God’s Characteristics from the Bible

HisCharacteristicsWhat is God like? God’s characteristics are described for us throughout the Bible. It is important for us to understand as much as we can about what the Bible says about God. Read each passage below and write out what you find out about God from the Bible verses.

To make it easy for you, each one listed is hyper-linked to Bible Gateway*:

GodCharacteristicsTable

(a picture of the chart contained in the study From Genesis to Jesus)

*Linked to the New Living Translation

Note: This list is an excerpt from Lesson 1 of a full beginners study on the Bible called From Genesis to Jesus.  It is not intended to be an exhaustive list, but a simple and comprehensive list of key characteristics of God for someone new to the Bible and the faith of Christians.

Behind the Man in Black – My review of Marc Eckel’s autobiography: “It’s Not About Me.”

4.0 out of 5 starsBehind the Man in Black,  April 22, 2014

Pulling back the canvas onEckel-AutoBio-Cover Splat Experience and the multi-talented Marc Eckel, this portrait is engaging on a personal level and certainly glorifies God. That is the heart of the author and you can see it on the pages of this autobiography. Possibly the greatest challenge for a writer is to write about themselves…and Eckel let’s you on the inside to see the anecdotes, successes, joys and pains of his life and ministry.

In a couple of hours, you can get a great overview of this captivating ministry and creative artist. The best part is “The Final Chapter” isn’t really the final chapter…it’s just a chapter from 2014. I look forward to the future ministry of Marc Eckel and Splat Experience in 2014 and beyond! The blessing of the Lord is clear…and I look forward to the EXPERIENCE.

P.S. If you haven’t seen a Splat Experience presentation, the pictures of the artwork in the appendix are outstanding (a great feature about the book). Even these pictures pale in comparison to the authentic worship experience of the presentations.

Thoughts on Thanksgiving

GiveThankstoYouThis morning, I just typed “thank*” into my Bible’s search engine and began to scroll through 100+ places where the word is used.  One in particular made me take pause. Here are some lyrics of a song which was written to praise our God:

All Your works shall give thanks to You, O Lord,
And Your godly ones shall bless You.
They shall speak of the glory of Your kingdom
And talk of Your power;
To make known to the children of men Your mighty acts
And the glory of the majesty of Your kingdom.
Your kingdom is an everlasting kingdom,
And Your dominion endures throughout all generations.

We see that it is good to thank and speak praises about our God to others. Not only is it good for us, but all of creation will thank Him (yes, that is what “all of Your works means”)!
Sometimes we think it is enough to just be thankful in our minds and hearts. I tend to be in that place and continue to have my faith be deep, but muted. This Psalm really challenged me to open my mouth and speak aloud about the greatness of our God and His Kingdom!
Won’t you take the opportunity this weekend to “speak of the glory of God’s Kingdom” or “talk of God’s power” or “make known to children God’s mighty acts”?  That is what blesses our God!

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Faith in God is so important…

faithinGod

Faith in God is so important. Am I letting him direct my steps? Westerners (and I include myself here) are such driven people. We rely on statistics, we rely on technology, we rely on news and we rely on our experiences and gifts. But we are not always good at learning to wait on the will of God. I have learned and seen true faith in some of these leaders who are being persecuted and have nothing. They truly understand Paul when he writes, “I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Phil 3:8).


– Paul Borthwick

from Western Christians in Global Mission: What’s the Role of the North American Church?

(Link to my blog of quotes from the book)

Running away from “Why Me?” and toward “What Now?”

RayHauser2013_09-22 This Sunday @LosAltosGrace, our beloved Ray & Char Hauser joined us. Ray has battled brain cancer while serving with his wife Char in a hospitality & discipleship ministry with military men and women stationed in Hawaii.

Ray shared an emotional and powerful message about the spiritual wisdom they have gained through this trial. His text for the day was Psalm 73 which tracks the “whining” and “reality” of the writer all the way to the “right” conclusion:

 

But as for me, it is good to be near God.
I have made the Sovereign Lord  my refuge;

I will tell of all your deeds.      (Psalm 73:28 NIV)

 

Ray candidly challenged us not to run to the typical “Why Me?” question that is the normal response. From his experience, he encouraged us to ask a different question “What Now?”

