Can we be Relevant by being Different?

Often we associate Relevance with being 'of like mind' or being 'similar'.
As churches we have sought to have the same methods as the world with a different message. But perhaps as churches, by trying to be 'similar' and 'like minded' we stopped being Relevant at all? Is Relevance actually best located in difference?

...I mean most Christians and our churches look exactly like those who don't profess faith in Jesus. Think about it... we have the same houses, the same cars, the same jobs, the same toys and technologies...except we believe in sex only within the boundaries of marriage; we don't drink to excess and if we are uber cool Jesus followers we might buy more 'fair trade coffee'...essentially then, we look the same except we don't do 'all the fun stuff'. And some of our churches have more multimedia and a bigger band than you'll find in pubs and at concerts.

Maybe we wouldnt need to sit in meetings and work out ways to be relevant if we lived different.

I wonder if we can redefine a new way to live. I wonder if by being different we are actually 'relevant'.

The Kingdom of God is anti-empire isn't it? It always has been? Jesus is Lord - Not Caesar!

I mean, since whenever has the Kingdom of God been 'relevant' to the ways of the world? ... It's relevence is in it's difference.

When I explore the scriptures I see the rule and reign of God being something which is counter-intuitive... counter cultural...something that actually goes in the totally opposite direction of consumerism and accumulation. So perhaps in being different - in speaking against the prevailing western culture - we are essentially being relevant.

Maybe as churches we have sought to 'look' like our world ie music, sound, promotion etc in an attempt to be relevant and 'in' so that we can reach people with the gospel, when in actual fact all we have done is 'look' like our world except speak against all the 'fun stuff' and so no one is really interested.

Perhaps by being different, by moving the beat of a different drum, we are in actual fact being 'relevant' and actually looking like the Kingdom of God - and therefore offering something refreshing and restoring...something that others might want to actually break into and enter.

"Live Simply so others can Simply Live"

"live simply so others can simply live"
I first came across this phrase in an Intensive I completed with Tom & Christine Sine. Tom is the author of many books...most recent being 'The New Conspirators'. I encourage you to read it if you get the chance. This phrase and the reality of it really challenged me...and I began to see in a fresh way that the more we accumulate and consume, the less others have opportunity to live life well. I began to think...do we really need two houses? Do we really need to live like our parents? Do we really need to have the latest and greatest 'toys'? Do we really need to have one house per family? Imagine if we were to re-think and re-imagine a life that was more simple...a more 'back to basics' life...would this look more like the Kingdom of God? Perhaps we need to re-imagine new ways to live that include changes to housing dreams, house locations and vocations. I wonder if by re-defining what it actually means to live well if we can actually help others live well?

ALL THINGS NEW

God is a God of New Beginnings!!

A Special announcement to those who read my blog :)
...Also appearing at Lifewell Conference 2009....first time publicly announced...is...special guest artist Geoff Bullock!!!

Geoff's songs have been sung all over the world and have blessed and encouraged many communities of faith. His songs include classics like - Power of your Love, This Kingdom, You Rescued Me, Refresh My Heart, I Surrender and The Great Southland. Geoff currently has 5 songs in the CCLI top 100!!

Come and hear him share his story in song. Hear about his encounter with God's grace and how God has done new things in his life. You do not want to miss Geoff Bullock, Sy Rogers, Allan & Helen Meyer

Lifewell Conference 09 is certainly shaping up to be a most significant weekend of restoration and renewal!!

Register today!!

