emergingoli

In starbucks at the moment Red cups have arrived indicating its now Christmas.
But surley there is more to Christmas than red cups and shopping.

What about Jesus?

Sorry i have not bloged in a couple of days i have been in bed with a bad cold. I am back at work today and in the office a bit a of a debate started concerning the emerging church. It supprises me how little some people know about it. Below is what i posted on a website called open source theology last week.

I wonder just how many people are out there in the western world that within themselves are what we would call emerging (or post-modern or a new kind of Christian or whatever…), that are doing this all on their own? Prehapes they belong to a very modern or traditionlist church and just dont have anyone to explore there emerging faith with. I speak a little bit from experince here, i do have friends who are part of the emergent church movement but they are few in number. On top of this i go to a fairly modern church. I least have a few people to turn to and discuss/pray/dialogue with but there must be some who dont have even that, probably quite a lot in rural areas.

The other question i would now ad to this is how do we (i) educate "mainstream" christians as to waht we are about?

When it comes to ministry sometimes there is no question, there is just a question mark (or a string of them). Theren seem to be so many who, what, where, why and how's it can get you down. I sometimes feel like i have no support, i sometimes feel drained and there seems to be no one to fill me up. I am trying to plug into a chuch at the moment and i know its a place where i will find family but at the moment i feel a bit empty.
Im sorry if this is deppressing but i want this blog to be honest.

It just makes me so angry when i see people trying to ram Jesus into peoples faces. The below picture sums up what i think most people think of the church. Enjoy.

I am a fully fledged member of the i-pod, starbucks, nokia generation. Unlike my parents i am no longer defined as a consumer but i am defined by what i consume.

I aim to consume Jesus, to eat him and in so doing become one with him, just like i am one with my Chai tea latte at the moment .

I was at a meeting today of christian schools workers in London. I have to say it was very refreshing. Normaly when i am in a lecture or a meeting or conf i start to fall asleep after luch, but today was diffrent. A middle age woman stood up after lunch and began to talk about prayer. In this she mentioned prayer walking. It got me thinking, prayer walking is 100% vital. To pray in our churches can be good but often in a prayer meeting we close the doors and pray for area from within our fortified walls. Prayer walking is about taking the power of Jesus beyond the walls of our churches and into our communities. Let people see that we pray and let them see what we pray for. And so prayer in itself becomes an even more significant area within our lives and the lives of others.
Are we ready to walk with the Lord?

I was thinking this morning as i got up stubled down stairs and tried to make a cup of tea, what sort of person do i want to be and what sort of church do i want to belong to? The answer i hoped would come from a voice in heaven instead it came from my milk.
I want to be semi-skimed.
I want to stand for truth and i also want to be accepting of others idears.
I want to learn with my heart as well as my head.
I want a church that touches all my senses not just my brain.
Good teaching but semi-smells and bells would not go amiss.

I want...i want...
Am i to selfish?
{sigh}

Below are just somethings that i have been thinking about over the past three months. These are entries from a book labled: my though journal. Hopefully this will help you to gauge where im at in my idears:
JULY2005
Thing's are going on in God’s “world” we just cant imagine or understand. We are like a hamster trying to comprehend the distance of 1000 miles.

.Q: Will there be people in Heaven who are suprised to be there? Q: Should we expect to be suprised when we get there?
AUGUST2005
.Are we no longer “in the pursuit of truth”, but rather just after the truth in the quickest possible time. In pursuing the quick answer we have become totally intolerant of error. Surely by making mistakes and getting things wrong we learn? God surly rewards the repentant and seeking publican who has/does/will make mistakes even about the person of God and the scriptures than the arrogant and self-righteous pharisee who thinks he has the perfect formula but in fact his life is one huge/gargantuan mistake.

.How many of the idea's and frameworks in our churches and in our minds are inherited? How much do we think for ourselves? Do we lack even the basic curiosity to evaluate ourselves which in turn makes the big things happen, the things that we are so desperately looking for in our little dull Christian lives?

.Jesus is not just our saviour, he is our master and our teacher and our high priest amongst other roles. We can not limit Jesus to the work of the cross. The cross is so so wonderful but there is more and its not just extra stuff that you could do with out.
.Christians can aim to reach a certain culture or people group but in the end the very nature of this Gospel is so countercultural that it is in its very essence counter to what we typical identify as being human. Simply the Gospel is counterhuman.

.Should we perhaps be asking God to make us weak so that Christ may become strong within his church?
SEPTEMBER2005
.If salvation and sanctification and justification are all interlinked and if each process operates in at very least a similar way then that would mean that all three processes do not finish until God has decided that you are finished with this life???

.Christians have non-existent balls. We must realise that part of Christianity is about confronting things head on just as Jesus confronted the problem of sin head on.

.I have known God scince the 6th century or last week its difficult to tell. How do you make snse of time with the being you are going to share eternity with? What time scale makes sense?

OCTOBER 2005
. Rather than misinterpriting what the bible says, have we misinterprited what it is?

. Jesus is the hyperprophet or ultimate prophet in that he brought and emobodied the good news of God’s final means of salvation. The last way out the first prophet sent to the whole world.
. A man named Harold bloom seems to have the same idear as one of my first August point on truth and puts it in these words “...increases the appetite to know, rather than to believe or trust.” From his book the American religion.
.We have a very western view of Christianity and the view of westen superiorty has been transplanted in our faith. This is very sad.
.Is it possible to worship the satisfaction of a relationship with God rather than God himself. Can you even turn the relationship you have with Jesus into an idol?
. Dead men do not hunger they do not eat they cannot see or seek.

Sorry about spelling thats one of my crap area's.