Napier Baptist

I was struck by a quote Paul gives from Soren Kierkegaard the Danish philosopher:

“The matter is quite simple. The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. ‘My God,’ you will say, ‘if I do that my whole life will be ruined. How would I ever get on in the world?’"

We're currently working through 1 Corinthians 1:18-2:5 and noticing how the church at Corinth is impressed by the rhetoric and wisdom of the Sophists (the megastar windbags (orators) of the 1st century). Oratory was highly prized in Corinth and the Sophists were the superstar gasbags who impressed the crowds with their good looks and their ability to tickle people's ears with the skills of rhetoric (to read a little more about the Sophists of the 1st century go and have a snoop around Bruce Winter's webpage here). To be someone special and powerful in Corinthian society you had to display all the skills of rhetoric (like the celebrity Sophists). But Paul says that's the ways of the scheming swindlers and it's not how God works. God chooses the foolish things of the world to shame the wise so that no one can boast before God (holding our trophies and achievements before God). No doubt in Corinthian society Paul's message of Christ crucified seemed foolishness and moronic (the Greek word for foolishness is moria and we get our English word moron for its root). This is moronic to Corinthian society who love their power, wisdom and abilities, but Paul says Christ crucified is the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because the Christian faith is centred on the crucified one, we find that wisdom is found in humility, strength is found in weakness and power is found through love. In the light of who God is, Corinthian society, with its love of power and rhetorical wisdom, is what is exposed as moronic, not God.

There is no other 'Christ' than the crucified Christ. But we, and I especially include myself here, are scheming swindlers who like to trade up from the crucified Chrsit to follow something less scandalous and less moronic and follow something more acceptable to us and our ways. Martin Luther King said of the church of his day: "The contemporary church is often a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. It is so often the arch supporter of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church’s silent and often vocal sanction of things as they are." Check it the full quote at William Willimon's blog here.

There's some things I don't agree with John Howard about but I admire his stance on the Australian Cricket team touring Zimbabwe. He has taken a strong stand against what I see as an evil and oppressive dictatorship. Read about it here.

Last week I attended a pastor's meeting where Larry Baldock came to speak to us about his petition in regards to the current legislation to repeal section 59 of the crimes act. Whilst many people may be frustrated at what seems to be the govt legislating how people should parent, I was very confused when I was told that churches should be "leading the way" in getting this petition signed. Apparently we should be getting our people to go out into shopping malls etc on weekends and get signatures for this petition. I left the meeting a little troubled. Why should churches be leading the way on this petition (getting people to oppose the bill that would repeal section 59)? As I write this post I have just received another e-mail from people attached to this petition demanding that our church should be arranging people to take to the streets to get signatures for this petition! I can understand our people signing this petition as concerned citizens, but what is so gospel about petitioning the govt to allow us to smack our children that churches should "lead the way"? I left the meeting wondering why should churches be "leading the way" on this petition? Jesus NEVER spoke about smacking. In fact it didn't even register on his Richter scale. Jesus' self definition was the Prince of Peace. Jesus ALWAYS sided with the poor, the outcast, the oppressed and the least. What is so gospel about this petition that churches should "lead the way" as if the very gospel itself is being threatened by this bill? I can understand people in our church signing this petition as concerned citizens but for us as a church to "lead the way" it has to be a specific threat to the gospel Jesus proclaimed and I just don't think it is. Why do we want to "lead the way" on this petition about smacking (something Jesus NEVER spoke about) instead of leading the way on petitioning our govt to be more involved and concerned about global poverty and injustice (something that Jesus spoke about A LOT)?

