

"A Christian spirit... disposes a person to be public-spirited.
A man of a right spirit is not of a narrow private spirit;
but is greatly concerned for the good of public community to which he belongs
and particularly of the town where he dwells -Jonathan Edwards "

Later in the chapter on 'Spirituality' of Total Church, I questioned the authors emphasis on community and its importance as I it almost becomes a crutch with very little attention given to the individual nature of salvation and responsibility of training the self in godliness - I can't rely on community to grow my relationship with God, but see God's mercy in giving us community to share each others burdens and spur us on - allowing one other, along with the Holy Spirit, a license to dig into our lives and challenge our hearts.