In a poignant moment, Ray confessed that they pray with both hands lifted high to the Lord. The one hand is lifted up to God full of their prayer requests.  And the other hand is lifted to receive whatever the Lord decides to give them.

May I be a man that seeks our Lord like my brother Ray.

 

Ray’s message is worth hearing again, not because it’s so polished, but because it’s from the lips of a man who has walked the hard road with our Lord and is sharing his advice:  Listen to this message online or on iTunes

A Historic Wind is Blowing through the House of Islam

Mission-Frontiers-2013-08The latest Mission Frontiers. Available online. It’s free.

Contents:
God is Doing Something Historic – David Garrison
Why Are Muslims Coming to Jesus Like Never Before? – Robby Butler
Start a Disciple-Making Movement Among Your Muslim Neighbors – Paul Bartlett, Robby Butler
Any-3: Lead Muslims to Christ Now! – Mike Shipman
Guide Muslims to the Bible – AJ Hague
A Novice’s Guide to Fielding Common Muslim Objections – Shane Bennett
Kingdom Kernels: CPM Essentials On a Napkin – Steve Smith

“God Hates Visionary Dreaming” – Bonhoeffer

God hates visionary dreaming; it makes the dreamer proud and pretensions. The man who fashions a visionary ideal of community demands that it be realized by God, by others and by himself. He enters the community of Christians with his demands, sets up his own laws, and judges that brethren and God Himself accordingly. He stands adamant, a living reproach to all others in the circle of brethren. He acts as if he is the creator of the Christian community, as if his dream binds men together. When things do not go his way, he calls the effort a failure. When his ideal picture is destroyed, he sees the community going to smash. So he becomes, first an accuser of his brethren, then an accuser of God, and finally the despairing accuser of himself.

-Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together

Quote retrieved from Ordinary Community – Chris Marshall

The Essence of the Church by Tom Julien cited by @JD_Payne

This post is a connection of 3 influential missiological thinkers in my life:

1) I saw this post on Kurt Miller’s blog (thechurchplanter) – @KurtMiller01 is my father-in-law and one of the sharpest thinkers about church planting in the USA.
2) Tom Julien wrote most of the content, and he is the Director Emeritus of my current agency Encompass World Partners. From the time we shared a meal at my parents home when I was a little boy, I’ve hung onto the wisdom he has spoken.

DiscoveringChurchPlanting-JDPayneThose first two were plenty of reason to repost, but then as I did some more research, I realized that
3) missiologist J.D. Payne included this in his 2012 book Discovering Church Planting. I’ve learned from Payne in his merging of global mission & church planting over several years of collaborating with @CMAResources.

Sorry for the long intro, now to the content of “The Essence of the Church”:

 

“In his article, “The Essence of the Church,*” Tom Julien discussed the fact that many church planters often define the local church in terms of their cultural preference, which can lead to problems on the field.  Julien admonished church-planting teams first to come to an agreement on what the local church is so they will know what they are planting.

“Our problem is that we identify the local church by her cultural and historic expression, more than by her biblical essence. To arrive at a clear definition of the local church we must make a distinction between the two. Sluggish thinking here will lead to differing assumptions in the church-planting team that will affect the basic principles of any church-planting ministry. The more focused we are on essence, the less attachment we will have to any particular cultural expression of the church. On the other hand, if the form or cultural expression of the church becomes our reference point, adapting to different cultural situations will create tension.

The New Testament reveals the church both in her essence and expression. With regard to the essence of the church, this revelation is given in images and presented as fact; with respect to the cultural expression of the church, this revelation is given as example and is descriptive rather than prescriptive…

Let us come back to our original question: “What is a local church?” We have said that a local church is a visible manifestation of the biblical essence. Most of us, however, need something more concrete to work with. It is crucial that every church-planting team agree on a working definition, in concrete terms, that grows out of essence, and not expression. This definition must include those elements that are indispensable to the identity of a church, and omit those that are not. This definition identifies the seed for church planting.

