Re-Born Free - prayer guide

“I am God's child”

“Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God”

John 1:12

Ask Jesus:

• Jesus what does it mean to be God’s child?
• God what benefits do I get as a child?
• How does being your child affect my life? Work? Family? Friends?
• Whose child was I before I believed?

Journal:

As I talked with Jesus about these questions I realized something. I don't want this to be simply an exercise for my theological brain. Very easy for me to go there and not do anything else. Emotions need to be a part of this. Encountering and living in relationship with Jesus is the point - even more than being free (though relationship will lead naturally to freedom).

So as I asked these questions of Jesus he reminded me of a point when he claimed me as his own. It was many years ago. I was at a retreat sitting in the back when I felt God's hand reach down and grab me and he said "you are mine." This experience has shaped my faith more than all my study and research. I belong to God. I am his child. Not because I did anything to deserve it (I was a mess). Not because I am going to do anything to deserve it. Yahweh simply claimed me as his child.

Lent

Today is the beginning of Lent (the 40 days before Easter, well actually 46 but Sundays don't count). This year our church has decided to focus on freedom for Lent. The theme is "Re-Born Free". I know the name is cheesy.

We are encouraging people to do a few different things:

1. Read Neil Anderson's "Who I am in Christ" list every day
2. Work through a prayer guide every day
3. Attend a bible study (either on Sunday morning or Tuesday evening)

Jesus did come and live and die and came back to life so that we could be free. Let's live in that freedom.

Middle East

Interesting talk about what is happening in the Middle East:

Sunday's sermon

Sermon text: Matthew 10:32-39

This little passage raises some really interesting questions.

1. Jesus says that his acknowledging of us in heaven is based on us acknowledging him here on earth. That sure sounds like salvation by works?
2. Jesus says he did not come to bring peace but a sword. And here I thought Jesus would always bring peace where ever he went, after all he is called the "prince of peace". Conflict may be from God?
3. Jesus says he came to divide families. What not to unite them? Instead of "the family that prays together stays together", Jesus is saying "the family that prays to me will be split"?

Now I want to run and solve these questions. But I have found that if I run and try and make everything fit together too quickly I just end up ignoring what Jesus is saying.

What is he saying?

Sunday's sermon

Text for this Sunday's sermon: Matthew 10:1-15

I saw something in this text that I had not seen before. And it will take some more study before I am fully convinced that it is present. But it was intriguing enough that I thought I would share it here (most likely will not pick this up Sunday since I am fully convinced of it).

Leadership is to be primarily mission orientated.

This is the first time that the 12 are mentioned in the book of Matthew. Within this context they are summoned and called to engage in missions.

Yes, there are a lot of other things going on here - for example the number 12 being very significant due to the fact that there were 12 tribes of Israel. I am also aware that Mark and Luke do not place the calling of the 12 in this context. But here are some reasons I feel that this idea may have merit:

First, at the end of all the gospels Jesus specifically commissions the church to take the gospel to the ends of the earth. This is the specific mission of the church. Since this is the mission of the church shouldn't the leadership be actively engaged in it.

Second, the 12 seemed to believe that missions was a vital part of what they were to do. Which is why after Jesus ascended to heaven the apostles end up personally travelling to most of the known world preaching the gospel.

Third, in the book of Acts when some widows in the church are being neglected the apostles insist that someone else be appointed to help. They refuse to get involved in this good work of caring for the people in the church. Instead they argue that they should pray and continue serving the word - which within that context carries a mission aspect to it.

I know this needs more study but it interesting because if this is true it changes many things. Often people feel that leadership in the church is primarily about caring for the people on the inside. In fact it has often been argued that we can't do missions until we take care of ourselves first. Now I am not advocating that we stop caring for each other - our greatest testimony to the world will be the love that we show one another.

But is it possible based on why and how the 12 were called that missions should become a great priority for leadership within the church today?

The Man Box

So does the church culture promote "the man box"? Or are we helping men step out of "the box"?

