I don't blog here anymore

Intimacy with God is at the heart of everything

Originally posted at The Future Now

I have been thinking quite a lot about our values lately as we look to launch Mosaic Sheffield. We have definitely bought into the five core values that we share with Mosaic LA, but I have been wondering whether we need a sixth. But, before I go into that, here are the five:

Wind ?COMMISSION (Mission is why the church exists)

• The Church is a movement, not an institution
• Every follower of Jesus is commissioned by God

Water ?COMMUNITY (Love is the context of all mission)

• The Church is relational, not programmatic
• Every follower of Jesus is part of a larger community

Wood ?CONNECTION (Structure must always submit to Spirit)

• The Church is empowering, not controlling
• Every follower of Jesus is called and connected uniquely to serve

Fire ?COMMUNION (Relevance to the culture is not optional)

• The Church is incarnational, not esoteric
• Every follower of Jesus celebrates communion with God

Earth ?CHARACTER (Creativity is a natural result of spirituality)

• The Church is transforming, not conforming
• Every follower of Jesus grows in Christ-like character

Essentially, the question that I have been asking really is, s there enough within these values to stress the importance of intimacy with God? A conversation with my friend, Daniel, and a recent conference with John and Carol Arnott have really helped me see within my own life the need to have intimacy with God at the heart of everything I do. I am reminded too that the great commandment is a command to love God with everything wee got. And Jesus too showed us the pathway to a loving, intimate relationship with the Father. It is clear that the power and fruit of Jesus?ministry flowed from His intimate relationship with God.

The closest these five values get to emphasising this place of intimacy is Fire, but I am questioning whether this is explicit enough. So the thought that I am working through at the moment is adding an additional value that is our first value:

Cloud ?CALLING (Intimacy with God is at the heart of everything)

• The Church is a bride, not a building
• Every follower of Jesus is called to love God and enjoy Him

Well I would love to know what people think about this so let me know your thoughts?

Post your comments at The Future Now

My Blogging Anniversary!

For some reason I thought that I first started blogging last February, but a closer examination has revealed that it was in fact last January. And so January 11th 2006 was the one year anniversary of my blogging life. Ie had a couple of blogging breaks between then and now and also moved ouse?a few times too. But Voxtropolis is definitely starting to feel like home.

It is only really since September that I have been blogging seriously and it has been a great five months since then of meeting new people, making new friends, and growing in a whole myriad of new ways. Thanks to all of you for making my life richer! I even happier now that Rachel has entered the world of blogging too. And it is great that wee going to be able to meet many of you face to face in May when we all converge in LA. We can wait!

Anyway, that will do for now, but before I finish I did think that I would include my first ever post from January 11th 2005. It was entitled, ife Before Death?

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I think its fair to say that I used to think that the most important thing for me as a Christians was a) to make it to heaven, and b) to take as many people with me as possible. Is this really what the Gospel is about though? Is that the message Jesus left us with and commanded us to share with all the world? I don think it is. Many Christians seem only really concerned with helping people find life after death whilst Jesus seemed equally interested to helping people find life before death. Jesus never taught us to go and get as many converts as possible; He taught us to disciple as many people as possible. The difference is huge.

Like it or not, Jesus was committed to making a difference for good in countless peoples lives even though many of them never went onto follow Him. I grew up with the impression that things like healing the sick, feeding the poor, meeting physical needs et cetera were not really important - the important thing was that people got he Gospel?i.e. were preached at about Jesus saving from sins and saving us from hell. Now this clearly is important but Jesus didn have this distinction in His ministry. He recognised the holistic nature of man; that spirit, soul and body are all intertwined. For Jesus, it seemed that healing was as much about he Gospel?as when He spoke to the people and taught them. The Gospel - as I see it at least - is not just a message that we speak or proclaim. It is that, but when I look at the Gospels I see that Jesus?approach to sharing the Good News was through proclamation, demonstration, and incarnation. Or, to say it in less wordy terms; say it, show it, live it.