Here is an attempt at such a definition. Members of every church-planting team need to be unified with respect to what they are planting, even if it takes months of struggle to agree.

A local church is an organized body of baptized believers, led by a spiritually qualified shepherd, affirming their relationship to the Lord and to each other by regular observance of the Lord’s Supper, committed to the authority of the Word of God, gathering regularly for worship and the study of the Word, and turned outward to the world in witness.”

Questions to Consider:

  1. What do you think Julien meant by “If the form or cultural expression of the church becomes our reference point, adapting to different cultural situations will create tension”? Can you give an example of such tension?
  2. Do you agree or disagree with Julien’s definition of the local church?
  3. Have you and your church-planting team taken the time to agree on a biblical definition of the local church? f not, why not? How do you know you are all on the same page when you talk about church planting?

*Taken from Tom Julien, “The Essence of the Church,” Evangelical Missions Quarterly (April 1998): 148-149, 152.”

Photocopy original citation in Discovering Church Planting page 44
Photocopy original citation in Discovering Church Planting page 45

Kindle Version:

My Highlights from Leading Cross-Culturally by Sherwood Lingenfelter

One of the areas of great growth and learning for me since I’ve been with Encompass World Partners has been in cross-cultural relationships. One of the experts in that area, and former board member with Encompass is Sherwood Lingenfelter. I encountered his book Ministering Cross-Culturally and learned a lot!

I have poked around in Lingenfelter’s more recent book Leading Cross-Culturally primarily because of our implementation of coalitions which are an architecture for everyone everywhere to engage in mission! It will be best if multiple cultures are involved, and it will also be a stretching experience for everyone involved.

Last night I was transfixed by chapter 8 on “Power-Giving Leadership.” Lingenfelter walked through the sticky Paul, Philemon, Onesimus situation. What a beautiful example of Paul giving away his position and power and empowering Philemon to lead and be like Jesus. This study provides an excellent contribution to Biblical leadership!

 

Lingenfelter’s definition for the book: Leading cross-culturally, then, is inspiring people who come from two or more cultural traditions to participate with you (the leader or leadership team) in building a community of trust and then to follow you and be empowered by you to achieve a compelling vision of faith.

LeadingCrossCulturally-coverBelow are a string of some of what I found to be the best quotes in my reading so far:

The most important part of empowering new leaders is to support them in the early stages when they need help and to release them as soon as they can walk in the ministry by themselves. Consider the analogy of a toddler learning to walk: as soon as the child takes steps alone, we encourage the child to keep going. Some people are very cautious about releasing young leaders; this is a serious mistake. To release is not to abandon but to let the young leader learn to walk. It is vitally important that we allow young leaders to take halting steps, allow them to stumble, even fall, and then, as mentors, encourage them to get up and try again. We can always support them and help lift them up after they have fallen. But they will never be successful leaders unless we release them to play the game, to do the work for which we have equipped them.

The focus of power-giving leadership is to follow Christ and, in so doing, to lead others to follow Christ. In the patterns of “normal” cultural life, our power and skills may produce leaders but probably won’t produce followers of Christ.

“Giving Philemon the freedom to choose is also a vision to grow (‘I know you’ll do even more than I ask’). Part of empowering leadership is to remind people of who they are and the way their (potential) actions are consistent with their identity in the Lord”

The power-seeking leader uses position and authority to exert mastery over others. In this situation, Paul used a letter to engage in a power exchange with Philemon. He had Onesimus in his custody, and he could have easily written a different letter that would have asserted Philemon’s obligations to him and induced Philemon to release Onesimus to Paul without ever letting Onesimus out of his sight. Paul understood that if he took that tactic, it would be a false path to acquire something that he desired. He would pervert the relationship that God had given him with Philemon, using his position as the senior brother in Christ to advance his own selfish interest. In doing this, Paul would have, in fact, undermined Philemon’s faith and the work of the grace of God in their relationship together.

Jesus must become the center of who we are…

To restore our human psyche and relationships to the will and purpose of God, Jesus must become the center of who we are and replace our quest for power. Only as we are motivated by the Holy Spirit and through the living Word of God can we relate to one another within the structures of human society to accomplish the purpose of God.