To be sure, my issue isn't with concerned citizens in our church signing the petition (and I am not opposing Christians signing this petition as concerned citizens) my issue is that I have been told that our church should "lead the way" on this petition and recruit our people to get signatures but I just don't see it as a gospel imperative (compared to issues like poverty and injustice). We seem to be picky and choosy about what we protest about. For example, churches were at the forefront of protesting against the Civil Unions Bill, which is fine (even though homosexuality is something Jesus never spoke about in a culture where it was rampant). But, at exactly the same time our NZ cricket team were leaving to tour Zimbabwe, a country being oppressed by an evil leader and suffering chronic injustices (something Jesus spoke a lot about) and churches never battered an eyelid or considered protesting! I don't oppose anyone being involved in signing petitions or protesting, nor am I suggesting Christians shouldn't be involved in the debate about homosexuality. My cry is that our churches "lead the way" on the things that were priorities for Jesus Christ.

If I have missed something here can someone please help me out...

Chris kindly gave me a CD with camp photos on it. So I thought I'd share some more with you:

Brian Smith had us acting out the story of Zac's for Tax (the story of Zacchaeus). A reminder that religion says "If you do this (sacrifice a chicken, pray hard enough, repent enough) then God will do that (give you what you want)" but Christianity says "God loves you (even though we don't deserve it) therefore live out of that love."

Zac's for Tax:

The rest of us tried to learn the Zaccheus story off by heart:

We had a ringmaster:

And he took the whip to any who dared to be late!:

Some rode horses:

Others went on flying foxes:

Others swung through the trees:

It was a great time for our children:

There was a sweet swimming hole:

Some good looking ladies (or is that lads?)

Then an unnamed someone tried to beat the pastor at spoons! But as I said, Ian, I'm the champ at spoons and, for some reason unknown to only you, I can hit harder than you! It's all in the timing people, all in the timing!

And the mystery hand is.... (thanks for the help Hayden)

The unnamed someone went to bed practicing his timing!

Stu is currently on the prowl for a Baptist church and he described his vision for the church as messy and then felt it caused the people who he was talking to have their eyes glazed over. It reminded me of what I wrote on my personal ministry profile when my profile was being sent out to vacant churches. Under theological principles I wrote this:

THEOLOGICAL PRINCIPLES: The love of God for the whole of creation is revealed in Jesus Christ and is continually revealed to us by the Spirit. Salvation comes from the Father, in the Spirit and is in Christ alone. It is this love of God for the whole of creation, redeemed in Jesus that is good news for the whole world. The Bible is the Word of God and the primary source that witnesses to this good news. It is this good news that Christians are called to witness to. I understand mission not to be something that the Church does but rather the essence of what the Church is. Similarly, I believe worship is not something that Christians do but is something that Christians are. I understand mission and worship to be the Church following God in expressing and witnessing to the whole world about God’s coming Kingdom. In light of this I believe that mission must engage Christianly with our society that we are trying to reach. Such engagement is generally messy because people’s lives are messy, but messy mission is also deep mission. I will seek to not simply talk about such mission, but to model it as well. Similarly worship will give expression to the good parts and the difficult parts of our lives and bring it under the lordship of Jesus. The Church is a gathered people (for worship) and a scattered people (for mission). The gathered community has prayer and mutual encouragement and respect modelled on the Trinity as central to its being. The Church is an accepting and open community that allows the diversity of age, nationality, social status, gender and background to give richness to its expression of the redeeming grace of God. In its functions, such as expressions of worship, mission and discipleship, the Church will allow this principle of richness in diversity (based on the Trinity) to govern its actions. I believe that everyone is uniquely gifted by God and has an important contribution to make and unique experiences to share. I believe that opportunity must be given to people to express their unique gifts and experiences, so that the Church’s witness of God’s love is broad and rich and exciting.

I still stand by these principles. I remember Mick Duncan saying to a group of us students training for pastoral ministry that only 1% of the world ever get the chance to study at tertiary level and so we need to make sure we don't waste it. We need to come out of college with our 'Big Idea' not necessarily sorted but at least bubbling. Messy mission was my big idea. In Acts 15 we find God, through his Spirit, leading the early church into a much messier mission than it could dream or handle. God is at the forefront of leading the church into messy mission! I was warned off what I wrote by some in officialdom because it would be unimpressive to churches. However, it was exactly my convictions on messy mission that connected with the hearts of those on the Napier Baptist search committee. This was central to our sense of call and where God was leading us.

