God is a person and so it is not possible to lay out a linear process to get to know him. Like all relationships they are unique and they take work and no-one can do that work for you. This week Steve and Randy explore the idea that getting to know God is more like learning to dance than like learning a skill.
Monks
Relating with God is a two way street. We have spoken a lot about who God is and what he is like but this week Steve and Randy discuss what God wants from us. How should we react and respond to God? Is he someone who needs to be pleased and appeased or is he looking for a much wilder, trusting response from us?
This week the guys discuss the issue of what is God like. Often we have either accepted or rejected God on a warped understanding of who God is. In in fact our understanding of God is flawed from the beginning then the more zealous we are, the worse it will be for us…
This week the guys begin a conversation about some of the reasons why people shy away from opening themselves up to God.
This week Steve and Randy begin a new series looking at the basics of what it means to live as a disciple of Jesus. This introduction covers 3 spiritual journeys that each of us need to get a handle on as we attempt to live for Jesus.
Here’s an interesting article by Brian Jones, Senior Pastor at Christ’s Church of the Valley in Royersford, Pennsylvania, on why he thinks churches should cut their small groups ministries.
Why Churches Should Euthanize Small Groups
Love to hear your thoughts!
I recently had a long conversation in my backyard with a bunch of my neighbours about how they ended up in the careers that they are currently in.
One guy told a vivid story about how he stumbled into a job straight out of school and had basically learned his trade on the job. He worked away in the same job until something unusual would happen. His boss would walk in and offer him a job in another city, or his company got bought out by another one and he got a redundancy, or even his wife wanted to move country and so he was forced to make a change. In short he extolled the virtue of ‘taking life as it comes’, a sort of ‘wait for life to happen to you’ philosophy. Read More
In my travels, I have found that people have this destructive tendency I call the habit of projection. Basically, it means that we take the experience of a part and project this to define our perception of the whole. Where I see it often is at fast food places. Sometimes, we can allow one bad coffee, or one lot of soggy fries, or one mistaken order to influence our perception of the whole company. When we hear the name of that company, we associate it with that negative experience. Read More
Here’s a small portion of an interview I found a while back. Mike Breen is a pastor who developed the LifeShapes material for spiritual growth, and it’s well worth checking out the ideas if you’re a church leader and haven’t heard of them before. I was interested in this little bit for what it said about preaching and discipleship though. Read More
Here are some thoughts that struck me recently:
- Most people I know are time-poor
- Life is busy enough but on top of everything else we as Christians are supposed to do a whole lot of spiritual stuff (read the Bible, pray, serve others, do church)
- God doesn’t want us to fulfill our worldly responsibilities half-hearted (work, partners, children, community) so it’s not really an option to cut back on those