The Oven

My daughter Isla is three years old and I tell her, "Don't touch the oven. Ever. Why? Because the oven is dangerous and you might burn the house down and we might all die. But mostly because I said so. Just do what I say and things will go well."

When she is older it will all change. I will tell her, "Sure you can touch the oven. In fact, use it all you like, and make beautiful food with it."

What will change, and what won't, and why?

Are we mostly asleep?

"Altogether, almost half of human genes - the largest proportion known in any organism - don't do anything at all, as far as we can tell, except reproduce themselves."

- A Short History of Nearly Everything, by Bill Bryson

I read this and it makes me wonder: have we got, built into us, the potential for much, MUCH more life? Half our genetic makeup just sits there, doing nothing except reproducing itself so it carries on. And we only use something like10% of our brains.

One day we will be resurrected and will be more fully alive than ever before, with new bodies, capable of much more, far beyond what we can comprehend now. I wonder if God has somehow already built this potential into us. We just can't "access" it in this life.

Like we're mostly asleep. Stumbling around in a daze. Only 10% alive.

If you read some of Paul's letters, he often uses imagery like this. But he also goes further. Paul's perspective is that, through Jesus, we can slowly become more awake even now, start living in the new world, while other people yet sleep. We can wake up and live more fully, more completely, even if it's still only a tiny bit more like our future life.

Could we somehow start living this built-in potential in this life?

I'm not completely sure how this all works yet, but my hunch is that saturating yourself in Paul's writings will give us some ideas.

7 Billion Actions

I posted recently a video from National Geographic about some of the implications of a world that now has over 7 billion occupants.

Here's a website with even more insight to what this world is like, and some thoughts about what the future may hold for us all. Definitely worth a look, but if you don't have time to look through a website, at least go back and watch the video!

http://7billionactions.org/data

There Are No Scraps of Men

Great talk, and an incredibly worthy idea, by Alberto Cairo, a physiotherapist in Afghanistan.

Paradise

What would your paradise be like?
What paradise are you looking for?

[Advent Conspiracy] Enter the Story 2011

Check out this one!

Radiant Beams?

Let me preface this by saying I'm not a Christmas grinch. I'm a big fan of all the fun, food, festivities, friends, family, and of course the furry man in red. I love Christmas, I really do.

Hopefully I've made that clear. Now, I do have a tiny gripe about a couple of the carols we sing (remember: not a grinch)..

Firstly, Silent Night. Nice song and all, but "radiant beams from thy holy face"? Really? Was baby Jesus like one of those glow worm toys that my daughter has? "Oh look Mary, looks like we don't need those candles after all." Did he somehow play soothing lullaby music too?

And Away in a Manger. "The cattle are lowing, the baby awakes, but little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes.." No crying he makes? Is he some kind of angelic cherub baby? Was Jesus the only baby who never cried? I wonder if people somehow think that even as a baby, Jesus knew all the secrets of the universe. "Oh it's just cows lowing. That is how I designed them after all..." I think if we sang this song to Mary, she would probably say "Tell em they're dreaming."

Jesus was born a human, just like the rest of us, and he would have done the same things as the rest if us. Crying, sleeping, eating, pooing, completely dependant on his mother.. He knew what was involved before he decided to come to earth. He's not opposed to all our humanness. That's how he made us and he loves us for it.

Here's what's really going on in these songs.. Over the years, Christians have at times tried to play down Jesus' humanness, generally alongside a dualistic belief that everything earthy and human is bad, and only the "spiritual" things are good. This is not accurate at all, and it has a far-reaching effect in our thinking about everything else. If everything earthy and human is bad, then the only solution would be to destroy the earth and the human body, and take the good "souls" to some kind of disembodied heaven (which is what many people believe Christianity is all about). While this is a very commonly-held view, it's not a Biblical idea at all. It comes from Greek philosophy actually. Thanks Plato and friends.

The actual Biblical viewpoint is that God LOVES the humanness of humans and the earthiness of the earth. That's how he created it all in the first place. And when Jesus finally reappears to set everything right, it will be to restore the earth to what it was always meant to be: a more incredible earth, married to heaven, like this one but even more so. And he will restore us and our bodies so that we're MORE human than we are now, with less limitations, more alive, more present, more ourself, than we've ever been before. This is only a shadow of our future self. We're practically asleep, compared to how alive we'll be then.

"Joy to the World" hits the nail on the head when it describes all of creation in celebration - the "fields and floods, rocks, hills and plains, repeat the sounding joy.." Why would the earth be happy if it was going to be scrapped? It would be more like "Oh crap, it's time. Well, it's all over boys. It's been a nice ride.."

No. The King is here and that means things are going to finally be put RIGHT. Restoration begins. For everything. And so everything celebrates.

Sing the carols at Christmas, celebrate, have fun with friends and family, and remember this: the king is here, and that brings hope for EVERYTHING.

Steal some time this Christmas to contemplate what that means.

Ordinary Mission

"One of our ambitions is to take the idea of gospel ministry as the primary preserve of the professionals and 'give it back' to the masses."
- Tim Chester and Steve Timmis, "Everyday Church"

Amen brother! And here's some more...

"One of the key benefits of everyday mission is that it enfranchises each and every one of us. Everyday mission requires everyday missionaries rather than superheroes of the faith. We need to recapture the sense that gospel ministry is not something done by pastors with the support of ordinary Christians, but something done by ordinary Christians with the support of pastors."

Preach it. I'd definitely recommend reading the rest of this chapter if you can get your hands on the book. Tim and Steve talk about how this can work in everyday life with everyday people. Some really simple practical ways to bring the kingdom of heaven into the lives of the people around us, and ways to grow a church community that does this together.

Someone is welcome to borrow my copy of the book if you like. Just let me know!

"It's not complicated, though, of course, living differently by grace is never easy. God has not equipped us all to be big personalities with multiple gifts or oratory that draws the crowds. But through the death of Christ and the faithful work of the Spirit he has empowered us all to live such good lives that others are drawn to Christ. However you 'do' church, let it be nothing less than the people of God on mission together. We are a city on a hill and a light to the world."

Different

"The church as an alternative community can make a powerful witness when it chooses to live differently from the dominant society at just a few key points. An important task of the church is to discern what are those key points at which to be different from the world."

- Lois Barrett, quoted in "Everyday Church," by Tim Chester and Steve Timmis

The Other Nine

This makes it pretty clear...

"Sunday morning in church is the one place where evangelism cannot take place in our generation because the lost are not there..." - from "Everyday Church," by Tim Chester and Steve Timmis

If you're in a church, what's your church's strategy for evangelism?

Most churches work on the evangelism strategy of "bringing people to us." But the fact is, this may only work for 1 out of 10 Aussies. The other nine won't set foot in a church building no matter how passionate the preaching, how inspiring the music, or how enjoyable the youth or children's program.

If this is something that troubles you as much as it does me, PLEASE start thinking about ways to be a church for the other nine. This is what we're trying to do in our local area.

Maybe you could start some experiments of your own. Maybe you could help your church start trying new ways to connect with the other nine - and not by trying to get them to your Sunday service. Or at the very least, start brainstorming ideas and send anything to me!

We're not going to be amazing at it at the start, but we need to start trying! Please join us if you think 90% of our country is worth it.