Stu, Jesus said don't fear! Be confident about your future because the future belongs to God...

We at Napier Baptist are blessed with a great church family. Our church camp was a fantastic time of fun and laughter together. Here's some photos of the weekend including the classic Bearsley version of Andrew Picard and his mid life crisis (now that I've turned thirty). If you're a Napier Baptist goer and have some photos from the weekend you want to share, e-mail them to me at andrew.nbc@xtra.co.nz and I'll add them in....


Some of us solving the world's ills...


The now famous Bearsley version of my (Andrew Picard's) mid life crisis:


Don't know what OSH think of this one...

Last year Lynne Taylor reflected on Christian songs that seem to be infatuated with Jesus' death. Songs that have lines about wishing we could see Jesus' face as he died, the pain etc. I guess they're wanting us to see the gravity of his pain and the guilt we should feel for our sin that caused it. Lynne says, "actually I don't think I could bear the pain on seeing his face." We had Brian and Shirley Smith share the weekend with us at our church camp and with Good Friday approaching I was reminded of a picture Brian used to show us in his Christology class of 'The Tortured Jesus' upon the cross. Like Lynne, I'm not sure I want to gaze into his face or see my sin upon that cross! I don't think I can handle it!

Was freakin awesome! I mostly hate church camps and find them to be especially lame. I can honestly say that this one wasn't. In fact I haven't laughed as hard as I did last weekend in years. I will hopefully put some photos up soon, just need some permission first.

Steve has a provokative post on why he thinks Christians should be vegetarians. What I appreciate deeply with Steve is that his views on vegetarianism came from him reflecting on scripture and his responsibility towards God's creation and this caused a fundamental change in the way he lived his life. Irrespective of our views on vegetarianism (and I don't mean that to be dismissive), it makes me wonder whether I am as open to God being able to still fundamentally change how I live my life in the light of scripture and my responsiblity towards God's creation?

If you're Bible Seminary graduate, like me, or someone who enjoys knowledgable people speaking on different aspects of Scripture or Christian faith and you live out in the provinces where it's often hard to get access to hear these sort of people, then do I have a site for you! If you're anything like me, you probably miss the opportunities to hear these sort of people and the food they provide for your journey. Well, Calvin Theological Seminary have come to our rescue. They provide an online lecture calendar of their visiting speakers. You can go there and listen to their many outstanding speakers. Their lecture calendar reads like a virtual who's who of evangelical scholars (Ellen Charry, NT Wright, Gordon Fee, Miroslav Volf, Kwame Bediako...). You can access it here.

Ali has asked if I'd share some of my recent sermons on reading the Bible. To be honest I don't much like putting sermons out there, outside of the community I'm in. The community I'm in at Napier Baptist is a huge part of the sermon itself - sermons are organically intertwined with the church community itself. Also, it freaks me out the thought of people reading a sermon of mine. I struggle enough with with the thought of whether I've got anything worth saying to our church community, let alone putting things on the web. But I do trust God incarnates our human words in some way in order to speak the Word. No doubt some of my fears are actually pride that doesn't want to be critiqued! Anyway, some of the sermons on reading the Bible weren't sermons as such. Rahter, they were simple helps for our people to open the Scriptures. I will put my first sermon online which is my theology of Scripture/Bible reading type of thing. In other words, why read the Bible? Please realise it was written as a spoken word and not a written word and it might be clunky to read. Also, sermon notes are helps and I often drift away from them - therefore this isn't the exact sermon I preached word for word - but it's pretty close.

I don't know how to add attachments like PDF files to a weblog so it's below in the body of this post.

Also, there's always loads of people who you read and borrow from in sermons. Among others, I'm indebted to the work of Jason Clark and Real Live Preacher.

