It’s time to be foolish.
Or put another way, to be Servant leaders/disciples, in this testing year of 2009 enabling others to live the good life.
How do we do serve ‘foolishly’ – ie effectively, both as individuals and as church?
Two important characteristics that help determine the health and hope of a church are best described by the Natural Church Development:
1 Passionate Spirituality
2 Need-based evangelism
Both are very relevant to us as we think about discipleship and the world of today.
Some will see this year as a year of challenge, perhaps a big challenge.
As I have said elsewhere, I see 2009 as a time of opportunity – call it foolish but the opportunities are there aren’t they?
The year 2009 has many people worried about the economic recession, and how they will cope?
The doomsayers predict global collapse while more moderate voices see testing times but not the end of the world.
The news media while not to blame for the current situation have as they so often do, made a meal of the bad news.
I was somewhat bemused a couple of days out from Christmas to hear on the news that eftpos transactions were down on the previous year as if it was the worst thing that happened at Christmas. There was no concession that showing restraint in spending might be a virtue.
So where are we at: if it was the weather, the economy is currently overcast & a cold front is moving onto the country. The question as yet unanswered is how deep is the front and how long will it stay?
But if we were to focus almost solely on that then before we know it 2009 will have come and gone and if we aren’t careful we may miss what will be more important about the year.
IE
2009 is full of opportunities
• Opportunities to show God’s love to people particularly those who may be affected by the economic downturn.
• “they [society that is] will know we are Christians by our love” as the song goes.
And so to the heart of the matter – servant leadership/discipleship, includes sharing our love with others.
That is a Gospel imperative and one which can grow out of the way we live out Christian Community IE ~
Being a loving faith community & in so doing bringing the Love of Christ into people’s lives.
To be so, can be costly – it can be challenging to show God’s gracious care to others in what we say and do and pray.
Some may see us as foolish – but as Paul teaches in 1 Cor. Acting out as ‘wise’ isn’t going to make a difference if the actor has no faith in God. Human wisdom alone counts for little when compared to that which comes to us from God. Indeed,
25 Even when God is foolish, he is wiser than everyone else, and even when God is weak, he is stronger than everyone else.
1 Corinthians 1:18-25 (Contemporary English Version)
Christ Is God's Power and Wisdom
18 The message about the cross doesn't make any sense to lost people. But for those of us who are being saved, it is God's power at work. 19 As God says in the Scriptures,
"I will destroy the wisdom
of all who claim to be wise. I will confuse those who think they know so much."
20 What happened to those wise people? What happened to those experts in the Scriptures? What happened to the ones who think they have all the answers? Didn't God show that the wisdom of this world is foolish? 21 God was wise and decided not to let the people of this world use their wisdom to learn about him.
Instead, God chose to save only those who believe the foolish message we preach. 22 Jews ask for miracles, and Greeks want something that sounds wise. 23 But we preach that Christ was nailed to a cross. Most Jews have problems with this, and most Gentiles think it is foolish. 24 Our message is God's power and wisdom for the Jews and the Greeks that he has chosen. 25 Even when God is foolish, he is wiser than everyone else, and even when God is weak, he is stronger than everyone else.
And the point and place of divine weakness and folly is of course the cross.
“Cross” as a word is so overworked it has to some extent lost its sharpness – but we should remind ourselves that in the time of Jesus it was a cruelly slow and painful way of putting someone to death.
But as we are told by Jesus He will triumph over death- the cross far from being a symbol for weakness and foolishness is a symbol of hope, and that is Good News for us, because should we follow Him as Servant Leaders and disciples then in taking up our cross, facing what the world may dish out to us, we will gain new life through Him.
John 2:13-22 (Contemporary English Version)
Jesus in the Temple
13 Not long before the Jewish festival of Passover, Jesus went to Jerusalem. 14 There he found people selling cattle, sheep, and doves in the temple. He also saw moneychangers sitting at their tables. 15 So he took some rope and made a whip. Then he chased everyone out of the temple, together with their sheep and cattle. He turned over the tables of the moneychangers and scattered their coins.
