Things that make you go hmmm...

As we were singing a song in church today a line in the song made me have a 'hmmm' moment.
The line was something like '.... Jesus just clothed in righteousness...." .... just righteousness? ..... hmmm ...... nothing else? A picture of heaven I've never thought of. But why not? Adam and Eve were naked in their perfect world until they sinned, before sin they had no shame..... will heaven be like the garden before sin? ..... this just seems so awkward.....Things that make you go hmmmm.

#5 Wagdi Iskander

There can't have been a soul in the auditorium that was not captivated by Wagdi Iskander's testimony and challenge. In my opinion he was the most moving and challenging presenter of the week.
I was trying to summarize his testimony(struggling to do so)so instead I found this written about him which will give you an idea of his story.(read the full article here)

Iskander grew up in northern Sudan,.. Although he was not a devout Muslim in his youth, he said he harboured bitterness toward Christians, especially one Muslim convert who shared Christ with him.

"I used to hate him," Iskander said. "But he cared about me and showed me the love of Christ." ... After Iskander completed his university degree and began working as an accountant in Khartoum, his friend continued witnessing to him.

"I was looking for forgiveness, but I didn't know where to find forgiveness," Iskander says. "But when my friend showed me the love of Christ, I found forgiveness and became a Christian." As a result, he was estranged from his family; some family members think he is dead. He also spent more than three months in prison. Although he was released, two of his friends imprisoned in the same jail were killed.

He challenged us to reach out to Muslims, in fact he is so passionate for the church to grow among his people that he has resigned his life, even to martyrdom, to advance the mission of God. He said he'd die for the church! It was a very powerful ending. Many people could not exit the sanctuary, they remained in their seats, searching their hearts for even a shred of courage that Wagdi portrayed.

We are planning on getting the Audio recording of this session for the church library, so if any local readers have an interest in hearing this session for yourself check the EMMC Library some time in the near future.

#4 After all this was a church planting congress

If you've been following my blog this week you'll know where I'm heading again today. I am sharing things I learned from the Church Planting Congress in Calgary, which was put on by Church planting Canada. The funny thing is, you may or may not have noticed, Considering the topic, I haven't actually said anything about church planting, well not specifically anyway. There are a few reasons for this, firstly, the congress was mostly focused on Church Planting in an urban setting(I found that hard to connect with, but I could connect it to my existing church and community involvement). Secondly, this conference blew my mind open as to what church planting is all about, so church plant talk doesn't look like it used to. The phrase was said -We used to know what church planting looked like, we Just took what worked well in one community and replicated it all over the place, but now it's different. To reach people we have to be relevant to their neighborhood. So the things I have learned may not look like church plant talk but they are... or so I've learned - this is all very new to me. There was a concentrated focus on being sent into your neighborhood as opposed to being sent to a new location, which of course was pretty much the only way I thought about church planting before the congress. This is not to say that going out to a new location is not needed, I'm just saying they didn't talk about it a lot. My mind was opened to how I can be a church planter right here and how I can use these things I've learned to enhance the church I belong to. One phrase I will leave you with today is Again from Mike Frost "We're not in the business of planting churches.(how ironic) We're not in the business of expanding our denomination. The Goal of Christian Mission is to Alert people to the reign of God." "God is the sent and the sending one and there is no such thing as an unsent Christian. Your mission is not inward."

I hope you could follow my ramblings today.

#2 Has the church become too important?

One thing from Juliet Kilpin:
She was bold - "Sell your church building."

Her point is that we get too caught up in thinking that "church" only happens in the building and what happens in the building has to be restricted to certain activities. She points out that if we are limited by the building then that will hinder God's mission for the church(the body of Christ).
It was talked about that real church is in the community of believers sent to do God's mission, alerting people to the reign of God. Church can happen anywhere, on a school ground, a youth center, my home or yours, the restaurant for lunch, seniors center, the bar, the park, any place that God's people live and speak out God's mission and this can happen in multiple ways that reach the heart of a target group of people.
It seems so often that we Christians enjoy the safety and security of our building and don't get out in the trenches of life with people enough.
Did she really mean it(sell your church)? I think she did. I know it's not right for all but what is right is to rethink our church building use and how active we are outside it's four walls.

Do you think Juliet is crazy?

Renov8

Just got back from 'Renov8' a gathering of church leaders learning to advance our understanding of church and our passion to be missional -- a Church Planting congress. It was a fabulous event, I was overloaded, inspired, crushed, energized, exhausted, challenged, opened, pulled deeper into Jesus and sent out. If you are a regular reader of my blog you know I do not like long posts, though in this case I am tempted to just write all my thoughts out in one splatter, quotes of Mike frost and Wagdi Iskander, plans that bubble in my head, and challenges I want to share ..... but No won't do it, I think I will try something different, for one week I am going to blog everyday something that stood out.

#1 Alerting people around us to the reign of God
Mike Frost was a very intriguing speaker, he says the goal of Christian Mission is to alert people to the reign of God, and he says it seems for too long Christians have reduced christian mission to evangelism, but it is more we must go out like Jesus proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. Announcing it and demonstrating it.
If I asked you(my Christian readers), what is your mission in life, what would you say? Is your mission grounded in God?