Tag: discipleship

Ministry of Reconciliation

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

Dancing In the Kingdom – Part 3 – Dancing in the Kingdom– Chapter 16 – Fixing our eyes

Ministry of Reconciliation

[Bible references: Matthew 10; Mark 1:40-45; 5:1-20; Acts 2:42-47; 3:20-26; 17:16-34; Romans 8:18-39; 12; 2 Corinthians 5:18-20; Ephesians 4:1-16; 6:18-20; Philippians 3:25-21; 1 Thessalonians 5:11-28; John 13:34-35; Revelation 21:1-2]

When Jesus came the first time, people were looking for a Messiah to overthrow the Roman government, but Jesus’ message was to repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of sin. That is the message we need to respond to and the message we need to bring to others. The gospel is the good news of forgiveness that we can receive if we respond by repentance. The gospel is the good news of God’s Kingdom come to earth to transform us as well as all of creation so that heaven and earth can be fully joined as God had intended from the beginning.

Once we have become transformed, we are able to invite others to repent and accept the grace of God in transforming their lives as well and then join us in the work of discipleship and restoring the world beginning with the call to reconciliation, that is to engage in the work of evangelism. Some people are better equipped to do evangelism than others, but that does not leave the rest of us with no part in the work.

Evangelism, like other aspects in the life of the church, is a work of the body of the church. It is also a work of the Spirit. Evangelism involves persuading, proclaiming, and teaching the gospel and is a call for others to come to Christ, His Body, and to discipleship. We do not convert people to Christ, which is the work of the Spirit; but we are called to join Spirit in His work in the world. The church is called to be the church and display the gospel at work; the gospel which calls us to be transformed, calls us unity with others in the body of Christ and calls us to join Christ’s work of reconciliation and restoration.

That means that we all have a part to play in the body of Christ, to help build one another up so that we may all become mature members of the body of Christ, displaying the love of the transcendent God towards each other. If we are each transformed by Christ, then we should be able to “give a reason for the hope” we have. A hope that we can hold onto even as we live amid a church that is transformed and yet broken by sin.

The call to discipleship is a call to reconcile all the parts of our lives to the Lordship of Christ. This includes not only all our relationships, particularly with those in the body of Christ, but all of our stewardship responsibilities for all of creation. The evangel, the good news, is not just that our personal relationship with God can be restored, but that all of creation will be restored.

It is for the sake of love that God suffered for us that he might redeem us. The greatest commandments that He gave to his image-bearers, were about love: loving God and loving our neighbor. The good news is about that love – a love that reaches out to us and through us amidst all our brokenness. a love expressed in word and deed.

The remaining parts of this book are about the breadth of expressing that love. Certainly, if we love someone who does has not heard the gospel, it would be loving to share that news with them. And if we are truly loving that other, the words of that news should be happening amid all we do to show that love in our deeds as well as in our words. It may be that the deeds of love will help open-up hearts to hear about that love; a love that reflects God’s prodigal love for each of us, a love that desires to take care of all that God has given us – God’s creation and God’s creatures, God’s image-bearers, and the gifts he has given each one of us. God’s extravagant love should be reflected in the way we love God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength and the way we love our neighbor as ourselves.

God’s image-bearers, the ones who call him Lord and Father, are God’s chosen vehicles to proclaim and demonstrate his love as his ambassadors. God’s proclamation and demonstration of love is not constrained by our different personalities and circumstances, for our limitations are not his limitations but rather our weaknesses are His strength, and our little demonstrations of love are the reflections of His powerful love to us and to the world.

Within ourselves, we may be small and insignificant, but we are not just isolated individuals. We are part of Christ’s body, physical manifestations of Christ

  • Past, present, and future
  • Around the world
  • In all our different ways with whatever resources Christ has given us
  • In whatever place and time he chose for us, with whatever strengths and weaknesses we have

We are the creatures whom God has empowered to rule the earth as his gardener-priests. That empowerment has not changed even though we are broken people living in a broken world. The charge he had given us still remains. Therefore, within our brokenness we need to take whatever Christ has given us and proclaim and demonstrate God’s unsurpassed, overwhelming love to the world, a love that not only wants to reconcile all people but literally all the world to Himself … to reunite heaven and earth.

 The challenge we have as God’s ambassadors, is for us to be proclaiming and living the gospel amid the cultures that are sometimes indifferent and sometimes hostile. Therefore, in our tasks, if we are to be effective ambassadors then we must be, “wise as serpents and innocent as doves,” as we try to discern how to effectively persuade others to follow Jesus. Of course, keeping in mind that it is not we who ultimately persuade others to follow Christ, rather that is the work of the Holy Spirit. But how can we participate with the Holy Spirit?