I will first argue that we must put Jesus “in the place of power as a proper source of healing and will”

The task and the routines of daily work always erode our mission and vision for the ministry. They also erode our spiritual values. The question is not whether our values are eroding; team values are always eroding. The question is, what are we doing as leaders to renew our sense of mission, to restore our vision, and to renew the values that are critical for multicultural teamwork? Our hope for effective leadership and ministries lies in aligning ourselves with the mission and work of God in a lost and broken world.

Leaders in particular must surrender their obsession to control and achieve, through worship at the cross.

While the process will be difficult, with periods of intense testing and struggle, building covenant community is a process of refocusing from doing what we want to being the people of God.

In the end the work of the kingdom depends on our obedience to the King. God cannot rule in people who are disobedient and in conflict with one another. God rules as we obey God and love one another.

Every leader who expects and hopes to be effective in leading cross-culturally must give repeated attention to the mission, the vision, and the values that are essential to kingdom work. Every team meeting should include some intentional renewal of mission, vision, and/or values. As soon as that component of the team is lost, the mission and the vision will be lost to the routines and the pressures of doing our daily work. Every case study that we have considered here has suffered because of a loss of mission, vision, and/or values among the people who were part of the multicultural team process.

Saying, “I was wrong,” is more powerful than saying “I’m sorry.”

One of my colleagues, Janice Strength, notes that saying “I was wrong” is far more powerful than saying “I am sorry.” She notes that we often push children to say “I am sorry” when they and we know they are not. To acknowledge “I was wrong” is to take responsibility for the action we have done.

I remind students in my classes that we are first emotional creatures and only secondarily rational. As we respond to crises or stressful situations in leadership, we rarely operate based on reason and rational processes. When things get tough, we first respond emotionally—frustration, anger, fear, disappointment, and betrayal. These emotions often get the best of us, leading us to seek power to protect ourselves, which in turn undermines the will and purpose of God.

I remember praying, “Please remove this person from leadership and give me someone else who can do the job more effectively.” God’s answer to this prayer was, “Absolutely no; don’t you understand my work?” I learned over a period of time that God loves weak people and that God intends leaders to work with the people whom God gives to them.

The Multiplier Factor « Issachar Initiative | Extending the Reach of the Church

Thirteen people gather in a modest living room in central China. Their huge task is to reach and disciple an unreached people of several million. Thinking about this brave small group, we might be reminded of the boy’s bread and fish in John 6: “…how far will they go among so many?” But that small lunch was enough because Jesus brought the divine multiplier factor.

Does God have a divine multiplier factor for that team of 13 in China?

Yes, because they aren’t a team of just 13 people. One church in North America has told them: “In reality, you have 3,013 members on your team because every person in our congregation is a part of your team too. Whatever you need, ask for it from a member who is back here in our church. We’re in this together!”

The local church is God’s multiplier factor for missions today! Individuals can make a tremendous contribution to missions. Technology can have a great impact too. But the multiplier factor only comes into play when we engage the local church. Why?

1. The power multiplier

“I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it,” Jesus declared. It is the church to whom Jesus promises success as she assaults the forces of evil.

We are in a cosmic spiritual battle. Paul called the Ephesian church to stand with him in the fearless proclamation of the gospel with “all kinds of prayers” because the struggle is against the powers of darkness (Eph. 6:18-19). If the Apostle Paul was dependent on the engagement of the church, who are we to think we can go it alone?

Winning is not dependent on technology, education, political power, or money. But it is dependent on a powerful team fighting on their knees. One pastor told me with joy that when his congregation came face to face with the desperate needs of the unreached, they began to pray “BIG prayers.” Big prayers impact the church itself, the community, and yes, the ends of the earth. Only the deeply engaged local church has the potential to exponentially multiply the prayer power. Only that prayer power will go far enough, deep enough, and last long enough.

2. The leadership multiplier

Saul was a “Type A” entrepreneur, gifted and passionate to take the gospel to the ends of the earth. But in Acts 13:1-3, God pushed the pause button. In essence He said, “Wait! I want the local church, especially the leaders of the local church, to be the engine of the missions process.” The Holy Spirit speaks to the leaders of the Antioch church, “You send Paul and Barnabas.”

