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The virtue of stability

We live in a culture where stability, stick-ability and consistency are not really seen as virtues but disabilities. We told that it’s good to be flexible, agile, constantly shifting, morphing, evolving, jumping from one thing to another. Everyone offers us change – politicians, internet providers, management gurus. To stick with one thing, to be the same person yesterday, today and tomorrow is strange, boring, old-fashioned, impractical and probably deadly. Change becomes the new constant, flux and flex the new buzz words. That culture affects us personally and as churches. And there are some things about willingness to change (reformation?) that are hugely positive. We've talked about the need to be willing to change as a good farmer seeking growth . And how change is often spiritually good for us . But there are negative aspects to a culture that makes a virtue of constant instability. Is it good for customers and companies if employees change jobs every year? Is it good for chi...
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A theology of profanity

What makes swearing / cussing / profanity - whatever you want to call it - wrong? This is something I was too slow to work through as a new Christian and it is something that I've had to think through more recently as I talk to my children. Why should those following Christ avoid using certain words? Is it just prudish? Is it just middle class? Is it just legalism based on a few proof texts? Here's a first-draft sketch of a theology of profanity... The image of God Duncan Forbes and others have highlighted voice as a key element of the image of God. As God speaks creation into being and evaluates and names and blesses, so he gives humanity voice through which to rule and relate.  In the frame of that big picture, what is the problem with swearing? It's a wrong use of the voice. Instead of using my voice to build others up and benefit them, I am using my voice to cut them down and curse them. Instead of using my voice to praise and thank my creator and express my dependence ...

Everlasting gobstopper theology

The idea here is that there are layers to Christ's fullness and when the biblical authors present Christ to us they might only explicitly refer to one layer but as they do that the underlying layers are also implied. or to put it another way, the glory of the underlying layers shine through the layer that is presented to us. That might sound strange, abstract and not particularly helpful but let me try to explain.  The incarnation implies the pre-existent Word In the beginning was the Word. The Word took flesh. When John identifies "Jesus Christ has come in the flesh" as the key test of orthodoxy, Augustine asks (Homily 6 on 1 John) how can this be when so many heretics happily affirm the humanity of Jesus but deny his deity? Augustine then asks us to dig a bit deeper and consider: From whence did he come? "Was he not God?" Simon Gathercole demonstrated (in his 2006 book, The Pre-existent Son ) that Jesus' phrase in the synoptic gospels, "I have come...

Looking afresh at the harvest and harvesting

  “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; 38 therefore pray earnestly to the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest.” What do you think of when you hear the words ‘harvest’ and ‘harvesting’? What would Jesus’ first hearers have thought of when they heard him talk about labourers being sent out into the harvest? How would they have reacted to the news that the harvest is ‘plentiful’? What if those of us who are twenty-first century Westerners are missing a lot of the intended force of Jesus’ language because we are deaf to the connotations that harvest would have had in a non-mechanised agricultural community? I asked a number of Kenyan friends to share their experiences of harvest to help me to hear Matthew 9:37-38 more clearly and richly. Here are seven things they taught me: 1. Harvesting is joyful “Growing up as a young boy, I really liked the harvest period. Harvest meant an exciting experience… happiness in the family… fresh food… It was a joyf...

Holding together restlessness and optimism

Piper has a great section in his Marks of a Spiritual Leader  where he holds together two vital biblical leadership virtues: 1. RESTLESS Spiritual leaders have a holy discontentment with the status quo. Non-leaders have inertia that causes them to settle in and makes them very hard to move off of dead center. Leaders have a hankering to change, to move, to reach out, to grow, and to take a group or an institution to new dimensions of ministry. They have the spirit of Paul, who said in Philippians 3:13, “Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead. I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” Leaders are always very goal-oriented people. God’s history of redemption is not finished. The church is shot through with imperfections, lost sheep are still not in the fold, needs of every sort in the world are unmet, sin infects the saints. It is un...

Matt Perman on Management and Leadership

These are quotes from the What's Best Next Toolkit ( mobi file ) - a free resource of online extra chapters and articles that accompanies Matt Perman's must read book “Leadership is not about you. It is about serving others, building them up, and making them more effective. “if you keep trying to do the sorts of things you did as an individual contributor, you simply won’t have time to lead at all.” “Now, the leaders should sometimes, frequently even, pitch in directly by working along side the people on his or her team. But this shouldn’t be the main thing the leader does. He needs to be setting direction, looking out ahead, and aligning people.” “Leadership in the pastoral role is practiced primarily  through  the ministry of the word and prayer.” “every week or so, review the org chart and reflect what actions you can proactively take to keep things going in the right direction, or to help make someone more effective, and so forth.” “There is a significa...

What's Next? Consider Christ

We've been going through a series thinking about the question What Next? Consider yourself in gospel ministry Consider the range of gospel work roles Consider the range of places and needs Consider the range of training possibilities Consider others But ultimately there can only be one answer to the question What’s next?  For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain (Phil. 1:21) Paul didn’t know what was next for him as he wrote the letter to the Philippians. He had resolved that continuing on this earth to work for people’s progress and joy in the faith was most necessary (Phil. 1:24-25 - notice there that he's considering others and considering need ) but he knew that there were two alternatives – life and death (Phil. 1:20-23). Whatever was next for Paul, it was consumed, defined, filled by knowing Christ, having Christ, being found in Christ.  What’s next? CHRIST! Christ the radiance of the glory of God Christ crowned with glory and honour Christ our rescuer who has sm...