Thursday, 17 April 2008

Please see these links and then consider below.

http://www.cornerstonesimi.com/media_player.php?f=2008%2D04%2D06%5FFrancis%5FChan%5FThe%5FChurch%2Emov

 http://www.cornerstonesimi.com/special/building_project/why_have_church_outside.html

 

 

This church gets it.  I do hold out hope for older mainline congregations.  If we look at the problem and solution in the 1700s.  The Anglican church looked very much like we look today and look what the early Methodist societies did for those people as a platform for the Holy Spirit.  I do not see any reason the resurrection of a model similar to the societies would not work today.  We have the tools; all we need is the courage.  Consider the following:

 

1.        If one family (seed) would be willing to sacrifice a little comfort and buy a duplex instead of a single family home

2.       They let another family (graph) live in the other unit rent free while watching over them in love for two years

3.       At the two year point family seed moves on to another duplex while graph starts paying the rent

4.       The empty unit in each duplex is now filled with a family who will be watched  over in love and the cycle continues.

5.       At the ten year point the seed will have produced 32 graphs, been the church to 32×4=128 people

6.       If the church would kick in at the beginning where the start could be a quad-plex then the  128 jumps to almost 500 lives

7.       The small sacrifice (talent) sacrifice made by only one family has been increased one hundred fold, that is the stuff of biblical fairy tales

This is were I get chills.  The heart of each of the 500 people has been shaped by the example of love; being fed when they were hungry, clothed when they were naked, and housed when they were homeless.  They then have had the experience of doing the same for others.  To these 500 Christians this behavior this behavior is not radical, but normal and expected as they have known no other.

Lord give us faith and courage.  I love you.

 

Sunday, 06 April 2008

Today I read Psalm 104.  I missed 103 so that will be tomorrow.

104 is one of the creation Psalms.  It talks about the creation of everything by God.  I was at a small group training given by Bishop Wills.  He talked about our plans being too big in the short term and too small in the long term.  That got me wondering to what “our plans” refers.  To me it means the plans or direction that I get, filtered by my own discernment, from the Holy Spirit.  This filter is a function of my idea or perception of God.

After reading Psalm 104 I believe my perception of God is usually way too small.  This leads me to filter out direction from the Spirit that is too big.  Donald Miller talks about our stories.  An example he uses is a young female friend of his that started Blood Water Mission.  The Holy Ghost showed her the vision of fresh, clean water for everyone on the African continent.  That vision is too big for a human, but not for God.  That is what makes for a good story.

Lord, forgive me for putting you in a small box and make me aware of the whispers of your Holy Spirit.  Let me not filter your vision.  All glory to you.