As the world moves into unknown, called post-modern, many churches would rather stay in their status quo, in the comfort of tradition, in the safety of what is accepted, celebrated and familiar. Yet, Jesus’ prayer is ever relevant for us to stay in the world and live a sanctified lifestyle in this world.
We have looked at four characteristics of the New World around us:
Experience rather than Experiment.
Participation rather than Performance.
Image Driven rather than Word based.
Connected rather than Individualistic.
While in the past knowing was at arms length, observing at a distance, examining without interacting, today’s world is begging for an embrace, knowing by being involved.
In the words of Leonard Sweet – “postmoderns cheerlead instead of critiquing, extol instead of exegeting, applaud instead of assessing.” It is in this mode of learning – emptying self of perceptions and biases, and allowing for new revelation that the Gospel has a new door of opportunities open to influence the world. The truth is eternal and unchanging, we are just looking at it with new eyes.
This concept is actually not new at all – it’s all about “back to the future!” It suggests that Love is as much a mode of knowledge as the old scientific methods of detached observation. Just like the Bible times – knowing=loving.
Traditions are stuck preserving the recent past. Even religious ones. One L.A. pastor Erwin McManus says: “Many of us love religion all too much and God all too little. Love ourselves too much and the world too little.”
This paradigm shift is recognized even by post-modern science. Quantum physicist Ed Schrödinger states: “The world has not been given to us twice – once in spiritual and once in material terms. The world has been given once!”
It is this world, where we live only once, that God has invited us to partner up in saving. Jewish wisdoms says “we don’t see things as they are, but as we are.” Whenever I think about the changes that take place around us, about lack of commitment and complacency in the church, I wish for one thing: urgency. What would it take for us believers to wake up with urgency that the Groom is coming, that our Lord Jesus is at the door? Maybe the world is being accelerated on purpose, to wake sleeping church up on the bumpy ride?
Don’t try to get off! As you wake up – stay on and tell people about our Destination, tell about purpose, hope, future. Tell them about your Savior, your hope, your dreams, and your purpose. Tell them about One Absolute that will always remain Absolute – Jesus, the Name above all Names.
Saturday, February 25, 2006
Saturday, February 18, 2006
Connecting Christians into Contagious Community
So far we have looked at 3 qualities of the EPIC church in postmodern environment: Experiencing, Participatory & Image-driven. C stands for Connecting, Connectedness, Community, Care, and Cure that it gives.
One interesting explanation for postmodernism is given: “Postmodernism is really looking at the structures that modernity built and saying that the bricks are not what matter, it's the mortar. The mortar allows you to place the bricks however you want to place them.” We are not dismissing the bricks but are invited to consider the mortar that holds us and our structures together.
We crave for community, as we lack of it! Just think of how widely this word is used now-days: COMMUNITY! Another pastor commented that “in the past people came together in church to celebrate community that they had the rest of the week, now we come to church to find the community that we don’t have the rest of the week.”
Having been your pastor for a whole year now I enjoy every time we come together as a community. Tonight we’ll all have another excellent community night prepared by German families. Nonetheless, I continually will encourage to build community beyond church walls, to build community in your everyday life.
Those of you who’ve got young school age kids, have you noticed what they do when they come home from school? Getting on the e-mail checking to see if they’ve got a message? We were created for community. It is our natural desire to belong, to experience community.
Modernity, originating in European individualism has built itself on motto “I think therefore I am.” Postmodern attitude is best expressed by saying of Xhosa people of Southern Africa “I am because we are.” Leonard Sweet coined this phrase “postmodern “ME” needs “WE” to “BE”
Today’s transient culture requires that our community building and hospitality be more planned, more intentional, more deliberate
Let’s put the salve into salvation, let’s connect our communities, so where two or three are together God may dwell among them. I can thing of two good reasons, and both of them are God’s promises to us: “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5) and Jesus’ parting words “I am with you always, even to the end of the age!” (Matthew 28:20) Power of connection is a healing power. This is what’s missing after preaching and teaching is done.
Some say “where there’s church there’s Jesus.” It’s almost right, only if turned around for the proper order: wherever Jesus is – there is a church! Wherever Jesus is present – people come together in unity, in love, in one accord. And as His Spirit fills the gathered, so the Body of Christ becomes living and active.
Enjoy community, create community, cherish community, experience His presence in community! May the wedding song be our prayer today:
Bind us together Lord with cords that cannot be broken
Bind us together Lord, Bind us together with love!
One interesting explanation for postmodernism is given: “Postmodernism is really looking at the structures that modernity built and saying that the bricks are not what matter, it's the mortar. The mortar allows you to place the bricks however you want to place them.” We are not dismissing the bricks but are invited to consider the mortar that holds us and our structures together.
We crave for community, as we lack of it! Just think of how widely this word is used now-days: COMMUNITY! Another pastor commented that “in the past people came together in church to celebrate community that they had the rest of the week, now we come to church to find the community that we don’t have the rest of the week.”
Having been your pastor for a whole year now I enjoy every time we come together as a community. Tonight we’ll all have another excellent community night prepared by German families. Nonetheless, I continually will encourage to build community beyond church walls, to build community in your everyday life.
Those of you who’ve got young school age kids, have you noticed what they do when they come home from school? Getting on the e-mail checking to see if they’ve got a message? We were created for community. It is our natural desire to belong, to experience community.