Different people are persuaded by different means. Sometimes, people are persuaded by logic as we could see in the life of the apostle Paul. Sometimes people are persuaded by personal relationships and are drawn by a personality that looks attractive as we could see in the lives of people who were drawn to Jesus. Sometimes people are persuaded by seeing something different in the life another.

With that in mind, then how do we put ourselves in the place where we are most effective? The answer is: the church. The church is the body of Christ whose members are called to build up one another and to demonstrate a love for one another such that others will recognize us as belonging to Christ. When the church gathers to worship and express it’s love to God, that same desire should lead to expressions of love to one another which pour out into love of neighbor as the church scatters during the week. That desire to love should then draw us to desire to learn how to love in the best way possible. Love leads to love. The love of God leads us to love, love of one another and a love of the world that God loves.

Exactly how that love will flow depends on the particulars of each individual in their particular circumstances. We are all born with different personalities and different bodies, and are equipped differently according to the Holy Spirit, and find ourselves in different cultures within the church and within our communities. Some individuals will find themselves in a very individual ministry and some will be called to a broader ministry to the world. Also, different church communities will even find different approaches in how they interact with the cultures around them.[1]

[1] Finn, Nathan A, Whitfield, Keith S. “Spirituality for the Sent” Chapter 5 Missional Spirituality and Cultural Engagement IVP Academic 2017

Reflect

Discipleship is a process of “being transformed” (2 Corinthians 3:18). Ultimately it is something that happens to us – but it is something we can co-operate with by engaging is spiritual disciplines. What kinds of changes need to happen in our lives that would make it natural to invite someone else into discipleship?

Observe

Read Romans 12. How do we help those around us to be reconciled to each other and to God?

The Discipline of Liturgy

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

Dancing In the Kingdom – Part 3 – Dancing in the Kingdom– Chapter 15 – Reforming our Souls

Discipline of Liturgy

[Bible references: Exodus 12:1-28; Psalm 39:4-7; 90:9-12; Ecclesiastes 12:1]

I don’t know why so many Christian groups think they need to reinvent the wheel when it comes to “discipleship programs.” This time-tested annual pattern for the life of individual believers and the Church together that is focused on Christ, organized around the Gospel, and grounded in God’s grace, is sheer genius. It is simple enough for a child. It offers enough opportunities for creativity and flexibility that it need never grow old. Each year offers a wonderful template for learning to walk with Christ more deeply in the Gospel which brings us faith, hope, and love.[1]

Teaching and learning that are attuned to the spiritual power of habit recognize the power of little things, the formative power of micro practices. Little things repeated over time in community have a formative effect.[2]

In one sense, a liturgy is a ritual, or a script, used by a congregation to format its worship services. In that regard, all congregations are liturgical no matter how formal or informal. In another sense, a liturgy is a “work of the people” which emphasizes the participation of the congregation during the worship service. The goal of the liturgy is to place the whole of our lives, including our schedules, our possessions, and our efforts, in submission to Christ.

That means that we should consider not just what we do on Sundays in the corporate setting of the church, but as individuals, we have our own individual liturgies through the week as well. We should pay attention to the ‘work’ we do as individuals as we live our lives, the ways we worship as we go about our daily lives, the tasks we do and the habits we practice. How do we, in fact, place the whole of our lives, our schedules, our possessions and our efforts, in submission to Christ? That is the point of our liturgy and all the other disciplines we incorporate into our lives.

The liturgical year

The liturgical year is an ancient, time-tested method of discipleship. In addition to the weekly Lord’s Day reminder/celebration of the resurrection of Christ, the liturgical calendar provides a way of refocusing our attention on the spiritual aspects of life. The focus on the Christian story and celebrations provides an opportunity to be shaped by our counter-cultural message rather than the so-called secular message and celebrations. The liturgy of Word and Sacrament has varied through different times and places, but the ancient liturgical calendar provides one way for us to engage as in a concert in a practice that unites us to the one holy, catholic church, past, present, and future.

Sacred Time

Interestingly, the Jews have a liturgical calendar that is different than their “secular” calendar, in the same way that we keep a liturgical calendar that is different from the secular calendar. The calendar of the Canaanite culture of the Old Testament started at the beginning of the wet season which began in the fall. That was the time when seeds would be planted. The Biblical calendar starts in the spring at the beginning of the harvesting season. While the Canaanite culture begins the year with the work that they do to reap a harvest later, the Israelite culture begins their year harvesting the crops (that God provided) and from which they would have seeds to plant later. The difference highlights whose work has preeminence. The “Gentile” calendars are similar. The secular year begins in January as the date when the Roman consuls would begin their terms of office whereas, the Christian liturgical year builds our focus around the life and ministry of Jesus.

There is an intriguing way in which the Jewish culture uses its calendar compared to how we now use it. Whereas, in our present culture we, with a few exceptions, remember historical events according to the actual historical dates that event occurred set. There are exceptions, like Martin Luther King’s birthday which is set to be always celebrated on a Monday, regardless of his actual birthdate. The long weekend has preeminence over the actual birthdate.

This shift of preeminence helps explain what seems to be certain discrepancies in how things are recorded in the Bible. These apparent discrepancies include: the timing of travel to Sinai from Egypt, the construction of the tabernacle, the timing of events in Deuteronomy, even the timing of events in Holy Week. These apparent discrepancies can be explained when we look at them within the biblical framework.

The Bible’s liturgical calendar always celebrates historic events in the same way we handle our exceptions. In the Biblical framework, it is more important to remember events according to the liturgical calendar rather than the actual historic chronology, to frame events in a spiritual context rather than in an historical context.

This includes the events of creation. The modern debates concerning whether creation happened in six 24-hour earth days or six longer eras – or whatever – can be put aside as only scientific concern but not necessary as biblical concerns. The purpose of the liturgical calendar is to help us place everything, both in time and space, both physical and spiritual, in God’s domain. This includes us and the little piece of time and space that we occupy. Therefore, all things, including all our time, our possessions, and our efforts, are under the domain of God. The discipline of the liturgy then provides the larger context in which we can pursue all our spiritual disciplines

[1] Spencer, “Chaplain” Michael. Internet Monk Archives imonk.blog/2010/11/15/church-year-spirituality

[2] Smith, James K.A. “You Are What You Love: The Spiritual Power of Habit.” Brazos Press 2016. eBook

Reflect

The sacred calendar reminds us that all time is sacred. In which parts of your day are you most likely to need reminding of that sacredness?

Observe

Read Exodus 12:1-28. Yahweh is establishing a new calendar for the Israelite. What is the purpose of creating a new calendar?

Dancing through the pain

Dancing in the Kingdom- Table of Contents

Dancing In the Kingdom – Part 1 – Shadows of the Kingdom – Chapter 1 – Prelude

Dancing through the pain

[Bible references: Luke 17:20-21; Hebrews 12; Revelation 21:1-3; 22:1-5]

Right now, it might seem hard to see images of the Dance of God’s Kingdom. We look at the news and wonder where things are headed to. Sometimes we look at our own lives and wonder … If there is a God where is God? What’s His plan for the world – for the church – for us? Then we pick up a book called the Holy Bible and read the stories and wonder how they all fit together. Then we look at the church – well, churches, there are so many of them – and wonder why it’s so complicated and messy and wonder if anybody’s got it right. And, what about me, my story, my mess? How do I fit into it all that?

But hints of God’s activity with His people are there to be found. God has been working through and intervening in the lives of many people that have been dancing the Kingdom Dance through the years, bringing hope and healing to the world. Their stories can be found in the Bible and in the rest of history[1] and sometimes even inserted into the news of the day, in the middle of all the stories of our brokenness.

I dance because it makes me happy! My experience is that when I dance, I can express something from my heart to God that cannot be expressed in words. Dancing is a point of contact with God for me. It gives me an experience of God as the origin of creativity and beauty … “I dance because I want to spread a message of love, joy, hope and faith to the world … Among the dimensions added by the dance expression itself is the meta-message that there is room for the whole human being and life in its fullness in a Christian religious setting. Dance can teach children and adults a body-embracing way of living, believing and being in God’s world. One participant says that through dance in general, “we want to communicate heaven to people down here, the message of salvation, our freedom in God, the joy in God, and the joy of dancing with fellow Christians.” … Through dance these Christian dancers experience and practice their religion in a bodily way. This means that their spirituality takes an embodied form and that dance for them is not only a bodily practice, but also a spiritual one.[2]

Dancing seems to be a human attribute, not necessarily linked to just Christianity[3], it is a gift from God that can be used in the manner expressed here; to be a human means of expressing our God-given joy through our bodies. While dancing can be done alone, when done in community it can help to bind participants together. Joy and community are part of God’s purpose for us. We are tasked as God’s image-bearers to be his representatives and stewards. But our tasks are not to be burdensome but rather they are meant to be joyful. If you will, our tasks are meant to be a joyful dance we do with each other and with our Creator.

For us to dance the Kingdom Dance we don’t have everything figured out, He does. We don’t even have to worry about the results of the dance because the results are not dependent on us but on Him, who is working through us. As much as we have messed things up and will continue to do so, He will ultimately restore us and the rest of creation, making us all into what He had intended from the beginning.

Among all the creatures that God created, we are uniquely made, even if we are not the physical center of the universe as some people may have thought at one time. Through the pursuit of science, we now have instruments that make it very clear that we are not physically at the center of everything, not that we can prove anyway. We are only specks on a small planet spinning around a star in an apparently random solar system in an apparently random galaxy in a universe we cannot even see the edges of. Although we don’t know where the center is, the universe seems to have been created with us in mind. The properties of the universe, the physical constants, the atomic structures, were all created such that it would support our existence.[4] Interestingly, although we are creatures made of the stuff of the universe, not only can we study and reflect on the properties of that stuff, but we can also study and reflect on and even reflect the one who created us.

In the meantime, we do not know when He will return, and we find ourselves in the middle, in-between those two times, between the beginning of the restoration of God’s kingdom on earth and the time when it will be fully accomplished. In this in-between time, sometimes we see some signs of God’s restoration – and sometimes we can’t – and it’s hard to figure out what God is doing, especially when there are times that He seems to be absent. In those times, we need to call upon our faith to hold onto the hope that God is still working out His plans. We need to recall all the times that we did see Him at work, and then we also need to remember that getting to the end of the plans that He intends for us may require some pain on our part just as it required pain on His part. And like Him, our pain will be ultimately overwhelmed with the glory that will be revealed.

Our ultimate destination is not a mere returning to the way we started out, but to the full flourishing of our potential, where God will establish a kingdom of image-bearers released to display God’s character and reflect His glory.

“And salvation only does what it’s meant to do when those who have been saved, are being saved, and will one day fully be saved realize that they are saved not as souls but as wholes and not for themselves alone but for what God now longs to do through them. The point is this. When God saves people in this life, by working through his Spirit to bring them to faith and by leading them to follow Jesus in discipleship, prayer, holiness, hope, and love, such people are designed—it isn’t too strong a word—to be a sign and foretaste of what God wants to do for the entire cosmos. What’s more, such people are not just to be a sign and foretaste of that ultimate salvation; they are to be part of the means by which God makes this happen in both the present and the future. That is what Paul insists on when he says that the whole creation is waiting with eager longing not just for its own redemption, its liberation from corruption and decay, but for God’s children to be revealed.” [5]

With that in mind, we can not only wait and hope. We can participate with God in bringing His kingdom to earth and bringing a taste of healing and hope into a broken world that desperately needs it.

“Within the biblical story, the Christian discovers a constant call for justice on behalf of the weak and forgotten. In the biblical tradition, justice is an aspect of God’s shalom, a notion that carries with it the idea of completeness, soundness, well-being, and prosperity, and includes every aspect of life – personal, relational, and national.”[6]

The suffering and pain in the world can be overwhelming, challenging our ability to maintain hope and persist in our effort as we try to bring shalom. That challenge forces us to focus on the taste of shalom that God has given to us knowing that it is just a foretaste of the fullness of the shalom that awaits us in the fully restored earth.

[1] See Appendix G – The contributions of the Church for some examples

[2] Schurr, Hildegunn Marie T. “Dancing Towards Personal and Spiritual Growth” Nordic Journal of Dance – volume 3, 2012 (pp. 31-40)

[3] La Mothe, Kimerer. “The dancing species: how moving together in time helps make us human” Aeon aeon.co/ideas/the-dancing-species-how-moving-together-in-time-helps-make-us-human

[4] Slezak, Michael. “The human universe: Was the cosmos made for us?” New Scientist, 29 April 2015. www.newscientist.com/article/mg22630190-400-the-human-universe-was-the-cosmos-made-for-us

[5] Wright, N.T. Surprised by Hope, Rethinking Heaven, The Resurrection and the Mission of the Church. Harper Collins 2008. Kindle Edition

[6] Katongole, Emmanuel. Rice, Chris. “Reconciling All Things: A Christian Vision for Justice, Peace and Healing,” Intervarsity Press, 2009 (p. 72)

Reflect

Think about how the universe seems designed for us, our capacity to think about and explore it and then think about our capacity to reflect on the One who created it all. What does that suggest to you about what God has intended for us?

Observe

Read Hebrews 12. What does this passage say about how we should be living now?