In the 21st century, the local church continues to be the best engine for missions engagement. Here’s what happened when one church responded:

“Our elders identified people in our church who were seriously involved in ministry and who they felt might be gifted to serve cross-culturally,” an elder in a local church in Pennsylvania explains. “We developed a two-year class, and eventually from that group, we sent a team to Cambodia. Each member struggled at times with the decision to move ahead, but they kept coming back to this fact: This isn’t an individual goal nor a decision made hastily. This is the vision of my church, and we have the full confidence of our church leaders.”

God continues to call the church to prepare and send some of its best today. But will our generation complete the Great Commission? We can’t be sure. So the local church must also, right now, be raising up tomorrow’s missions leaders. How? By involving members of every age in Acts 1:8 efforts. Missions is caught better than taught, and the church is where those with powerful vision should be incubating it!

 3. The resources multiplier

My life changed when a man in our congregation said to me, “This is the first time in decades of running a business that I ever saw any way take what I’ve learned and use it for God.”

At the time, I was directing missions in my local church and had just recruited this businessman to be part of a short-term team offering business seminars in Eastern Europe. Suddenly I realized that our church was full of people who had all different types of expertise—professional, business, hobbies, sports, etc.—that was being wasted. And most of them were not uninvolved because they were resistant. They were uninvolved because they didn’t know they were needed and they had never been asked.

To stake Jesus’ claim over every inch of this planet requires the full engagement of every member of the church. God has already built the vast variety of abilities needed into what He describes as His Body—a complex organism with an amazing variety of distinct parts. These parts are designed to work in tandem to reach common goals (Eph. 4:16).

No individual and no other organization on earth can get the job done. God has called the church to the task because no lesser institution can be successful. The local church is God’s multiplier factor. What’s God calling your church to do?

Ellen Livingood is the coordinator of All Means (www.AllMeans.org) and the president of Catalyst Services (www.CatalystServices.org). Both efforts are dedicated to multiplying the global impact of local churches.

Issachar Blogs highlight 10 Elements of the Great Commission found in Scripture. This blog relates to Element #9, Mobilizing People and Finances, based on the promise in Luke 6:38 to “give and it will be given to you,” and the command in Isaiah 6:8 to “listen to our Lord’s voice and be ready to go wherever He calls us.

 

The Multiplier Factor « Issachar Initiative | Extending the Reach of the Church.

My highlights from Western Christians in the Global Mission by Paul Borthwick

All of the following are direct quotes from the  book by Paul Borthwick Western Christians in Global Mission: What’s the Role of the North American Church?

 

Miriam Adeney echoes the same call: “Our music and our worship must be multicultural, not simply because our society is multicultural, but because the future from which God is calling us is multicultural…. Not just so that those from other cultures may feel at home among us but also so that we may feel at home in God’s future.”

I believe that we in North America must take initiative in becoming more intentionally international and intercultural.Consider four actions: get to know the world, develop multicultural fellowships, view business as kingdom work and get connected to the global church.

“With two eyes and two ears and one mouth, try to observe and listen four times as much as you speak.”

…I have not yet heard any leader say, “Well, you really set the pace in teaching us how to be servants.” We in North America know how to be in control, but do we know how to follow the orders of those who will lead Christendom through this century?”

“For us in Africa, we think from a family paradigm. When we come together in partnership, it’s a partnership based on relationships (not tasks), and we stay partners for life.”

In a relational view of partnerships, I don’t need to have all the answers, all the money or all the ideas. We come together as family to chart the way forward. We need each other, as Andrew Walls suggests: “Crossing cultural frontiers constantly brings Christ into contact with new areas of human thought and experience. All of these, converted, become part of the functioning body of Christ. The full stature of Christ depends on all of them together.”

The greatest challenge in building effective partnerships between Westerners and non-Westerners is control.