Anyway, enough apologies! Here's my sermon "Eat This Book" given with fear and trepidation.
The sermon title is taken from Eugene Peterson's book with the same title:

Today we start a series on how to read the Bible on its own terms. It’s not exactly a sexy topic is it? I’d better explain what I mean. Last year we had Tony Anthony come to speak here in Napier. A fantastic speaker who was an ex-hit man, martial arts expert who’d been in prison and become a Christian come and share his testimony and there were hundreds of people that went along. Now that’s an exciting and sexy topic. A few weeks before that here at Napier Baptist we had Mark Strom the Principal of BCNZ come to speak to us on basically how to read the Bible. We sent flyers out to all the churches in not just Napier but the whole of the Hawkes Bay. I don’t know how many Christians there’d be in the Hawkes Bay but it would be well into the thousands. We made the event free – no charge to come and here an internationally renowned speaker talk about how to read the bible. We got about 30 or 40 people turn up. A bit like prayer meetings, how to read the bible isn’t a very sexy topic. I heard about an Indian pastor who visited a mega church in the US to learn some church growth principles. He went along to their Sunday service and there was about 10,000 people there. It was packed and the place was pumping. During the week he went along to the church prayer meeting and about 10 people showed up from a church of thousands. Praying and reading the bible are not particularly sexy. We know that prayer and studying the bible are vital to growing us as Christians but we’re so time poor, stressed and busy it’s very hard to find time for it. Statistics are clear that the bulk of Christians about 80% don’t open their Bibles week to week. We don’t read our Bibles. Here’s a common experience for me in ministry. I talk to someone about how their walk with Jesus is going. They get a bit red in the face and look at the ground. Then they confide in me that they don’t really read their bible nor do they pray much. They think they’re the only people in the church who this is an issue for and that they’re letting the team down or they’re not really Christians. The reality is that this is one of the most common things I hear in ministry. That’s one of the major reasons why this year we will look at how to read our bibles and later in the year we’ll explore prayer. I won’t embarrass us today by asking who read their bibles in the last week. I’m not doing this series to judge anyone – I’ve gone long periods as a Christian without reading my bible. What are some of the things that stop you from reading the bible?. What are some of the things that make it difficult for us or for people wanting to read the bible? ENGAGE WITH ANSWERS
This series in many ways is trying to be a very practical series to help people to read the bible. One of the major things as we go through this series is that I’m really keen for us to learn how to read the bible on its own terms. And the key words are – on its own terms. Too often we read the Bible on our terms rather than on its terms. If you’re after a great book on the way we should read the Bible this book by Eugene Peterson called Eat This Book is one of the best I’ve come across. I shamelessly borrowed the title of this morning’s sermon from this book. In it Peterson says this The challenge regarding the Christian scriptures isn’t just getting them read but read on their own terms. A pastor I know of in Auckland once burnt his Bible as part of his sermon to protest against the way the Bible is often misused and abused. He actually burnt his Bible to protest against the way the Bible so often gets abused. I’m not sure that I’d burn my Bible because I’m a chicken and I don’t have the guts to do it. But I agree with his sentiments! There’s some good ways to read the Bible and there’s some bad ways to read the Bible. This morning I simply want to outline some of the ways I think we shouldn’t approach the Bible and then some of the ways we should approach the Bible.
What sort of images does the Bible have in society? When I started as a vehicle inspector I was given this massive rule book called the Compliance Code. It was full of all the rules and regulations that imported cars had to meet before we would let them onto NZ roads. I was told this is the vehicle inspector’s Bible you need to read it. Or backpacker’s when they trip around the country carry with them the backpacker’s Bible to NZ. It gives them clear practical down to earth guidance on where to go and what to see in NZ. If you want to look good Trinny and Susannah give us the Bible on what not to wear. Clear, practical advice on how to dress well. The Bible has the image of being a massive rule book full of dos and don’ts or some sort of practical advice on how to live well and become healthy, wealthy and wise. I want to say this morning that the Bible is not a rule book or a how to manual and if you want to read it on its own terms just don’t read it like that.
