Synchroblog

Posted on July 31, 2007
Filed Under church, blog | 11 Comments

Glenn Hager has asked a group of bloggers to join him today in a synchroblog. The theme is Things I learned from Church (That Didn’t Prove True and What I’m Learning Lately).  Visit Glenn’s blog to find out who the other bloggers are. Unfortunately this post will not be as long as I would like, as I’m packing to leave for Scotland in a few hours, but here goes ….

I became a Christian when I was 22 - ten years ago now. Prior to becoming a Christian I had a large group of friends who I enjoyed socialising with. My friends were the first casualty of me becoming a Christian. People at church encouraged me to think about who I socialised with, as I should not be around people who may be a bad influence. Gradually as time went by I stopped seeing my friends and my circle became purely Christians. Years on I regret losing touch with friends, and realize that given the opportunity I could have been church amongst them.

Church taught me that it was wrong to question things and that I should just accept things as they are, because that’s how they’ve always been. Now I realize that questioning and challenging is healthy, even God given. It’s part of learning and evolving, and church is certainly evolving at the moment.

Jesus came and died to free us from the law, yet the church has taken a new law upon itself and has filled Christians with do’s and don’t do’s. I have come to realize some of these are there out of fear, in order to control people.

The church taught me that people need to fit the mold in order to be accepted by God - that prostitutes, homosexuals, drug addicts, alcoholics, people with who follow other beliefs and religions were wrong and demonised. I have come to realize that Jesus would hang out with these people if he were here on earth today, he would probably look at the church as he did the Pharisees in his time on earth. No, I don’t believe that prostitution, homosexuality, drugs etc. are God’s plan, but I believe that God wants us to love, to serve, and through that we can reach people within our society from all backgrounds.

The church has taught me that the proper way to worship God is to go to church on a Sunday. I’ve learnt that worshipping God is a 24/7 thing which I can do on my own, with one or two others, or with a larger community. I’ve come to realize that it can happen any day of the week, it doesn’t have to be in a specific building at a set time. God is everywhere, he shows up anywhere where people seek him.

Jesus came to set the captives free, he came to bring freedom.  His yoke is easy and his burden is light. I’ve come to realize that I don’t have to fit a certain mold, God loves me as I come to him, warts and all. As time goes on I’m letting go of the bondage placed upon me, but it will be a while before I’m free.  Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom.

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Couldn’t resist this ….

Posted on July 31, 2007
Filed Under Images, funny | 5 Comments

…. put in a caption!

Here’s mine:

Gordon: “I swear George, my car was right here a minute ago.” or how about

George: “I’m sorry Gordon, there is no way I can jump over your arm.”

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Thoughts on healing

Posted on July 30, 2007
Filed Under Prayer, blog | 6 Comments

Yesterday I heard someone talk about how if you are sick you should pray for healing and then God will heal you. If this doesn’t happen then keep praying because eventually he will bring healing. I really struggle with this. What about the people who are sick with something like cancer, organ failure, cystic fibrosis etc? The parents who are desperately praying for their critically ill child? The child who is a full time carer to one of his parents? These people pray and pray but receive no healing. Is it because they don’t have enough faith? Is it because there is sin in their life? Or is there a healing, but it’s just not in the physical form we expect?

Sonja wrote an excellent post yesterday called Losing My Religion. She expresses her thoughts in a wonderful way, where I get lost for words and tongue tied. Now there is nothing wrong with praying, it’s a great and awesome way of communicating and hearing from God, I’m all for prayer. Maybe I am losing my religion (maybe that’s a good thing - I’d much rather just have my faith!), but I can’t simply go along with the “if you’re not being healed then you’re obviously not praying hard enough” blurb, it just doesn’t seem that black and white to me ……

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discipling

Posted on July 30, 2007
Filed Under book, God | 5 Comments

Yesterday I was reading about discipling and I came away with a new definition. I guess through church rightly, or wrongly, I have always found the word discipling to be filled with lots of heavy connotations and formula. I kind of feel stupid writing about this but yesterday I learnt that the greek word for disciple means to mentor and mentor means to stamp an image.

Therefore Jesus called his disciples to stamp an image on the world - more precisely to stamp his image on the world. Discipling seems so much easier looking at it this way. How many people are you in contact with who you are stamping an image on - more importatnly stamping God’s image on? Your children, work collegues, friends, people at the homeless shelter, at the coffee house, addictions centre and many more?

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Posters

Posted on July 28, 2007
Filed Under blog | Leave a Comment

Grace has produced some fabulous posters to represent her understanding of missional/emerging terminology.  I think they really represent a lot of peoples’ understanding in the emerging-missional world.  Great job Grace!

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