Unfortunately, for the most part, the North American mission force talks a great game about partnership, but paternalism and colonial patterns still predominate. My sense is that the global church would love to partner but isn’t interested in the strings that are attached or the models of ministry we bring. Rather, they are looking for friends who model Christlike family…

“we who live middle-class lives in North America or Europe are living a lifestyle that is, materially speaking, “better than 99 percent of all the people who have ever lived in human history.”

On the one hand, we might raise and spend more money on short-term mission airline tickets than the annual budget of our host church; on the other, many in North America cannot grasp the reality of the poorer world without a firsthand visit. There is simply no substitute for going and visiting our Majority World coworkers in the kingdom where they live and serve.

The North American church must move

  • from being primarily doers to primarily equippers
  • from being in charge to being equal partners
  • from ownership and control to “We own nothing, control nothing and count nothing as our own”
  • from Western missionaries to global missionaries
  • from unhealthy dependencies to indigenous self-sufficiency and the promotion of dignity
  • from competition to cooperation (from an emphasis on “my” brand to a focus on “his” brand)•from agency-based missions to church-agency synergy

 

Faith in God is so important. Am I letting him direct my steps? Westerners (and I include myself here) are such driven people. We rely on statistics, we rely on technology, we rely on news and we rely on our experiences and gifts. But we are not always good at learning to wait on the will of God. I have learned and seen true faith in some of these leaders who are being persecuted and have nothing. They truly understand Paul when he writes, “I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Phil 3:8).

 

It takes everyone to accomplish the mission, and the body is better because of that.

One of our slogans is this: “Building crosscultural relationships is easier if we accept the fact that 40 percent of the time we will have no idea what’s going on.”

The key issue, as we’ll see later under the topic of partnership, is building relational trust as we grow as a family. And just like a family, when one of us needs money, we might ask a brother or sister for help. But even if that brother or sister cannot respond, we’re still family!

Being in reciprocal relationship with brothers and sisters will force us to focus first on relationships rather than the creation of global strategies.

We need to learn to receive as well as give….we, the rich, go to help you, the poor, or that we, the educated, go to help you, the illiterate. We think that the word resource means money first and education second. Reciprocity teaches us that our brothers and sisters are rich in many other ways.

“Too often, we who go to serve on crosscultural short-term missions practice self-congratulatory servanthood. We live in the hut, eat the local food, endure the heat and use the squat toilet, all the time quietly congratulating ourselves on our willingness to serve.The irony is this: I might be feeling proud as I “sacrifice” my North American comforts to be with my Majority World family, but they don’t necessarily see me as a servant. They welcome me as a guest, but to them, I am just living the way they do all day every day, fifty-two weeks a year. I am not acting as a servant; I am simply a new member of their family.True servanthood is serving people in a way that they interpret as servanthood.”

Christian missionaries actually helped to preserve cultures and languages. According to Sanneh, rather than serving as a tool for Western cultural domination, the translation efforts of European and North American missionaries provoked: (1) vernacular revitalization: the preservation of specific cultures by preserving their language; (2) religious change: people were attracted to Christianity and a “God who speaks my language” over Islam, which is fundamentally not translatable; and (3) social transformation: the dignity associated with God speaking indigenous languages revitalized societies and laid the foundation for the eventual ousting of colonial powers.

 

…to grow as the global body of Christ characterized by

  • interdependence rather than independence and individualism
  • reciprocity, by which all members contribute to the benefit of the others (and all members realize that everyone else has something to offer)
  • humility, equality and mutual respect, with a stress on honoring the less significant-seeming parts of the body
  • learning and discovery together.

 

The common thread is this: God’s people, relying on God’s power and presence, go out and look for opportunities to share and demonstrate the love of Jesus to all peoples everywhere.

Jesus says to his followers “As the Father has sent me, I am sending you,” he affirms the same truth (Jn 20:21). We don’t need to ask if we are sent; Jesus says we are. What we need to ask is where and to whom.

In one respect, the big question is not “Where do we fit?” but “What is God doing?” Joining God in his global eternal mission is our first priority.

 

What’s the first small step of intentionality that you need to take to start expanding your global vision?

 

The common theme is this: intentionality. Without intentional efforts to build our diversity, we will find ourselves in isolated, monocultural churches and fellowship groups.