Another one to be careful of which I find myself often doing is reading the Bible as if it’s some sort of religious book full of inspiring little quips to help me get through the day. A sort of quote of the day type of book for my religious devotion. Jesus is a sort of spiritual guru that we go to like Buddha to get some pearls of wisdom for our day ahead. “Treat others how you want to be treated”. “Love your neighbour” The sort of advice any wise person would give. Now we all do that at some time or other but if you want to keep the Bible as a devotionally cozy book you have to pick and choose fairly carefully what you will and won’t read. If this is the only way you read the Bible then you’re reading it on your terms rather than on its terms. The Bible has a lot of hard things in it if we don’t pick and choose what we’ll read. When people come to me to talk about getting baptised I don’t often send them to Luke 3:7 for inspiration. In it John talks to the crowds who’ve come out to be baptised and he says “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” We don’t often turn to that one when we’re picking passages for inspiration. So be aware of using the Bible as a big book of spiritual wisdom instead of reading the good the bad and the ugly.
Another one to be aware of is seeing it as a race so that when we get to the end we can say “Finished! What’s next?” Reading the Bible isn’t a task to complete. Olivia’s got a children’s bible that we read together each night. Slowly we made our way through it until we got the end and finished it. The next night I got her Bible out and asked her what part she’d like to start at and she said “we’ve read the Bible can’t we read something else?” I’ve read the Bible…. What’s next? I thought it was a really big deal to have read the whole Bible so a few years ago I did it in one year. I loved to tell people that I’d read the whole thing. “Yeah man I read the whole Bible back in 2000” Well big deal, it’s not that impressive. I can’t remember what I read a month ago let alone 7 years ago. Having read the whole Bible isn’t that impressive. You’re better off reading one chapter and understanding it and doing what it says than reading the whole Bible, understanding hardly anything and doing none of it. It’s possible to know the Bible inside out but live a life that looks nothing like Jesus. An important thing for us to remember is that Christians don’t worship the Bible. The Bible isn’t God and the Bible hardly ever points us to itself – it points us to God and calls us to follow him.
The worst way to read the Bible is to use it as a weapon. A baseball bat to smack people our enemies in the head with. Please don’t do that – it’s not cool. You’re not a defender of truth if you do that, you’re simply reading the Bible trying to apply it to everyone else’s life instead of doing the hard work of applying it to your own life. It’s called avoidance. We all like to use the Bible as a scalpel to cut everyone who doesn’t agree with us to ribbons. It’s easy to see the Bible as a scalpel but as the writer of Hebrews tells us the Bible isn’t a scalpel – it’s a two edged sword.
As we’re busy trying to perform surgery on everyone we don’t like, the Bible is performing surgery on us. The first thing we must realise is that the Bible isn’t speaking about everyone else, it’s speaking to you. If you spend the bulk of your time thinking oh wish so and so would read this, it so applies to them. Then you’re reading the Bible on your terms and not on its terms. We read the Bible not for information to smack people around with but for transformation.
Now I’ve given some ways not to read the Bible not I want to give a way to reading the Bible that I think will help us to read it on its terms. We read the Bible for transformation not information. The Bible opens us up to a strange new world. It’s a world we’re not used to. A world of grace and mercy, a world of forgiveness and peace, a world where people submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. It’s a strange new world. We’re used to a world where I’m in competition with you and there’s no way I’m going to lose to you. We’re used to a world where no one forgives anyone and bitterness and grudges stop us from even relating. We’re used to a world that’s happier to drop bombs on each other killing men, women and children just to show that I’m right. We open the Bible and we find this strange new world. God’s world. A world where the normal is made strange and the strange made normal. This is God’s world and we need to realise that this is the real world. So often people complain that Christians need to get into the real world and often I’d agree. But the Bible asks us what is really real? The world as it is is not what’s really real. The world as it is is fading – it’s dying. The real world isn’t the world out there. That world is passing, it’s dying. What’s really real is the world that’s coming to be through Jesus.
