So I thought the Movie on the Lawn was super fun!  The movie was incredible, and it was great hanging out with everyone!  :-)  Thanks!

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On 31 May 2009, we talked about the idea of the Good News in specific contexts, inspired by this series. We assigned similar writing as homework, and are pleased to share the results with you. This comes from Olivia Wolfe:

Where do I see God at work throughout my life??

I see God through bad situations. I know that God is typically associated with positive, happy situations. However I personally think that when a situation is terrible, we strive for God more frequently. This may not be the best thing, but I believe it is true.

I also think that people tend to collaborate with one another and be more willing to help out in bad situations. I think that through people caring about one another, I see Christ and his will being done; more than I see it anywhere else.

That’s where I experience God the most: the opportunity taken to help others.

Olivia Wolfe 

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On 31 May 2009, we talked about the idea of the Good News in specific contexts, inspired by this series. We assigned similar writing as homework, and are pleased to share the results with you. This comes from Ernie Boada:

The Good News is the love God has for us, which we receive everyday.

God created us for a love relationship with Him.

His love, let us not take it for granted, as it is His gift to us.

Ernie Boada 

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On 31 May 2009, we talked about the idea of the Good News in specific contexts, inspired by this series. We assigned similar writing as homework, and are pleased to share the results with you. This comes from Lisa Brott:

Luke 7:37-38

“In that town was a woman who lived a sinful life. She heard that Jesus was eating in the Pharisee’s house, so she brought an alabaster jar full of perfume and stood behind Jesus, by his feet, crying and wetting his feet with her hair, kissed them, and poured the perfume on them.”

I am a perfectionist with Pharisee tendencies. On the plus side, that means I’m always trying to do the right things. On the down side, it becomes law to me and on many occasions I have become paralyzed with anxiety and worry from the question, “what should I be doing at this exact moment.”

The kingdom of God is not based on good works, but on faith. Luke 7:50 “But Jesus said to the woman, ‘Your faith has saved you; go in peace.’” The good news for me is that Jesus accepts any humble offering, even the “ill gotten gains,” so I don’t have to fear the “what if” consequences my actions may produce.

Lisa Brott 

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This week I was struck by the enormity of grace that God has given, and is continually giving, us.  The cost at which He has shown us mercy is overwhelming.   I have always heard this parable and thought I could never be like the two men that simply pass by the man left on the road for dead.  Who could do that?  Who could be heartless enough to leave someone beat up on the side of the road? 

After learning more about the costs the priest and the Levite would have had to endure to touch a dead body:  retuning to the temple for another week, missing their families, loss of offerings and a week’s worth of income, humiliation to pronounce their defilement at the city gates… stopping to help seemed like a much bigger sacrifice.  Would I be able to make that choice?  Suddenly mercy comes at a much higher price than simply making a call to 911.  It requires more than merely stopping to help.   

Jesus is trying to show us that mercy is not easy.  He’s calling us to completely put aside our own needs for the needs of others – even some of our most basic needs.   I encourage you to accept the grace God is freely offering us and to look for ways to bestow that grace on others – even when it may cost you embarrassment, money, or even time.

Sheridan

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I hope people enjoyed David’s teaching on “mystery” this past Sunday.  I know that mystery is something that I used to dismiss as somewhat irrelevant to faith, that good old fashioned cold hard facts were the only thing upon which to base my faith.  A while back I taught on the back end of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and looked at how we build our faith, upon sand or upon rocks as Jesus describes it.  During that  teaching I spent some time showing how science has changed its take on the nature of the universe on a pretty regular basis.  Things we thought we knew we suddenly didn’t know one day.  The mystery of the universe remains but it can be a good thing.

So anyway, this got me thinking about how Jesus spent so much time trying to tell people of the Kingdom of God, but he did it in parables (and we’re going to start exploring parables over the next four weeks).  Jesus, for some reason, didn’t spend much time giving cold, hard facts about the Kingdom of God.  Rather he told stories and used metaphors to help the people understand what God was doing throughout creation and how they were to be involved.  These stories spoke of forgiveness, mercy, love, justice, relief, and challenge.  Had Jesus just listed the attributes, the profundity of the Kingdom would have been lost.  But these stories gave/give glimpses of something that was happening but wouldn’t be finished until Jesus returned.  There was a present significance to his teaching but also an eschatalogical aspect (a look at the end of things; evil, injustice, suffering, pain, etc.).  Which brings me to my point.

Notice in Scripture how much time Jesus spends describing the Kingdom of God.  Notice in the prophets how much time the writers spend describing the Kingdom of God and the heavenly realms.  Notice also how little time is dedicated to describing hell.  You won’t find mention of it in the Old Testament and Jesus spends almost no time discussing it.  Now, think about how vivid the idea of hell is in our minds.  We (humanity) have spent an inordinate amount of time trying to describe hell.  Dante is certainly a big part of that but it goes forward from there.  And while our vivid descriptions of hell abound, we have this vague, barely described notion of heaven, of God’s present and coming Kingdom, in our present literature.

Here’s where mystery is so great.  I think part of the reason mystery is so profoundly moving and wonderful is that Jesus and various writers of the Bible use the mystery of God to point to the glory and beauty of all that God is doing.  Not that hell isn’t real or even important, but it is never the motivator for following God.  The call to be a part of the Kingdom that is now and is still coming, a kingdom filled with love, beauty, harmony, and peace, that is the call of the mystery.  The mystery of God calls us to pursue Him, to know Him, to love Him, and in turn to love all those He created.  It’s something so beautiful that we can’t help but pursue it with our hearts because as we catch glimpses of it, we know that there is more to come and we can’t wait to experience it.

Bono of U2 spoke of his early childhood growing up in Dublin where he said you could literally tell if a person was a Catholic or Protestant based on what street they lived.  And he watched the violence between these groups claim the lives of friends and family.  But, he held onto the hope that his faith gave him and he wrote the song “Where the Streets Have No Name” to reflect that mystery of faith and hope.  Though peace wasn’t at hand and it was hard to understand how God was at work, the dream of a coming King who would bring peace was not lost:

“I want to run, I want to hide,

I want to tear down the walls that hold me inside

I want to reach out, and touch the flame,

where the streets have no name.”

Let the mystery of God propel us forward with hope and passion. 

Bryan

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During the prayer exercise this week we played two songs that I think are nothing short of absolutely stunning; I could listen to them over and over again and never get tired of them. The first is “The Lines of My Earth” by Sixpence None the Richer, and the second is Sixpence’s “Melody of You.” (You really should grab the entire records on which these songs appear–”Lines of My Earth” is on Sixpence None the Richer, and “Melody of You” is on Divine Discontent, an absolute steal for just $8.97!)

We wanted to use these songs after Melanie’s talk about emotional worship, because these are the types of songs that seem to scream out with emotion just like the Psalms do. “The Lines of My Earth” comes to us from a place where “the well has gone dry.” How well do we know that place! I love the song’s refrain, though–”This is the last song that I write/’Til you tell me otherwise/And it’s because I just don’t feel it” strikes me as so heroic, at least partially because I don’t believe it. This is us when we come to the place where we don’t think we can walk another step, the place where we don’t feel like exerting the effort to make our lives the praise offering that God so infinitely deserves. But we do take one more step. “One more step,” we say, “But this is the last one!” It is within God ourselves that we find the strength to take the second step, to write the next song after this one.

And we know that we were right not to believe Sixpence, because “Melody of You” resides on their next record. They were obviously told otherwise. “Melody of You” comes from a place where worship not only comes easily, but it is our only option. Its chorus is similarly telling: “This is my call, I belong to You/This is my call to sing the melodies of You/This is my call, I can do nothing else.” How beautiful to know that God is “a simple tune/I only write variations to,” and that we have no other options but to sing that tune–we can do nothing else.

These songs are beautiful. The contrast between them is beautiful. Please buy these records if you think you will enjoy them; I promise that you will not be disappointed.

-David 

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