Moving to Voxtropolis!

What Tall Ships Can Teach The Church

Last Saturday saw me and Rachel get to spend six hours hanging out with Dean, Tina, and Jason Sharp. It was a really great time and, like Tina said on her blog, it felt like the beginning of a life-long friendship. We enjoyed sharing one another stories, and dialoguing about our hopes and dreams. We talked about church, the kingdom, The Spring, and Mosaic Sheffield. We encouraged one another with both our similar and our differing stories. We had church! And that what we said to each other as our time drew to a close having spent the afternoon in a Covent Garden pub. My friend, Vic, said exactly the same thing when I told him about our day. t sounds like you were having church,?he said.

I share all of that as a backdrop to what I want to blog about today. We spent quite a bit of our time talking about the reality that the church is always meant to be moving, always pioneering, always innovating. Regardless of people personalities on the pioneer/settler scale, the church is never meant to settle. No church is ever meant to become static. The only building that God officially endorsed was the tabernacle ?not the temple. And the tabernacle was a structure that was easy to move as God led the people of Israel. It was a mobile structure. A big problem I see today is that there are a lot of churches with non-mobile structures ?in the physical, spiritual, and organisational sense.

As we were talking about this, Dean shared how they were going to be going down to look at the HMS Victory (most famous ship in the Royal Navy) the next day and this led into a conversation about how tall ships are a great metaphor for the church. Here what Dean wrote on his blog today:

My experience of the H.M.S. Victory was as rewarding as I had hoped it would be. Tabernacles and tallshipstructures designed for movement. A company of voyagers bound together by the journey. There's nothing in this life compared to the power of the sea or the feeling of traversing it, navigating by the stars, salt spray upon your face, driven by the wind.

They that go down to the sea in ships and do business in great waters, these see the works of the Lord and His wonders in the deep. Psalm 107:23, 24

Since having this conversation about tall ships, I have not been able to stop thinking about them and God seems to have been really opening my eyes to see just how powerful a metaphor it is when thinking about church. Here are a few of the thoughts that have been triggered through my reflecting on this:

1) Tall Ships are structures designed for movement. Ie already talked about this and I think the crossover to the church is obvious. The church as God intended is designed for movement. A tall ship is not meant to sit still on land; it is designed to be on the water. The HMS Victory is now a museum because it no longer is out on the water. The same happens to churches that settle on dry land. The ocean is a metaphor for the world, and when the church stops pioneering out into the ocean it ceases to be relevant to the future and becomes nothing more than a monument to the past.

2) Tall ships are dependent on the wind in order to move. Again, the crossover to the church should be plain to see. For the church to move it must be reliant on the wind of God Spirit. Having wind though is not enough to guarantee movement. The sails on the tall ship must be constantly adjusted to partner with the wind in order to move forward. Too many churches are trying to create movement when instead we need to become sensitive to the Holy Spirit, adjusting our sails to work in sync with Him.

3) Tall ships can copy the movements of a nearby ship. Even though another ship might be just 100 meters away, the way the wind relates to and impacts each ship is always unique. If a captain tried to just copy what another captain did, he would end up in serious trouble. Every captain has to learn to read the wind for themselves and every church leader needs to hear the Spirit and follow His leading for themselves. We must learn from others experiences, but we must never simply copy what they did. Every expression of church needs to read the wind of God Spirit for themselves and become the unique body it is meant to be. 

4) Tall ships require all hands on deck. For a tall ship to be able to fully partner with the wind in order to obtain maximum movement, it needs absolutely everyone to know their role and give their all to it. One person not pulling their weight can affect the whole ship. The church is not for spectators. Mission is why the church exists. Every church needs to create an ethos that requires all hands on deck. There is no place for Christian tourists and only room for tour guides.

I think that will do for now; I shall maybe share more another time. I love to know your thoughts?o:p>