Charlie & the Chocolate Factory

My whole family is involved in our community drama. If you are around you should come and check it out.

Glorifying God

"If your church ceased to exist would your community care, or even notice?"

A couple of years ago a visiting speaker asked the church I am part of this question. We weren't sure how to answer. Would they? Do they care? We want to say of course they would. But are we certain that they would?

This question has continued to surface occasionally over the past couple of years. It has been a really good question that has helped us look beyond ourselves and into the community. Are we a blessing to the people around us?

Today a thought struck me. Isn't this question really self-centered? Doesn't imply that what matters is if the community notices us and cares about us? And how does this question fit into the teaching that Jesus gave us that we will be persecuted if we are his disciples? Is our primary mission about blessing others?

It seems to me that our primary mission is to bring God glory (and yes this does include blessing others just like Jesus did).

So, perhaps a different question we could ask is:

"If our church ceased to exist would God receive less glory in our community? Or would we just receive less glory?"

Sunday's sermon

The text for this coming Sunday is: Matthew 9:2-8

In this text we see Jesus' authority to forgive our sins. One of the striking things is that Jesus offers forgiveness outside of the temple. The normal way for a Jewish person in the 1st century to obtain forgiveness was in the temple. This man however did not need to jump through any "hoops" to get forgiveness, Jesus simply declared him forgiven.

This made me ask a couple of questions:

1. What "hoops" do I feel that I have to jump through in order to get forgiveness from God?
2. What "hoops" do I expect others to jump through in order to forgive them?

Every Man's Battle

Every Man’s Battle by Stephen Arterburn and Fred Stoeker

A book that deals with sexual sin head on is very refreshing. The authors pull no punches when talking about a man’s battle for sexual purity. They also pull no punches when talking about noting how men often fail to be pure sexually. And for them sexual purity means:

“You are sexually pure when no sexual gratification comes from anyone or anything but your wife.”

Stephen and Fred offer very practical advice to men on how move to sexual purity. They state it all begins off with deciding to fight for it – and it may be a big battle. Once you have engaged they talk about training your eyes and mind. And end off with encouraging men to cherish their wives.

It is fairly well written and is easy to read. So guys get the book and read it.

Radical

Sunday's sermon

The text I will be preaching on this Sunday:

Matthew 8:23-27

Things to consider:

Why does Jesus tell his disciples that they have little faith? After all in their panic they turn and call out to him.

The two questions in this passage I have found very provoking:

"Why are you afraid?"

"What kind of man [Jesus] is this?"

The crucified God

Been reading the book The Crucified God by Jurgen Multmann. My intent was to blog about this book as I read it. However I am going to have to put that plan on hold. The reason is that I took this book out of the library. And this created a problem for me. The book is absolutely fabulous. Now that isn't the problem. The problem is that it is a large book and deserves a careful read. Which I can't do because I have to return the book. Also I am getting in the habit of marking up good books. So this book now goes on my list of books I need to buy and read.

Baptism

This Sunday my church is having a baptism service. There are three people who are going to get up and testify to what God has done in their lives and publicly commit to following Jesus. I am very excited.

The service starts at 10:45am and everyone is welcome to attend.

LifeLight Festival

Last weekend my family and I went to the LifeLight music festival. We camped with a couple friends.

Positive things:

• Camping with friends
• David Crowder Band was great
• Need to Breathe and Group 1 Crew also rocked
• I did enjoy Family Force Five's acoustic set - though they sure did not seem like they wanted to be there
• It was amazing seeing people make/renew commitments to follow Jesus
• The speakers emphasized surrendering our total life to Jesus - what a great focus
• Famous Dave's pork sandwich

Things I didn't enjoy so much:

• Screaming bands - which we could hear very well at our campsite, and which went on till about 2am. Though I did find it humorous trying to fall asleep to band screaming "Die, die, die, die..." Glad my kids had fallen asleep by then.
• Sometimes it felt a bit like a Christian pep rally
• The concert wasn't really free - we were guilted into giving money

Over all it was a good experience. The best part was hanging out with friends. Will see if we go next year.