16Jesus said to the people who had been selling doves, "Get those doves out of here! Don't make my Father's house a marketplace."
17The disciples then remembered that the Scriptures say, "My love for your house burns in me like a fire."
18 The Jewish leaders asked Jesus, "What miracle [a] will you work to show us why you have done this?" 19 "Destroy this temple," Jesus answered, "and in three days I will build it again!"
20 The leaders replied, "It took forty-six years to build this temple. What makes you think you can rebuild it in three days?"
21 But Jesus was talking about his body as a temple. 22 And when he was raised from death, his disciples remembered what he had told them. Then they believed the Scriptures and the words of Jesus.
Footnotes:
John 2:18 miracle: The Greek text has " sign." In the Gospel of John the word " sign" is used for the miracle itself and as a way of pointing to Jesus as the Son of God.
Following Jesus then is not a mind exercise, it involves all of us: our lives, our breath, our laughter, our tears.
Or to come back to those two words “Passionate Spirituality” we are involved heart, mind and soul - 7/24.
Passionate Spirituality is:
• Being open to God’s Spirit on the one hand and to others as our brothers and sisters on the other.
• Open enough to show how deeply we love and worship Jesus and want to follow in His footsteps.
• Being passionate about our faith is being a disciple.
• Being passionate about our faith is to share our love of God with others in all we do. Taking up the cross.
• Being passionate about our faith is the opposite to lukewarm, occasional, only if it’s sunny, only if I’m happy.
Passionate Spirituality is about experiencing God’s love for us and others – it’s that which catches in our throat, stirs us, moves us 2 walk the extra kilometre - to do and be disciples.
Passionate Spirituality is transformational
Passionate Spirituality is necessary –without it churches starve and wither away
The other point equally as important as passionate spirituality, is “needs-based evangelism”.
While the term might sound new, the practice isn’t.
You could say Jesus feeding the 5000 was needs-based evangelism.
In feeding the people Jesus fed their souls.
It is how I imagined the missionaries reached out when they came to this land.
It is the way we should be evangelising today.
Going to where the people are at: where they are encountering life’s issues and challenges.
It is taking Christ to the people and that is a far cry from the way the Anglican Church has operated in this land for years and years.
When I was first ordained the expectation was that people would come to us.
That they would seek our services and they would join up and be ministered to.
That is not the way to make disciples however. It simply makes parishioners who have often become dependent on the church for their continual nourishment when the church should have been preparing the ‘joiners’ to become disciples who would in turn go seek others, go help others.
Needs-based evangelism is summed up in the third of the 5 marks of Mission* of the Anglican world-wide communion - ‘To respond to human need by loving service’ and we can highlight that and ask the question ‘what needs to be done in our local situation where we can love others and show them that love is the love Jesus has for us and them’,
‘What then needs to be done?’
In being passionate about our faith and seeking out needs in which to serve and make known Christ, we also need to let people know we are here.
We Anglicans very often serve in the community quietly, some suggest so quietly we aren’t noticed.
It’s time to be seen & heard to be serving so that those seeking help know where and who to come to.
In business I’m told when the going gets tough it is important to turn up the volume, so businesses advertise more. Likewise we should be turning up the volume to:
• Show our compassion
• Show who we are
• Show where we can be found.
2009 is a year of opportunity to be the best disciples we can be, seeking to transform lives.
Passionate about our faith & sharing the Good News in ways that will bring relief, encouragement and hope.
Foolish? Yeah Right
*The Five Marks of Mission of the Anglican [world wide] Communion re-affirmed at the Lambeth Conference 2008:
1 To proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom
2 To teach, baptise and nurture new believers
3 To respond to human need by loving service
4 To seek to transform unjust structures of society
5 To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth
