Hey everyone, we are going to be finishing off john 4 today, as we look at jesus healing of the officials son.
I am going to explore a concept that desiring/ believing that transformation is possible is what leads to true faith, more so that getting all the facts right. In this situation the centurion believes Jesus word and doesn’t need Jesus to go his home. In this sense his faith saved his son.
Join us at 5pm at little nest for potluck.
Looking forward to the discussion.
Hey Friends,
We are back together this Sunday January 4th, 5pm @ choppers and I am excited to see all of you again.
In light of the season of resolutions for 2009, I felt that since our community is continually growing in understanding of what it means to walk in a Jesus direction we should spend some time on Sunday sharing some resolutions of our own as we attempt to walk in this direction.
Therefore, I wanted to encourage you to think of 2 resolutions to share at toh this Sunday.
1. A resolution that will help you personally move in a Jesus direction
* It could involve a spiritual practice (prayer, reading your bible, silence, fitness, meditation etc.) or be more practical such as volunteering locally or giving up something.
2. A community resolution that involves a role or activity that will help toh move in a Jesus direction with your leadership/ guidance.
* This could involve starting a new group, or activity that others would join with you in; taking a role more intentionally within toh (helping with choppers, teaching, music, set-up, etc.) or doing/ creating something that would bring toh together more powerfully in our neighbourhood with use of a specific gift God has given you.
I believe God is asking us to take some more steps this year in this mysterious Jesus direction and I hope that each of you will join in on that direction, and begin to take some personal steps to that end. But please don’t take these resolutions lightly, as I think there is something spiritual in the resolution or as we read in the bible, what seems to be described as a ‘vow.’ See these resolutions as vows to God, and to your community.
I am stoked to see how each of you utilize how God has blessed you toward a personal and social gift to yourself and the open house.
After my last post on motion sickness I have had a few friends ask me about these “TED Talks” and I should say they have been quite inspirational in my life. In fact I have a dream of being invited to sit in on these talks live one day, and maybe even give a talk on how a small community of people can transform a city. This one in particular has given me a huge vision for my life and work with toh in Vancouver. I think it’s about time I revisit it. Thanks Nick for bringing this one up again.
We are hopefully going to watch this together on Sunday night and dream about ideas for Vancouver. This too me is heaven on earth… hope.
Today @choppers we are gong to look at a couple passages on faith.
1 Corinthians 13 and Hebrews 11
This will conclude our 3 discussions on faith, as next week we will begin a discussion on hope.
The biggest idea that comes to mind in all of this is our contemporary societies thoughts on Christians having blind faith (which is considered irrational), but what I would like to argue is it is more about incomplete knowledge. And I think all of us know that we don’t know everything, but there are some of us that are willing to move forward in light of what we do know.
Tonight lets chat about what faith then looks like, and perhaps a little about what we do know.
See you at 5pm.
Check out this great post by Cato about what she learned (and taught), while I was away.
Great stuff.
So bare with me on this thought…as it isn’t totally thought through yet, but have we ever thought of church as a group of people gathering together to produce something?
I think the first place I heard about this was in Steve Taylor’s book Out of Bounds Church, but while out for breakfast today in Victoria I started reading this local free magazine called the metropolitan and I was overwhelmed with some ideas.
Now currently our little experiment called the open house (I have my reasons for using “experiment” and they have more to do with the nature of our community, not the commitment levels) is once again rethinking our role, space, and existence in east Vancouver and I find it stressful, yet incredibly exciting. We have so many open, flexible and creative people that the possibilities are endless for what we can become. And as I dream about what we can be, and think through what we have become I am beginning to dream about what it would mean for our church to be a creator of content for our community.
This was seriously spurred on through this magazine i read today, mainly because the content of this magazine was simple, to the point and free and even though I have counter opinions to the actual substance I read, I really appreciated how they have provided for the Victoria downtown community. There is something special about a group of people who come together to produce something, to dream ideas of what to produce and then passing it on to their neighbors for free. One might call that a “church experience”, purely in the nature of the community (producing, working, sharing all these things together).
Now what if our church ceased to gather for the sake of gathering, ceased to worship just to worship, but instead gathered together each week to dream, learn from each other, imagine and the produce something for the benefit of our community. And I mean something seriously tangible, not abstract. I mean a magazine, or a business, or a __________, you fill in the blank.
These ideas get me excited, and I hope I can continue to dream in this way with our church, because there is something powerful in creating beautiful, free, beneficial content for our neighbourhood, and I want to be a part of that kind of church.
I have the pleasure of posting on behalf of another member of our community who would like to share his thoughts during this season of Lent. It’s neat to see Jem’s recent post on her response to taking part in Lent this year and how she is “adding” prayer/silent time with God, or giving up an hour of sleep, as she says. Blair also felt impressed that he was to add something to his life in the form of daily taking the time to remember how God had worked or made himself known to him that day. Keep checking back each week as he shares his reflections. On behalf of Blair, I have transcribed his introduction to his upcoming Lent experience:
My name is Blair Currie and I am a part of the open house. On February 5, the topic at our weekly small group gathering was Lent. In the past, Lent meant very little to me. As Kristin, Deric and others explained a bit more about the meaning of Lent, they asked us to be open to the Spirit. Typically for Lent you tend to give up something and replace that with God. Deric shared that he had also heard that, instead of giving up something, you could add something that could help you focus on God. As the evening progressed we read about the Israelites and all that God had done for them, and also about all that they had forgotten. Through hearing that, I felt God ask me personally, each and every day leading up to Easter, to recount some of the works of provision, healing, miracles, and direction He has done for me. Each day, I will write down how God has made an impact on my life that day and I would like to share with you weekly what I’ve remembered God do during this time of Lent.