Thoughts from a friend's bathroom wall

Psalm 146:3-9

Don’t put your confidence in powerful people;
      there is no help for you there.
When they breathe their last, they return to the earth,
      and all their plans die with them.
But joyful are those who have the God of Israel as their helper,
      whose hope is in the Lord their God.
He made heaven and earth,
      the sea, and everything in them.
      He keeps every promise forever.
He gives justice to the oppressed
      and food to the hungry.
   The Lord frees the prisoners.
The Lord opens the eyes of the blind.
   The Lord lifts up those who are weighed down.
      The Lord loves the godly.
The Lord protects the foreigners [or refugees?] among us.
      He cares for the orphans and widows,
      but he frustrates the plans of the wicked.

Work Computer

Sunsets

The Argyle Sweater

by Scott Hillburn

The Big Q: Heaven

What is one aspect of this world that you would like to see carry on in heaven?

The Christian Religion

Interesting book I've just started reading, by Gregory A. Boyd. It's called The Myth of a Christian Religion, "Losing your religion for the beauty of a revolution."

I picked it up because I listened to an interview with the Greg Boyd a little while ago, where he talked about the book and some of the ideas behind it. If you have a spare moment, definitely listen to the interview, because there were some amazing insights there - about church and Christian culture and what the way of Jesus might look like in our world today. If you do listen to it, make sure you let me know any thoughts, or if anything stood out to you.

Here's a little from the introduction to the book....

"This may surprise or even offend you, but Jesus is not the founder of the Christian religion. True, a religion arose centuries after he lived that was called 'Christian,' but... in many respects this religion was antithetical to what Jesus was about. In fact... the very concept of a 'Christian religion' is something of a myth when understood in the light of what Jesus was about."

Send me your thoughts on that one too!

Between

See if you can figure this one out, by Eugene Peterson....

"In matters of church, nothing of what we see apart from what we see is church. And nothing of what we don't see apart from what we see is church. There is no invisible church. There is no visible church. Invisibility and visibility coinhere in church. There is no church without God, whom 'no man has seen... at any time' (John 1:18 NAS). There is no church without the 'great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, from all the tribes and people and languages' (Rev. 7:9) that we can see.

"Church is a staging ground for what takes place between  heaven (invisible) and earth (visible)."

- from Practise Resurrection: A Conversation on Growing Up In Christ

I particularly like that last line. Church is a staging ground for what takes place between heaven and earth. Very nice.

Franciscan Benediction

Extract from Micah Challenge prayers:

May God bless us with discomfort at easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships, so that we may live deep within our hearts.

May God bless us with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that we may work for justice, freedom and peace.

May God bless us with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation and war, so that we may reach out our hands to comfort them and turn their pain into joy.

And may God bless us with enough foolishness to believe that we can make a difference in this world, so that we can do what others claim cannot be done.

The Big Q: Apocalypt Now?

Here's something fun. Each week I'm going to put up a question for you to discuss. Love to hear what you think! Here's the first one....

On a global scale, it's been a devastating start to the year. We've had earthquakes, floods, tsunamis, bush fires, terrible political unrest.. To name a few. A couple of weeks ago the Sunday Mail published an article which stated that churches and ministers are saying these are all signs that the world is going to end soon.

Q. What are your thoughts? Are we in the last days?

(If you're a Christian, don't feel you have to give the stock answer. There are theologians on both sides of it!)