Today I needed to focus on a piece of work all day, working at my laptop. I figured I didn't need those pesky 'you've got mail' notifications distracting me every 20 minutes - I always get tempted to read the email.
Rather than quitting my mail-tool, I decided to set it to not check my email automatically, so it would sit there quiet. Radical!
During the day I worked away, and got curious as to why I had no emails - forgetting that I had disabled its checking! Ah but what bliss to be able to work without the distractions. Eventually near the end of the day I re-enabled, and got hit with over ten messages.
We need God's focus for our mission efforts. There's lots of possibility, but many of them are just noise. Do we have the discipline to 'turn off' the potential distractions so that we can get on with what God is calling us to do? The flip-side is being open to the Spirit to lead us into the unexpected rather than sticking with the programmed, but some clarity and focus is more often than not what is needed.
Monday, 29 March 2010
Sunday, 14 March 2010
Gospel Implications
Yesterday I enjoyed being at Worship Central, but I was particularly encouraged to hear Mike Pilavachi talk about the full implications of the Gospel. He be-littled the classic evangelical sermon calling people to accept Jesus for their personal salvation, and went on to explain that to respond to Jesus means for sure salvation but also calls us to the hard work of mission.
This is the first time I can recall hearing a 'big platform speaker' highlight the shortcomings of our typical preaching. It has been bugging me for a while now that we have been selling short in this way. Indeed I must confess also to be guilty of this myself - something I have been recently trying to correct.
Peter's well known call in Acts 2 for the crowd to 'repent and be baptised' was for them to 'save themselves from this corrupt generation', a generation that should have been at the centre of God's mission purposes. By repenting and getting back on track, they would experience salvation for themselves, but also become once again a mission people for God.
In our UK culture of today, which knows nothing of God's mission purposes and wants individualistic blessing parceled out in nice neat packaging, we would do well to give appropriate time in our message to spelling out the bigger picture.
This is the first time I can recall hearing a 'big platform speaker' highlight the shortcomings of our typical preaching. It has been bugging me for a while now that we have been selling short in this way. Indeed I must confess also to be guilty of this myself - something I have been recently trying to correct.
Peter's well known call in Acts 2 for the crowd to 'repent and be baptised' was for them to 'save themselves from this corrupt generation', a generation that should have been at the centre of God's mission purposes. By repenting and getting back on track, they would experience salvation for themselves, but also become once again a mission people for God.
In our UK culture of today, which knows nothing of God's mission purposes and wants individualistic blessing parceled out in nice neat packaging, we would do well to give appropriate time in our message to spelling out the bigger picture.
Monday, 8 March 2010
Ultimately against the powers
Having journeyed through Ephesians, we get to the end of chapter 6 and the armour of God.
Note that the main battle is with principalities and powers, dark forces, rather than flesh and blood (v11-12). So the trajectory of mission that I contend is in this letter leads us to an interesting point: mission is about confronting the dark powers that operate in any society, rather than people per se.
Don't get me wrong, I am convinced that in the main mission is all about people, yet there is something about these verses that means we have to contend with what is going on behind the scenes. I am not convinced that what we are talking here is just some spiritual-block that seems to stop ordinary people believing and accepting the gospel.
I think Paul is onto controlling behaviours, societal hegemony that keeps people locked into ways of living that are not of God. Whether it is 'structural sin', unjust practices, things that keep people in slavery, they are to be confronted, calling for reform, calling for salvation in the broad sense.
That will provoke a reaction - against which we need as Christians to stand firm in the face of the confrontation. For that, we need the armour.
Note that the main battle is with principalities and powers, dark forces, rather than flesh and blood (v11-12). So the trajectory of mission that I contend is in this letter leads us to an interesting point: mission is about confronting the dark powers that operate in any society, rather than people per se.
Don't get me wrong, I am convinced that in the main mission is all about people, yet there is something about these verses that means we have to contend with what is going on behind the scenes. I am not convinced that what we are talking here is just some spiritual-block that seems to stop ordinary people believing and accepting the gospel.
I think Paul is onto controlling behaviours, societal hegemony that keeps people locked into ways of living that are not of God. Whether it is 'structural sin', unjust practices, things that keep people in slavery, they are to be confronted, calling for reform, calling for salvation in the broad sense.
That will provoke a reaction - against which we need as Christians to stand firm in the face of the confrontation. For that, we need the armour.
Friday, 5 March 2010
Flourishing Enablers
Sticking with Ephesians, the back end gets right into relationships, including the classic wives/husbands piece, children/masters and the not so well rehearsed slave/masters bit.
Whats it all about?
From last time we looked at contrast society and differentiated lifestyles. A big chunk of this is how we relate to each other. Thats important, because the world does notice these things.
So whilst drilling into detail can be instructive, I rather think we are now outworking the trajectory I have talked about (ad nauseum) before - that this letter is reminding the Ephesians of their God given call to be his people of light (5:7-9) to the world. That light shines through the way we relate as much as in other ways.
5:19-20 tells us we are literally to speak life to each other. Not necessarily by appearing super-spiritual as these verses first appear, but surely in the outworking of our natural relationships, hence 5:21 to 6:9 and its three example scenarios.
And the summary of those situations - enable the other person to flourish. Make it so they can be the person God is calling them to be. That requires inter-dependence, a recognising that we are what we are as a function of other people as well as other things (thats 'Ubuntu', in African languages).
Not easy to do, but enormously powerful.
Whats it all about?
From last time we looked at contrast society and differentiated lifestyles. A big chunk of this is how we relate to each other. Thats important, because the world does notice these things.
So whilst drilling into detail can be instructive, I rather think we are now outworking the trajectory I have talked about (ad nauseum) before - that this letter is reminding the Ephesians of their God given call to be his people of light (5:7-9) to the world. That light shines through the way we relate as much as in other ways.
5:19-20 tells us we are literally to speak life to each other. Not necessarily by appearing super-spiritual as these verses first appear, but surely in the outworking of our natural relationships, hence 5:21 to 6:9 and its three example scenarios.
And the summary of those situations - enable the other person to flourish. Make it so they can be the person God is calling them to be. That requires inter-dependence, a recognising that we are what we are as a function of other people as well as other things (thats 'Ubuntu', in African languages).
Not easy to do, but enormously powerful.
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