Fair Trade Coffee?

Now I am not really coffee drinker (have the occasional cup here at church during coffee break). At home we rarely have coffee unless we have guests over (we either drink tea or 'mate'). With that being said as a family we have decided to (for the most part) buy fair trade coffee (usually from MCC).

However I just recently came across this "should-we-buy-fair-trade-coffee" post at the blog Jesus Creed. It states that buying fair trade coffee may not be the best.

Reading it makes me want to throw up my hands in disgust and give up trying. But that is not a good solution. I am reminded though that life is complicated and simple solutions aren't always the answer.

The Crucified God

I have started to read the book The Crucified God by Jurgen Multmann. And I thought I would share some thoughts on the book here.

Chapter 1: "The identity and relevance of faith"

Multmann begins off by stating that theology and the church has a crisis of relevance and identity. If the church strives to become more relevant they are faced with the crisis of identity. For example if we work with and for the poor how is our work "Christian" as compared to some other non-Christian group? On the other hand if a church works at stating their identity they run into a crisis of relevance. If a church identifies itself based on dogmas, rights and morals they are really stating how they are different from the world, and therefore how are they relevant?

These two crises are seen working in the debate about social gospel or evangelism.

“In many Christian churches, similar polarizations have come into being between those who see the essence of the church in evangelization and the salvation of souls, and those who see it in social action for the salvation and liberation of real life.” (page 22)

Multmann says that we need to be involved in both:

“Personal, inner change without a change in circumstance and structures is an idealist illusion, as though man were only a soul and not a body as well. But change in external circumstances without inner renewal is materialist illusion, as though man were only a product of his social circumstances and nothing else.” (page 23)

At the end of the chapter Multmann suggests the way out of these crises is to recognize how we are different and still creatively love those who are different.

“But for the crucified Christ, the principle of fellowship is fellowship with those who are different, and solidarity with those who have become alien and have been made different. Its power is not friendship, the love for what is similar and beautiful (philia), but creative love for what is different, alien and ugly (agape). (page 28)

Gungor

Here a cool video a friend just showed me:

Burma

In June as a family we travelled to Burma (also called Myanmar). There seems to be little awareness of this country in Canada (I knew next to nothing about this country before we decided to travel there).

Here are some quick facts:

• It is in South-East Asia, bordering Thailand, India and China.
• For the past 61 years it has been at civil war.
• The government is a military dictatorship.
• The primary religion is Buddhism.
• There have been several movements that have attempted to bring freedom into the country (all of which have been harshly put down by the government)

I sat with my family eating breakfast, the same breakfast we had for the past nine days, in a small dining room in our 8 bedroom hotel. There is no air-conditioning outside of the rooms so there are fans hanging on the walls giving a bit of a breeze. We haven’t checked the temperature since we arrived in Burma, internet at the café across the street is too slow to waste on things like that. It is hot and humid, most likely somewhere in the high 30s, and knowing the exact temperature would not really help cool off anything.

We here a gong sound indicating that the monks are soon going to be passing by collecting their daily offerings. Apparently whatever food they collect is the food they eat for the day.

We have to encourage the kids to eat, as usual. They only seem to want to eat at the western restaurant that we found near our hotel (which we ate at for six days in a row).

Later on in the day we would travel 2 hours in an old mini-van to a home for orphans. Once there we would play with the kids, Cindy would do some painting, we would just hang out. Sometimes if feels like we aren’t accomplishing anything. We aren’t building anything or preaching, we are just being with the people and playing with the kids. But perhaps this is enough. To just be with them, to be shaped by them and to love them. The kids at these homes are amazing.

Back from Sabbatical

Well I am back from my sabbatical. It was an amazing three months. Time went by very fast. Now I am trying to get back into the routine of life. Over the next while I share some stories about my time away.