“How we use them…”

Not what we say about our blessings, but how we use them, is the true measure of our thanksgiving.

- W.T. Purkiser

Shared by Kristine

The Difference…

There is a great difference between realizing, ‘On that Cross He was crucified for me,’ and ‘On that Cross I am crucified with Him.’ The one aspect brings us deliverance from sin’s condemnation, the other from sin’s power.

- John Gregory Mantle

Shared by: Kristine, author, blogger, humorist, homeschooler, professional mom, chocolate lover.

Created For Purpose

“God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission – I never may know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. Somehow, I am necessary for His purposes, as necessary in my place as an Archangel in His. If, indeed, I fail, He can raise another, as He could make the stones children of Abraham. Yet I have a part in this great work; I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good, I shall do His work; I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it, if I do but keep His commandments and serve Him in my calling.

Therefore, I will trust Him. Whatever, wherever I am, I can never be thrown away.”

~ Henry Newman

What Would Happen #2

Continuing from April 26 post…

“What would happen” is we would immediately be in a mess.

First of all, we wouldn’t know what we were doing. Second, we wouldn’t know how to talk with others in light of faith, hope, and love. Third, we wouldn’t have the time.  Fourth,  we wouldn’t get along. Our histories would conflict. Our dreams wouldn’t be the same. Our ways of engagement would ruffle each other’s feathers. We would have to pray, confess, repent, forgive, and fight on with people as diverse as Matthew – who was a tax gatherer and a lackey of the state – and Simon – a zealot, a terrorist committed to the destruction of the government.

Would such a “mess” be a bad thing?

Consider this quote by Frank Viola from Reimagining Church:

“I have a dream that countless churches will be transformed from high-power business organizations into spiritual families – authentic Christ-centered communities – where the members know one another intimately, love one another unconditionally, bleed for one another deeply, and rejoice with one another unfailingly.”

Shared by Kristine.

What Would Happen…

Ever seen this?

“People sit in church on Sunday morning. If they are really committed, they go to a Bible study or a small growth group. And if they are amazingly disciplined and committed, they will take on another ministry in the church like teaching Sunday school or helping out in a youth group. All these activities are wonderful. But what would happen if we also left the church as apostolic bands and entered the agora to join a fly-fishing club and visit a nursing home? What if we hung out in coffee shops and got involved in Big Brothers?” (Dan Allendar, The Healing Path, p. 246)

In describing what he calls the “institutional church,” Frank Viola puts it this way in Reimagining Church:

These churches are constructed on programs and rituals rather than relationships. They are highly structured, typically building-centered organizations regulated by set-apart professionals (“ministers” and “clergy”) who are aided by volunteers (laity). They require staff, buildings, salaries, and administration. In the institutional church congregants watch a religious performance once or twice a week led by principally one person (the pastor or minister), and then retreat home to their individual lives.”

Is this the kind of church we see modeled in the New Testament? If not, what happened? Why?

Asked by Kristine.

“Covering Your Back”

Hebrews 3:12-13; 10:23-25 stresses the importance of community.  But let’s not confuse “community” with lock-step-it is, where everyone is required to look, act, talk, think, and walk like identical cardboard cut-outs or risk ostracism. That’s not “community,” that’s conformity, and nothing can stifle a soul faster!

“We walk the healing path alone and lonely at times” says Dan Allender. “Moments specifically designed for each of us take us through the valley and into the desert, where God woos us with his strange, wild love. But the majority of our journey is meant to be traveled with a few others.”

“Community” includes the concepts of belonging, commonality, common (but not necessarily “identical”) possession, participation, priorities. Allender fleshes out the concept:

“We are indebted to one another. You cover my back. I watch yours. I must try to protect you from sin’s deceitfulness and the resulting proclivity to harden your heart against God’s tender call. We all stand in drying cement. If we don’t keep moving on the journey we will become bound and enslaved to something or someone other than God.”

Who’s “covering your back?”

Shared by Kristine.

Engagement

“The healing path is first and last about engagement. It is through engagement with you that I learn to hope more deeply for us. It is through hope that God slowly heals past brokenness on the basis of future promise. The healing path takes me from living as an `insider’ to engaging in areas of burden and passion on the fringe of what most people view as the formal, structured local church.” – Dan Allender, The Healing Path, p. 243

To “engage” means “To obtain or contract for the service of; employ. To obtain and hold the attention of: engross. To require the use of; occupy. To pledge or promise.” And so on. Used here, it more than likely means, “To interlock or cause to interlock; mesh. To please or attract, win. To entangle, involve.” I think I like Merriam-Webster’s definition best. It seems to convey Allender’s point well when it defines “engagement” as: “emotional involvement or commitment.”

Interestingly, one of the definitions of “engagement” is “The condition of being in gear.” Conversely, “disengagement” is being out of gear.

Where are you “in gear”?

Gears aren’t meant to function in isolation. They work together, in unison. An apt analogy for the Body of Christ.

“But I am not to go it alone” writes Allender. “I am… to sojourn with an apostolic band. We may occasionally walk alone, but we are meant to walk together.”

Following some words on the mission and the sanctification of his followers to his disciples in John 17, Jesus prays, “My prayer is not for them alone.  I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you.”

What does that mean, and what does it have to do with “engagement”?

A musing by Kristine.

The Agora

agora n. , pl. -orae ( ) or -oras . A place of congregation, especially an ancient Greek marketplace. A gathering place; a place of assembly. The marketplace; public square.

In ancient Greek society, the central gathering place was called the agora; it was the ‘place of commerce, information, and ideas.’ At the heart of the city, good were sold, artisans interacted with others in their trade, and people gathered to debate political, philosophical, and theological matters. Most Western countries have no place comparable to the agora. It wasn’t quite the same as the shopping mall, boardroom, fitness center, Elks Club, bar, or Starbucks. The agora was all these places combined.

Observes Dan Allender in The Healing Path:

“We are to go to the `streets’ (the word used in many English bibles to translate the word agora) and invite to God’s party any who will come (Matthew 22:9-10, Luke 14:23). Because there is no central agora today, we are to go wherever people hang out, conduct business, talk, eat, drink, dance, and gossip to invite others to taste the gospel.” (p. 241)

So.  Where is your “agora”? Where’s your passion? Where do you listen, delight, ask questions and probe the mysteries of the universe? Where do you go where you hearts says, “I love it here,” and “No, I won’t let evil win. I will stand and fight the effects of the fall”? Where do you stick your neck out? Where do you serve someone unrelated to you, your church, your group, and your small world? Where do you “hang out” regularly and “invite others to taste the gospel”?

Shared by Kristine.

“These Strange Ashes”

But these strange ashes, Lord, this nothingness,

This baffling sense of loss?

Son, was the anguish of my stripping less

Upon the torturing cross?

Was I not brought into the dust of death,

A worm and no man, I;

Yea, turned to ashes by the vehement breath

Of fire, on Calvary?

O Son beloved, this is thy heart’s desire:

This, and no other thing

Follows the fall of Consuming Fire

On the burnt offering.

Go on and taste the joy set high, afar -

No joy like that to thee;

See how it lights the way like some great star.

Come now, and follow Me.

- Amy Carmichael

Shared by Kristine, author, blogger, professional mom, homeschooler, humorist and chief wrangler at the ‘oel testosterone farm.

“Care less”

“Redemption makes us careless. Care less. Not entirely, but closer and closer to the psalmist’s cry: `Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever’ (Psalm 73:25-26). The more redemption matters, the less hold the powers of the earth have over us. The less fear and shame can constrain us and shape how we speak, live, and die, the more gratitude and awe mold us to become like Jesus Christ.”

– Dan Allender, Ph.D

The Healing Path, p. 184

Shared by Kristine, professional mom, author, blogger, homeschooler, and chief wrangler at “the ‘ole testosterone farm.”

http://www.HEvencense.wordpress.com

All about books: http://www.thegr8tlion.blogspot.com