 

We in our peaceful North American surroundings often forget that sixty-five of the sixty-six books of the Bible were written either from or to a context of uncertainty, political violence, oppression, poverty, exile and military force.

Until the Western church can learn what it is like in the rest of the world, it can only be a spectator, not a participant.

Those of us who want to interact globally will have to suspend some of our theological judgments and listen to how someone from another land is hearing the Scriptures, experiencing the power of God or applying the Bible to daily life.

“Missions is now mutual exchange among multiple centers of influence and learning and resources traveling all directions, not only from here to there.”

Does the church in America have the humility to learn from us, or do they consider themselves to be the world’s teacher? Does the American church have the magnanimous spirit to work alongside us in genuine partnership that is based upon mutual respect and shared resources, or do they simply see us as their “partners” to fulfill their plans in our countries?

 

Even though the Western world has dominated Christianity for much of Christian history, Christianity is now primarily a nonwhite, non-Western, nonwealthy religion….Some estimate that 70 percent of the world’s Bible-believing Christians (as opposed to nominal or cultural Christians) now live in the Majority World.

Work Matters: A Reflection from Bob Genberg

A friend of mine, Bob Genberg read the book “Work Matters” and wrote an article for our sister church.  I was gripped by his article and how it described an orbit that is easy for us to fall into.  I thought I’d post it here for your consideration:

My bedside alarm activates and Jackson Browne’s “Before the Deluge” nudges me out of my slumber. I get up in a sleepy haze and get dressed for work. I gather my backpack, kiss my wife and daughters goodbye, and fall into freeway traffic. Another workday has begun and I’m on autopilot. Lately, I’m realizing how easily and insidiously this has become my default mode. Autopilot. The mode that understands the spoken and unspoken guidelines that shape my interactions with others. Whether this involves feigning interest when a supervisor drones on about a new pet project that is sure to be as revolutionary as the reinvention of the wheel, or replying “fine, fine,” when someone asks me how I’m doing—even when I’m struggling with personal pain and heartache. I’ve learned how to compartmentalize my life in order to make it more manageable. Perhaps to keep, as George Castanza said in a Seinfeld episode, my worlds from colliding.

Tom Nelson, in his book Work Matters, has helped me catch a glimpse of how this compartmentalization leads to a fractured worldview, fractured living, possibly a fractured soul. He points out that a proper viewpoint is essential for correct and vital living, as incorrect thinking fosters withdrawal from the world, rather than engagement in it.

Tom writes specifically about our relation to work, and lays the foundation of…   >>Read the Rest HERE

Work Matters: A Reflection from Bob Genberg | Grace Community.

5 Practical Ideas to Eat – Josh Reeves | @VergeNetwork

We often speak of living out our gospel identity in everyday rhythms of life (know the story, listen, bless, celebrate & suffer, eat, rest & work). In fact, much of what we do is not meant to add things to the schedule, but bring intentionality to the things we are already doing.

The following lists are a few practical examples of simple things you can begin doing to bring gospel intentionality to your schedule. Hopefully as you are reading through these examples it will spark ideas for your own life.

5 PRACTICAL IDEAS TO EAT

  • Start a monthly dinner night at your house that has an open invitation for anyone that wants to to join and bring people.
  • Find people in your church community who love cooking and get them to help others grow in their appreciation for fine food.
  • Set a goal to have more meals with neighbors/coworkers than you are currently having. Talk it out with your MC and get advice one what is a good starting point.
  • Make a schedule each month with the nights you want to host people for meals. Prayerfully consider who you will share a table with (neighbors/co-workers/MC family).
  • Start a supper club with people in your neighborhood or network of relationships. Have each person in the club signup to host a night. Have the host share the recipe with the rest of the group when they come over. Spend time during the meal sharing things you are thankful for building in a rhythm of intentionality into your meals together.

CONSIDER – LEVITICUS 23, MATTHEW 6:11, 26:17-30, ACTS 2:46-47, ROMANS 12:13

 

5 Practical Ideas to Eat – Josh Reeves | Verge Network.

%d bloggers like this: