'Leaning' to (Christianity that makes a difference)-Brian Mclaren

Is Jesus God? by mark driscoll

Cineplex Christian

Awhile ago, me and my girlfriend went to watch this movie. It was this new flick called 'Street Kings'. I'm not really going to blog about the movie, but just the experience watching it. Well as you may know going out to the cineplex, its sort of a given, knowing that there would at least be some people watching the flick as well (DUH!). So, we were watching the movie with other people (none that i know of) but yet we were all experiencing the same environment. Watching the same movie, hearing the same thing, and experiencing the same technical complications that you get from watching movies in Miri, it's cineplex i mean.

As the story goes, there were parts that suddenly went blank, and some parts where you just couldn't hear the sound of the conversation the characters were making. And sure enough, there were groans and wails (me included). There was this uncanny togetherness that the crowd echoed. We were one with each other via the movie.

But as soon as the lights went on, and the movie came to an end, the engagement with the people also stopped. Everyone were strangers we soon realized, even after everyone sort of unanimously agreed that the quality we expected from the cineplex were not met. Well that's just in the theater right? Well i wish it was true.

Sometimes church feels this way. Like going to the cineplex. Sure we are all connecting with God, but as soon as the closing prayer is met with an amen, people become strangers. We like the saying that we go to church to get connected to God. But that is not the whole truth. The word church, actually talks about community, the church is the community of God's people, coming together and experiencing God together. Doing church is not an individual thing, its a relational thing. We get engaged with God with other brothers and sisters.

Lets get out of doing church as "cineplex Christians" but as the community of God's people experiencing God together.

'Christianity in a Box and Getting Out'

Here's a sermon i preached, my first one preaching on a sunday in my church! 'Enjoy'.

Christianity in a Box and Getting Out

The struggle that we constantly face as Christians is whether we follow the rules of this world or we follow the rules of Jesus. This is purely evident when we are in a struggle to live out our faith in the world. The common tendency for us is living below par of how we should live as Christians. This is because we are constantly subscribing to the way the world wants us to live our Christian faith.

Subscribing the World’s way of being Christian

This is what I would call being Christians in a box. How does this happen?

Compartmentalization
By way of Religion. Religion is one of the facets of life jumbled up with other avenues of life- personal life, working life, family life, hobby life and religious life is one of them. So there are neat spheres where we divide these things up, and they cannot mix. What do we do here? We leave the faith life behind when we go through the avenues or spheres of life. So in that sense faith becomes something that we wear. When we move to the religious sphere, we wear the box- being Christian! This is what we can understand as compartmentalizing. We have neat spheres of life that have no consistency, where we constantly have to wear masks, where our faith is worn at certain time and taken off at certain times.

Confinement
The tendency of confinement is, we are quite particular with practices that show that we are Christians. We say that it only in these practices we are Christian (Go to church, pray, sing p&w songs, attend Christian meetings)
These two tendencies tend to spell out a Christianity that has an escape view mentality which other religions have. Like the box Christianity, we escape life to be really Christians- we go to church- doing Christian things. Another expression that we can plum together with all that is the tendency of being disengaged- with living life. When we escape life we tend to be disengaged with life. We find no connection with faith when we are outside. The God of this world will be pretty happy when we subscribe with this way of being Christian, there will be no way that transformation to be evident. Do we really want to subscribe to this?

Subscribing to the Jesus way- how it is meant to be

John 1:14 “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.” (Message version- the word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood)
There are three expressions that we can mention when we read this-
Embrace.
Jesus embraced his surroundings and limitations when he came on earth. In other words Jesus accepted where he was put and it was there that he would be God’s representative.
Identification,
Jesus was totally identified with his new living condition- as a man- flesh and blood- being mortal. Sometimes as Christians we tend to be super-spiritual beings, like people so out of this world.(Phil 2:6-8)
Dwell
As if embrace and identification are already complete in Jesus’ incarnation- to round it up after all that Jesus has to dwell with man. He lived in their living conditions and he lived with them.

Engagement
If anything these expressions spell an emphatic picture of engagement. Jesus was fully engaged with life, in its totality. If the gospel of John tells us rightly (and it does) God sent Jesus and in the same manner Jesus sends us into the world to embody the life of Jesus. Being in the middle of things to change or transform something we have to be in the middle of things and be agents of change from within. Jesus gives us some examples of how he wants us to be- being salt and light (Matt 5:13-16), and being his witnesses (Acts 1:8).
All these word pictures communicate to us that we are called to go out, being engaged in the world and becoming change agents from the inside out. Just like Jesus, he brought change coming in our world as one of us, and so he is our example. He sends us in the same manner, into the world, engaged with it and becoming agents of change.

'Missing the point'

Are we (Christians) constantly missing the point about what Jesus calls us to do and be?

Most of the time, the answer is yes, we are missing the point when we follow the guidelines of 'religion' (how the world tells us to be christians), that our faith is just a facet of life and it just touches the spiritual dimension of life rather then all of life. With this kind of thinking we are just disengaged with reality-life, and we make reality as the place where we escape-church (which is not how church is supposed to be understood). We miss the point of being followers of Jesus when we are being 'religious'.

We don't miss the point when we see our lives as 24/7 God enthroning walk that we carry into all areas of life which we have- like there is totally no restriction of our faith and the other things we do, for in everything we praise and glorify God.

We dont miss the point when we identify ourselves as human beings and not super human religion' does to us, with the advantage of knowing the creator and Lord thus knowing in a sense what we are created to do, What God had ideally intend for us to be.

We don't miss the point when we become agents of reconciliation to the world as a whole (not just human beings). Earth is God's and we are to treat the earth with responsibility- and humanity is God's, made in his image being his early representative, to humans we should show respect.

We dont miss the point when we see the gospel as far greater news then our shallow - Jesus died for my sins so that i can escape hell and go to heaven. If that is the case (going to heaven), we dont have to hear Jesus' call to feed the poor, heal the sick, love our neighbour, bless our enemies and love one another (to name a few).

We dont miss the point when we say that our belief consists of loving God- devotedly; and loving others as well.

Bringing the Word to Life

The word, oh how we adore (well i know sometimes some do find it a bore). Well what i want to say is that the Bible and it's beliefs(although Christians say that they believe them and that the bible is true) is not really believed by Christians. Sure we say i believe that the bible is true because it is God's word and stuff like that, but real belief comes when we actually live out those beliefs.

We say "love your neighbours as you love yourself", true, but how many of us just hate the weird guy or girl in our class, work place, where we live? We just hate them because they are a pain in the buttocks (watch your english! ouch). Or the one about "pray for your enemies" and bless them instead of curse them. The thing about dying to self and taking up our cross?

Sure we believe in them, but from a distance. It's safer. It's easier. We have some kind of "puppy" love relationship with these beliefs (alot of them to mention) and when the going gets tough we say oh "gee, i want to bail out when it is tough and come back when it is safe again".

We all suffer from this act, we believe but not yet mature in it because we don't practice it. Help us Jesus not to be just hearers but doers as well!

junk?

I feel, so...empty confused angry, frustrated, lost, cant do anything, no power (wish i had), feel like a liar, can i even know a glimmer of truth, i wish i could be truthful to perfection without a mask, i wish i could communicate and people all people young and old would hear without me repeating and just understand, i wish i dont have to be so down by my emotions, so bogged down by them, i wish its just easy to rise above my helpless feeling, self pity, i love it too much i guess. I love to feel sorry for myself cause i feel safe in my own comfort, not other peoples. If other people comfort me, i will always think that there is always a hidden agenda. Its so hard to trust to build it and see if it is working. I'm not good in that, i like to control it i think. I just dont have enough faith to see if trust will grow.

Why am i so bogged down with emotions and feelings, i just think like someone without brains if im in this mood. The thinker that i am i just become so dumb and stupid doing things that i would regret later. I just feel helpless now. I feel shitty. I feel like dump, i feel like the worst kind of smell there is. I stink!

What love then can You offer me. I puke at Your ways and i just am scared to follow them. Yet you say you love me? Look at me? Why would you even care? I'm no good. A double minded puke, not bold when i should be, not disciplined enough when i know, i love laziness, love doing nothing, hate responsibility and here you say i love you to be able to live in you. Dude, look in me and how could you possibly? At points if i really am telling the truth by my actions im just saying i hate you..... Im not worthy of any love. What love can you offer? Im broken and cold, i just want to be loved and feel secure....

Everything is SPIRITUAL-rOB bELL

INTRODUCING YOU TO ROB BELL. THIS GUY IS A HIP AND COOL PASTOR AND SPEAKER. MY ADVICE CHECK IT OUT (HIS CHURCH AND SOME OF THE CLIPS FROM YOUTUBE)...I MEAN HIM TOO!

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Under construction...

Man, this week sucks. Well my laptop has been sent for repairs and shucks, it so darn hard not having it with me. Darn computers. Without them you just simply cant get your work done. Darn modernity. Hahahahaha. Well just till friday that is and i will be reunited with my trusty laptop. Come back to me...so i can have peace and do my work freely!

Fruit

Called for what???
Called to bear fruit that will last.


INTRODUCTION
Your parents call you in to eat…

Your resume that you sent in for that new job is greeted with a call…

You take a number in the bank, in the hospital, when you go pay your bills, and after a while, a robotic stereotype voice calls your number…

The girl or guy of your dreams, suddenly out of the blue calls you…

All these things that I mentioned above, has a no brainer answer…The call, each call requires a response. There are two responses that are needed; it’s either a positive response or a negative one.

What we read in the Theme for the whole SIB this year, the short text reads “we are called to bear fruit that lasts”. The first part of the text says that “we are called”. Jesus calls us.

What is Jesus’ call to each one of us?

Invitation to those he Chooses
He tells his disciples “come follow me” (Matt 4:19). This is an extension of invitation. He does not pull ears, bring down fire, exert force, shout out loud in your ears when he does this. He simply calls; he simply says, “come”. There are no signs of rudeness or harsh words. An invitations sounds safe and gives you time to think whether you want to follow or not. His invitation is to experience him.

One important mention, when we treat Jesus’ call in terms of invitation it talks about him being the one who chooses.
In John 15:16 “…You did not choose me, but I chose you…”.

This goes against the way disciples or rather students chose their teacher; rabbi (in their time). Just like when we watch a kungfu movie, it is the student who chooses his teacher, not the other way round.

Another thing about his call is that it is specific. He calls to “follow him”. In other words to do things the way Jesus did-Jesus way.

Jesus’ Invitation, is simply put; an invitation (especially directed to you) for change of our present way to his way:

“Are you (your name) willing to change your course of life to follow mine?”


What kind of Change
Since we know that the call that Jesus puts forth to us is an invitation for change, we want to look at the nature of the change, or what kind of change is Jesus actually talking about.

We have already discovered the first part what the text says. The second half tells us what kind of change God requires when we respond to the call to follow him. To simply put it God requires that we…

1. Bear Fruit – what is the produce of your change

It’s funny, if you think in a funny way that is. God calling us who are humans to bear fruit like trees. That is simply not how we are. But God is talking metaphorically.

Why fruit? An easy way to explain- When we look at the fruit we can know what kind of Tree. Sure we can know what kind of tree by the leaf, the trunk and the look. But are these things useful, significant, edible? For anyone the fruit explains what type of tree, whether it is good or bad.

Now can we say a tree is sour or bad just by looking at it? You must be some sort of prophet to do that. But for anyone with any type of IQ, we just eat the fruit, and true enough we can make judgment whether the tree is good or not.

The kind of change that God requires from us is that we must bear fruit. Our lives must show a change.

Lk 3:8 Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. 9 The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.’

If we say that we believe in Jesus and have responded to his call there must be change. Like Zacheus, Paul, Peter. These people are examples of people who show that they have responded to the call by showing change. We can see the fruit.


2. Fruit that will last

Sure calls us to bear fruit/ to show change, but like trees also, they don’t just bear fruit once and that is it. If they stop bearing fruit that shows that the tree is dead or of no use already. So down with the tree. Who likes trees that have stopped bearing fruits?

Jesus also requires us to continually bear fruit. Not just once but bear fruit that will last. What does this mean, fruit that will last?

It means that we continually grow in our change state to become more like Jesus. Like when we follow Jesus, we respond to his call, our lives must show change. But in a way that is gradual.

A baby doesn’t just know how to talk because it has a mouth. The baby has to learn to talk. And in that learning the continues to grow and expand the way people should talk, until we mature.

It is so with us too. We must bear fruit (show change) but don’t just stop there, we must bear fruit that will last (continue to change into the image of Jesus).


In the end the fruit will define the call.

I have been thinking...

I've been thinking lately about authenticity...about how we as followers of Jesus are really authentic in our confessional practices. What i mean here is, in praying, in reading the bible, in church, well thats the whole context that i am talking about.

Like, sometimes when we are in a prayer meeting, and it gets really really boring. We hear people speaking of things that dont really connect, like they are going round and round. And nothing is really going on great. Does this sound normal? Ok, now we are asked to pray about something, a certain issue or a need. People looking rather dour and pale and lifeless when the explanation of the prayer matter is shared. There is no convincing stare of interest. Then when we ask to pray, people just spark with very faithful words, belief that God would answer prayer. I mean in the whole setting of boringness thare is a belief in God that he will answer prayer. That sound rather dull.

To me, personally, sometimes when i am in these situations i find it more truthful to what i feel and truthful to God that i just ask him questions. Because i just dont feel like i should fake it. We do that all the time when we are asked to pray aloud! I mean it would look a funny and pethetic sight if we were in God's position and see that. Sometimes i think its something that we just down play. Like we always have to do it like that, we always have to pray like that. CAnt we actually pray with truth? I mean when we are doubting we tell God, when we feel weak we tell him, when we are confused we let him know. WE dont do that often. Why?

We say that God knows how we are inside but its more of a show now. So that peole get fooled at how believing we are although we dont mean what we pray. HOw shoud we combat this untruth? Can there be an enviroment where we can create to encourage authenticity? I want to see that happen...

SALT...LIGHT

Mt 5:13 “You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.
14 “You are the light of the world. v A city on a hill cannot be hidden.
15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.
16 In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.

Just today, i got this light bulb moment, reflecting on these two things. We who are followers of Jesus, are told that we are to be salt of the earth and the light of the world. These entail with them responsibility, engagement and being at some sorts change agents.

But in order for us to function effectively as salt and light requires that we be in places that are deprived or have none of these substances. We only loose the effectiveness of salt and light when they are not in places where salt and light are needed. Neither can we fuction as salt and light in a box, deprived of engagement with the world.

We can only be effective and functional salt and light when we are let loosed in a world where there are none of these substances. If we only mix around with our kind alone how can we be salt. Salt just staying in a jar is useless until one mixes the salt with meat, vegetables or food stuff. The same goes for light, we dont use torch lights in the day light, only when darkness falls, we take out our lights or put on our lights at home.

The only way that salt and light work as they are ment to work are when they are engaged in a situation where they are needed. Where the place has no salt and no light.

Lets reflect on this...so that we bocome what we are called to be. We are only effective witnesses when we are around those who don't know the person we are witnessing of. What use is a witness in a group of people who already know???

Preparation

Right now or a couple of hours ago, i was doing my sermon(s) preperation to Bintulu. And both of them would cover different topics. I haven't got the hang of it yet but i do home some day i would be able to have my own method of 'how to prepare sermons'. I just get a kick out of it!!!

Well anyway, for the first sermon im preparing it will be directed to the youths (speaking for the district youth meeting, which is not something that i would have expected but the challenge is embraced!). I gonna be talking on God calling us to bear fruit that will last. I got the rough idea but still working on it. Going through i learnet something; that God chooses us. In God's call, he is the one who makes the choice. According to the study note in my bible, disciples, or before they are called disciples, they are the ones that dicide on who will teach them. They make the choice. Just like when we learn in mentoring, mentors do not seek their prote'ge', it is the prote'ge' who seeks their teacher. Like Luke Skywalker seeking a Jedi master, Yoda. Well for Jesus, he prays and calls people specifically. It is his choice. That is surely profound. Imagine someone brilliant that you have always adimred coming up to you and say that they want to train you! That would be mind blowing.

The other sermon that i'd be preaching would be on getting our christian life out of the box. In other words spirituality out of the box. Looking at it three measures; 1.that we often define spirituality to fine tune what we think it is/ to make it fit us and a no pain approach, 2.we compound spirituality, and 3.we compartmentalize spirituality. When we work out spirituality/ christian life in this manner we box it up, because we don't want to make it look messy. We want to control rather them let the Spirit control how we should live the Christian life.

Busy...

I would have to say that last week was a 'crazy' week. I felt my time sucked dry and being sapped out of my energy. Man was it busy crazy kinda week. It's like, go to work in the morning and then go back, rest a while and then off to a meeting. It's crazy man. Responsibilities...they never get done and get finished.

I wonder, is that why pastors get burn out?

Well it is one h### of a ride. Haha. Well last night was somewhat disappointing. Well we hade some sort of continued leaders meeting and boy was it embarassing. The whole group of adults were laughing at the term young adults. I just dont get it. They were saying that the term does not exist and if i were to interpret, the term was irelevant and somewhat dumb. I just cant understand that there is such a perseption. It is crazy. How can you possibly mould teens, collage students, and younger adults who are working together in a teaching setting. I feel, if you want to cater specifically to a group you will always have to consider their seperations regardless of what. I dont mean that they cant mix together, i just mean that if we really want to reacha group, we have to know where they are. Is that so difficult????

Mabey for them it is. No wonder the christian doctrine can never be deeply ingrained in the people, because we just want the net to be as wide as possible. We like large nets. We can catch all sorts of things with a big net. But would a one type net be able to catch smaller fish? Are they used to catch crabs? Come on and wake up!!! We need all types of nets or traps.

Man just feel like ranting my frustrations!!!

Friday

I will be entitling the posts with the heading "Friday" on our Young Adults Cell. So next time you see this post you'll know the idea i have in mind. Just something i want to do in organizing the labels of the posts i'm doing. tsk tsk.

Well, I did the introduction of our study on Jesus Creed: Love God, Love Neighbour. As you can see the book "Jesus Creed" has a big influence on me. It's something that i have been thinking about for the past year. I've been revisioning the things that i have been believing and restructuring the road of my spiritual formation. So in a way this year is sort of like an experimental and practical passageway of what i believe. So i guess you can say for this year a resounding theme would be constantly Experimentation.

Back to the study...

We were discussing on how a christian looks like, something about image. I believe that we project certain images as christians and we were asking the question what image should a christian project. Following that we asked the question what forms us or what helps us conform to this image. Stuff that influence us enough to form us to an image.

I believe that each image we project is the product of the things or stuff we do to influence us.

So, we moved to a passage in Mark 12:28-33.

This is what Scot Mcknight calls Jesus Creed. In a nut shell; love God, love neighbour. For Jesus this is the thing that we should use to form us to the Christian image. The emphasis is love and that is loving God and Loving neighbour. Love is the epitome of what marks us as Christians: John 13:34-35.

Now we must not stop there. When we say the creed's vision is love, and that loving God means loving other people as well, we have to understand that left to our own vision or interpretation we might practice it in a different way. So for this to work, Following Jesus is the way of the creed. If we are to understand the creed properly we have to take it by Jesus' way.

To end it, we challenged each other to recite the creed daily and whenever we think about it as we go along through the day or weeks or whenever we remember it. And to top it off we all agreed that having a creed for reciting is a good thing! And that is from a church tradition (SIB) that does not have creeds.

To me this is a sign of Emerging Church or Emergent thinking. I am for that.

Below is a sample of the study that i did. Needs some revisions though.

Jesus Creed: Loving God, Loving Others

1. How should a Christian look (image) like?

2. According to your answer, what are the things that help form us into this ‘look (image)’?

Shema: Jewish Creed found in Deuteronomy 6:4-5. This is the first creed that Jewish children are taught to recite every day.

Jesus’ vision for what forms us (Spiritual formation)
[Mark 12:28-33; Luke 9:57-62]
“Hear O Israel, The LORD our God, the LORD is One.
Love the Lord your God with all your heart,
With all your soul, with all your mind,
And with all your strength”
The second is this, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
There is no commandment greater than these.

Here Jesus amended the shema (the first part of the commandment above) but revised it by adding “love your neighbor…” (Leviticus 19:18). So for Jesus loving God means or is equivalent to love others as well. (Check out these verses Romans 13:8-10; Galatians 5:5-6; James 2:8-13; 1 John 4:19-21)

Do you think that we separate loving God and loving others (in a way that loving God is defined as another thing and loving others means another thing)? Why?


What are your thoughts on having a creed for recitation to help you in spiritual formation?


The creed’s main content and emphasis is LOVE. Though recitation is a main characteristic of a creed/ any creed, the intent of reciting a creed is not merely meant for vain repetition without life. The recitation should inform, remind and form us to the creed’s vision: To Love God, Love Neighbor.