God Loves Humpty Dumpty's

I grew up in Mildura. Our family owned the Humpty Dumpty Tourist Farm - it was home to the Worlds Biggest Humpty Dumpty.
I was reminded when I watched this video of the nursery rhyme about Humpty...Let me sing it too you...or at least give you the lyrics..."HUMPTY DUMPTY SAT ON THE WALL. HUMPTY DUMPTY HAD A GREAT FALL. ALL THE KINGS HORSES AND ALL THE KINGS MEN, COULDN'T PUT HUMPTY TOGETHER AGAIN"

I wondered to my self...I think that this nursery rhyme is actually more theologically correct than many of our worship songs today. Can a nursery rhyme be more theologically sound than a CCLI worship song? Ponder this...Humanity was like Humpty Dumpty (You need to get past the big egg and head idea and the fact that Humpty Dumpty is not human at all for this to work) We were created good. We fell from our wall. We were broken and shattered (srambled perhaps). The image of God in us shattered, our picture of God distorted. The powers, the rulers the promises, hopes and dreams of life and purpose that pop culture offers us fails to put us together again. All the Kings, All the Caesars, All the Powers, All the Individualism, All the Consumerism cannot put these broken Humpty Dumpty's together again.

God has not given up on the world. God loves Humpty's. The gospels offers us a new way to be human. A new and better way to live life. May we let God put us back together again.

Ponderings...Is the gospel we proclaim making a new and better world?
Is the gospel to us an invitation to a whole new way of life?
What is the Gospel?

Roaming through Romans #4 - Brick

In Romans 6:1-14, Paul, not surprisingly seeing as though he is a Jew, draws upon the Exodus story as a way to help his readers understand the two types of humanity which he has outlined in chapter 5.

Egypt - was the superpower of its day. In the bible - Egypt is a place, a country a nation where the story begins. But in actual fact, it’s much more. You see, Egypt is what happens when sin becomes structured and embedded in society. Egypt is an empire – built on the backs of Israelites slave labour. Brick, by brick, by brick, by brick, the slaves worked in fear under Pharoah as the ‘Ruling Power’*

The people were set free from slavery; guided by the pillar of fire and cloud; taken through the Red Sea; given their identity as a people at Mt Sinai and on their way to the promised land**.

Bible teacher John Stott puts it this way: "Our baptism stands…like a door between two rooms, closing on the one and opening into the other" The Israelites passing through the Red Sea has shaped, along with John’s baptism and Jesus baptism of death, Paul’s understanding of Baptism. Paul wants his readers to remember that when you were baptized you moved from Slavery to sin (Egypt), to Life in the Messiah (Promised Land). It is a whole new regime, a whole new status, with a whole new master. So you are no longer under your old master, but now obligated to obey your new Master. And he draws upon their baptism to highlight the decisive shift in status. Martin Luther, when tempted and tested inside and out, used to shout – BAPTIZATUS SUM – I have been baptised!!

May we remember our Baptism - may we remember too that we left Egypt and entered into a new life – a new way to be human – with the Messiah. May we remember that we now no longer speak or live like an Egyptian. May when we are tempted and tested remember who we are – and may we shout in the face of the temptation ‘I have been Baptised’.

** Significantly, Sinai was not a country. There was no ruler or governor over this land. Sinai is free from any political and national boundary. So, God meets them in a place where no one owns, because no one owns ‘this God’. And here where no owns this land, he sets them apart and gives them the law, an act of grace, so that his people can live well with their God.

*References: Jesus wants to save Christians too. Rob Bell

Roaming through Romans #3

THE GREAT YET TRAGIC EXCHANGE! ROMANS 1:18-32

When left to themselves, humanity spirals downwards.
I was interested to read some snippets from Brian McLaren's new book' Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crises, and a Revolution of Hope (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2007). In this book he writes...

The Human Situation: What is the story we find ourselves in?
Conventional View: God created the world as perfect, but because our primal ancestors, Adam and Eve, did not maintain the absolute perfection demanded by God, God has irrevocably determined that the entire universe and all it contains will be destroyed, and the souls of all human beings — except for those specifically exempted — will be forever punished for their imperfection in hell.

Emerging View: God created the world as good, but human beings — as individuals, and as groups — have rebelled against God and filled the world with evil and injustice. God wants to save humanity and heal it from its sickness, but humanity is hopelessly lost and confused, like sheep without a shepherd, wandering further and further into lostness and danger. Left to themselves, human beings will spiral downward in sickness and evil.

When I read this I was reminded of Romans 1:18-32 where we read that humanity exchanged the glory of God for the images of mortal man and beast. Paul is bringing to his readers mind the image in Exodus where the Israelites made a Golden calf and began to worship it while Moses was receiving the 10 commandments. The human race has rebelled against it's creator God. And as we look around at our world we can see that things are broken, that things are out of joint, that things are not as they are meant to be. Slavery, war injustice, exploitation, hunger - things just aren't right. We were designed to worship, honour and serve our creator. Paul affirms to us however that humanity has suppressed this truth and the disease is spiralling out of control. Rob Bell writes in 'Jesus wants to save Christians too' -"The story is a tragic progression: the broken, toxic nature at the heart of a few humans has now spread to the whole world". It all starts in our thinking Paul wants us to know and then out of distorted and wrong beliefs our hearts become hard and black. It all starts when we begin to worship created things other than our creator thinking that we are wise, but infact we are foolish. And today we aren't any different to those Israelites who built the golden calf and worshiped it. Sure, I haven't built a golden calf as such, but I have at times elevated money, sex, and power above the line at equal footing or even greater than God. So, the God's we worship today just look different - perhaps are even more subtle than the creation of a giant golden animal!! It is all this that brings us down, brings us all down. Thank goodness that God is a God of Justice and cannot tolerate injustice and is not doing nothing but is at work now righting the wrongs. I am thankful that God is moved, that God hears the cries of the exploited, that he hears the groans and the pains of those in poverty and he doesn't sit there with his arms folded but is angry and grieved over the injustice.

Gen X & Gen Y / Jesus - our Picture of God

Marks depiction of the Gen X vs Gen Y parents picture and how this reflects into their views of who God is what he is like was accurate, stimulating and eye opening. It reminds me of the importance to gather our views of who God is and what He is like not from our pop culture or family but by looking at Jesus. If you want to know what God is like, then ask what is Jesus like. If you want to know what God thinks about the exploitation of the poor, the look at what Jesus thinks and did in regards to this. You see Jesus is the living, breathing, moving picture of who God is and what he like. Let us stop having our own standards or pop culture standards for living, behaviour, love, relationships and truth and let us look at Jesus' standards, life and obedience to the Father. From this we see how we are too live in and live out our relationship with our King. A couple of other random points to add in here from what Mark said...sure it's a little off the topic but I want to share it here...today we don't like words, like discipline, obedience, submission, authority, surrender, obligation - but when it comes to walking life with the Spirit, this is how we are called to live. To be obedient to God, to surrender to him, to submit to his authority and discipline. But unfortunately we want to be own ruler and our own King. May God save us from ourselves. I hope that we can bring back into our faith the understanding that we haven't been set free to be our own Kings and our own Authority, but rather, like Paul reminds us, we have been set free from the power or dominion of death to be a slave to Jesus Christ - the worlds true Lord and King. Our King and our Lord.
Finally... God is Holy, and we must balance his holiness and judgement. But I wonder if because he is Holy we have adopted the idea that God is too Holy to look up on Sin. And so we form our understandings of the atonement from this vantage point or we think that God cannot live with Sin or look upon sin. In Habakkuk 1:13 we read the prophet saying 'Your eyes are too pure to look on evil'. And at times we leave the passage there saying 'see, God cannot even look upon sin'. But what we actually see Habakkuk saying is that God is too pure and Holy to look on evil and not do anything about it. In Jesus we see him not retreating from evil but entering the world believing that he wasn't going to be contaminated by the world's evil but rather that his holiness was going to change the world and cleanse it. May we follow Jesus. May we walk by the Spirit. May our world be changed by our obedience to living in King Jesus. May we look to Jesus to see who God is what God is like.