Modernity, originating in European individualism has built itself on motto “I think therefore I am.” Postmodern attitude is best expressed by saying of Xhosa people of Southern Africa “I am because we are.” Leonard Sweet coined this phrase “postmodern “ME” needs “WE” to “BE”
Today’s transient culture requires that our community building and hospitality be more planned, more intentional, more deliberate
Let’s put the salve into salvation, let’s connect our communities, so where two or three are together God may dwell among them. I can thing of two good reasons, and both of them are God’s promises to us: “I will never leave you nor forsake you” (Hebrews 13:5) and Jesus’ parting words “I am with you always, even to the end of the age!” (Matthew 28:20) Power of connection is a healing power. This is what’s missing after preaching and teaching is done.
Some say “where there’s church there’s Jesus.” It’s almost right, only if turned around for the proper order: wherever Jesus is – there is a church! Wherever Jesus is present – people come together in unity, in love, in one accord. And as His Spirit fills the gathered, so the Body of Christ becomes living and active.
Enjoy community, create community, cherish community, experience His presence in community! May the wedding song be our prayer today:
Bind us together Lord with cords that cannot be broken
Bind us together Lord, Bind us together with love!
Saturday, February 11, 2006
Image Driven Postmoderns
Does your mind think in words or pictures? When you shop, do you look at the thing you buy? Do you care for the picture to be displayed on the box? Or do you just ask for a description?
I am an ebay shopper, and unless I see a picture I would not even bother checking the lot. Someone said that images come as close as we ever will get to a universal language. As we are considering communicating Gospel to the Postmoderns we must recognize that propositions and words are lost on people’s ears. But metaphor they will always hear. Christ’s preaching was always replete with images and metaphors. Just think of the prodigal son, the cursed fig tree, the sower, seeds and birds - people could see what He meant. His mission was to project the Image – of the Invisible God. (Colossians 1:15)
Get the picture? What images are in your mind? What image of us, our church do we project into community around us?
There is a saying “ideas are dangerous for those who’ve got no idea…” Same with images: they are dangerous to those who do not have an image to hold on to. As we studied through the Revelation 13 recently it was a new discovery for many to realize that the final persecution will come not from the Sea Monster, not even from the Land Beast, but from an Image that people will erect under the deceptive influences. (Revelation 13:14-15)
What mental images are imprinted in your forehead? What do you focus you eyes on? Do you gaze into the promised land, having your head in heaven even though our bodies are still here?
Visual environment is very important for tuning our spiritual eyes. While recognizing the danger of images becoming objects of worship, we must also recognize the communicative power of images. Wise Solomon concluded that “as man thinks in his heart, so is he.” (Proverbs 23:7) Our thought-images make us!
Christian writer Leonard Sweet says “Images are the stuff of which the soul is sculpted.” So check your visual archive and the images that eyes of your heart see. Apostle Paul prayed for new images (Ephesians 1:18). The culture around us is throwing at us images, virtual reality, metaphors, virtually drowning many. Just like in the old days parents soaped words from kids mouths, we must keep our eyes on images that are pure, true, noble, right, lovely, excellent or praiseworthy - think about such things. (Philippians 4:8)
We crave images (just ask any teen about staying away from watching movies). So, relax, it’s not a new fad: Moses’ Tabernacle in the wilderness was the Drama Stage, could you think of anything more graphic to illustrate horror of sin, than having to cut throat to your favorite lamb? Solomon’s Temple was totally about images: all the walls were decorated to remind about Eden lost. It was a “virtual reality” garden with fruit trees, birds and creatures. (1st Kings 6:35)
As you walk in dark valley of this depraved world – think of the beauty of the city build by God Himself for his beloved children – us, and then project that image: walk as Victorious Child of the Heavenly King.
I am an ebay shopper, and unless I see a picture I would not even bother checking the lot. Someone said that images come as close as we ever will get to a universal language. As we are considering communicating Gospel to the Postmoderns we must recognize that propositions and words are lost on people’s ears. But metaphor they will always hear. Christ’s preaching was always replete with images and metaphors. Just think of the prodigal son, the cursed fig tree, the sower, seeds and birds - people could see what He meant. His mission was to project the Image – of the Invisible God. (Colossians 1:15)
Get the picture? What images are in your mind? What image of us, our church do we project into community around us?
There is a saying “ideas are dangerous for those who’ve got no idea…” Same with images: they are dangerous to those who do not have an image to hold on to. As we studied through the Revelation 13 recently it was a new discovery for many to realize that the final persecution will come not from the Sea Monster, not even from the Land Beast, but from an Image that people will erect under the deceptive influences. (Revelation 13:14-15)
What mental images are imprinted in your forehead? What do you focus you eyes on? Do you gaze into the promised land, having your head in heaven even though our bodies are still here?
Visual environment is very important for tuning our spiritual eyes. While recognizing the danger of images becoming objects of worship, we must also recognize the communicative power of images. Wise Solomon concluded that “as man thinks in his heart, so is he.” (Proverbs 23:7) Our thought-images make us!
Christian writer Leonard Sweet says “Images are the stuff of which the soul is sculpted.” So check your visual archive and the images that eyes of your heart see. Apostle Paul prayed for new images (Ephesians 1:18). The culture around us is throwing at us images, virtual reality, metaphors, virtually drowning many. Just like in the old days parents soaped words from kids mouths, we must keep our eyes on images that are pure, true, noble, right, lovely, excellent or praiseworthy - think about such things. (Philippians 4:8)
We crave images (just ask any teen about staying away from watching movies). So, relax, it’s not a new fad: Moses’ Tabernacle in the wilderness was the Drama Stage, could you think of anything more graphic to illustrate horror of sin, than having to cut throat to your favorite lamb? Solomon’s Temple was totally about images: all the walls were decorated to remind about Eden lost. It was a “virtual reality” garden with fruit trees, birds and creatures. (1st Kings 6:35)
As you walk in dark valley of this depraved world – think of the beauty of the city build by God Himself for his beloved children – us, and then project that image: walk as Victorious Child of the Heavenly King.
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