Glory

I'm really busy at the moment because I have just finished a week of catch-up from having the flu, and I have been at a church growth seminar... but also, I am busy because I am putting together a mini-worship conference for my worship community at church, but for anyone else who wants to come too.

If you want to come, check out the mini-site I made here... It's open to anyone who wants to come, it's not just my church exclusive :)

A joke?

Yes!

God is sitting in Heaven when a scientist says to Him, 'Lord, we don't need you anymore. Science has finally figured out a way to create life out of nothing. In other words, we can now do what you did in the 'beginning'.'
'Oh, is that so? Tell me...' replies God.
'Well', says the scientist, 'we can take dirt and form it into the likeness of you and breathe life into it, thus creating man.'
'Well, that's interesting. Show Me. '
So the scientist bends down to the earth and starts to mold the soil. 
'Oh no, no, no...' interrupts God,
(I love this...)
'Get your own dirt.'

Christian worldview overview underview sideview...

God is a person (1) who has been in relationship and conversation with us since the beginning of His creation spree. In one of these discussions which has been jotted down, God reveals His name to Moses, calling himself "The I AM”. (2) Short words, huge meaning. God is Trinity; Father, Spirit and Son, and through these three “personalities” has engaged with the creation He created after himself. He has engaged as the Creator of all, the King of all and the Saviour of all. (3)

Human beings are God’s image bearers, made in the image of God, for doing the works of God. Paul calls us “citizens of heaven”. (4) We are the extenders of His Kingdom, even though we are fully human here on earth, we live a parallel life as citizens of Heaven, extending and increasing the dominion of God’s rule on this earth. We are invited to take our story and live it within God’s greater story, with Him as the director and us as the actors.

Human beings screwed things up though. The cute Sunday-school-learned Bible story of Adam and Eve is actually one of the hardest lessons to learn as a human being. This is where we took our image-bearing life and trampled it into the ground in an effort to become the one who is greater than bearing image to. Sin entered the world, but God puts a rescue plan into action.

“So the Word became human and lived here on earth among us.” (5) The Son came on a rescue mission, (6) and while He was here, he modelled what a normal Christian lifestyle was to be; one of miracles, signs and wonders, one that was counter-culutural and radical. He restored to us what we had ruined, by dying a criminals death on the cross and over-coming the grave after three days. Jesus became the lamb to end all sacrifices, and became the keys for us to access the Kingdom.

The Kingdom is exactly what the word means; the “King’s” “domain”. It is the places where God’s ruler-ship as King is restored. (7) God has acted as Saviour by sending Jesus as the keys to the kingdom, where sin can be forgotten and a life which is eternal can be begun. But the point of that life is not to just get to heaven when we die, but to live this life taking on the model set by Christ and living as a citizen of heaven now, living as a new creation in Christ (8) and carrying on the extension of the Kingdom revolution.

In regards to how this will all finish up? I will leave this to Mr N.T. Wright... “The God in whom we believe is the creator of the world, and he will one day put this world to rights. That solid belief is the bedrock of al Christian faith. god is not going to abloish the universe of space, time and matter; he is going to renew it, to restore it and to fill it with new joy and purpose and delight, to take from it all that has corrupted it.” (9)

Until then, I’m just going to do my part by living as a new creation, loving Jesus and extending the Kingdom.

(1) Williams and Brown, Who is this God we worship?
(2) Exodus 3:14
(3) Wilt, The nature of a human being
(4) Philippians 2:27 and 3:20
(5) John 1:14
(6) Wright, Simply Christian 
(7) Johnson, When Heaven invades earth
(8) and (9) Wright, The road to new creation

Working with what we already have

For: The Institute of Contemporary and Emerging Worship Studies, St. Stephen's University, Essentials Blue Online Worship Theology Course with Dan Wilt.

Last Thursday, the under-25 year old “men” of the church, took on the over-25 men in a game of indoor soccer. I am a bit of an active-challenged person at the moment, and the game took my body by surprise. In protest, my body responded with a huge blister/callus thing on the sole of my right foot.

During our camp this weekend, I was playing some more soccer and noticed something flapping around in my sock. I removed my shoes and socks to find a large piece of skin, which was about the size of a matchbox. (Sorry about how gross this all kind of is...)

The weird thing is this; upon holding that piece of skin and looking at it, the Holy Spirit used it as an opportunity and I found myself looking at it in awe, saying “No human hand has ever been able to make this stuff.”

I looked down at my other foot which still had my shoe on it. My shoe was made of materials that man had manipulated to create various kinds of leathers and rubbers.

My clothes were made of different kinds of cottons, again, just a material that man has made by taking a cotton plant and spinning it into yarn or thread. Again, just manipulating something that already exists.

In my hand, I held a piece of skin. Something that mankind has never and I even boldly write - will never - be able to make out of thin air.

Skin, cows, tree sap and cotton plants all have something in common... We didn’t make them. He, the Creator, did.

Dan Wilt puts it pretty good in this quote “Our wildest creations as human beings, with all due respect to the great scientists of this world, have always begun with something that God already created. We have yet to make our own dust out of which to make a human being. We have yet to create a new colour, a new air to breathe or a new building block of life. We work with what is, and we manipulate what is in order to discover, explore and rejoice in the world for which we are made.”

I feel privileged and humbled to be where I sit in the order of things. I'm not the creator, but I have the privilege to be able to manipulate to create from what He has created first.