A world of love, peace, justice, mercy, grace, sharing possessions and forgiveness in Jesus. This is the new world we find in the Bible. God’s real world is the renewed creation redeemed in Jesus. And scripture opens us up to this strange new world and demands that we convert to it. Every time we read the Bible is a conversion experience. Michael Jinkins says If we’re true to the biblical text there’s going to be times when we can’t catch our breath because we’re astonished at what God desires for us. When it comes to being a community of the Word, it’s insane to wear straw hats to church. We should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should be issuing life preservers and signal flares. They should lash us to our pews! The Bible doesn’t politely ask us what do you think, do you agree? It tells us this is the way things are going to be are you on board or not? If you’re on board then forgive, show justice and mercy, share your possessions and submit to one another. We read the Bible to let scripture have its way in us, to transform us to be people of God’s real world. The power of scripture is its ability to produce the type of readers it requires. A people worthy of the name Christians – Christ ones. A people of God’s new world.
Now everything’s different. Instead of trucking out our huge superior arguments when people ask us is the Bible true? Now we put forth our little lives for people to judge if the scriptures are true or not. This is the power of scripture to transform us from being people of this world to being people of God’s new world that he’s making through Jesus. We read the Bible for transformation not information. And so we read the Bible differently than we do any other book. We read it differently than we would read the newspaper or a comic strip. The Bible is not some dead frog waiting for us to dissect in the science lab. Nor is it some daily inspiration book. Nor is it a how to manual. And most certainly it’s not a baseball bat to smash our enemies with. Scripture is the sustenance of God’s new world. As Eugene Peterson says we need to learn to eat this book. In Revelation 10 the mighty angel comes holding the scroll of God’s divine plan and plants one foot on the sea and another on the land. The angel’s pulpit spans across the land and sea and he thunders God’s mysteries to John. The first thing John tries to do is to write it all down. Like so many of us John studies God’s word like he’s studying to pass an exam. But the angel says seal it up and don’t write it down. Don’t write it down. But John still wants the book, so the angel gives the scroll to John and tells him to take it and eat it. And John eats it and finds that it is sweet as honey to his lips but bitter in his stomach. Isn’t that how scripture is for us? When we read scripture often it is a sweet comfort but other times it’s incredibly bitter. Sometimes we find refuge in God in scripture and other times like Jacob we wrestle with God and end up limping away with a black eye. You see you can’t study this book clinically detached. It’s not like dissecting a frog in a science lab. No you have to eat this book. Get it inside you. This is the food we eat – it’s what prepares us and sustains us for God’s new world. Scripture is the food of God’s new world. Wrestle with it, chew on it, savour it, taste it as both sweet and bitter, get it flowing through your veins and into your blood system so that it will prepare you for God’s new world. Get it pumping through your veins so that it metabolise into acts of service, mercy and redeeming love. Eat this book!
I read about a woman who worked as a house cleaner. Her day would consist of her going about different houses cleaning them from top to bottom. She was excellent at her job and she was very well respected by her customers. The job brought in a very meagre income but it was enough for her and her children to survive
She worked hard from early in the morning so that she could finish in time to go home for when her children got home. Not only did this woman work full time and raise her own children but she also raised over a dozen foster children on her meagre income. A newspaper reporter got wind of this woman and her story and went out to interview her. “Why did you do it?” the reporter asked. “Why did you raise all those foster children along with your own children on such a meagre income?” The woman paused and thought about and she replied “because I saw a new world coming” I saw a new world coming…
Eat this book!

Here is the list of helpful tools for Bible reading I gave on Sunday and where I got them from:

Study Bibles:
The Learning Bible (study Bible). Source: Local Christian Bookstore
TNIV Study Bible. Source: Local Christian Bookstore.
Bible Introductions:
Andrew Knowles, The Bible Guide. Source: Napier Library
Nick Page, The Bible Book. Source: Napier Library
Mark Strom, The Symphony of Scripture. Source: Local Christian Bookstore
Derek Williams, An Idiot’s Guide to the Bible. Source: Napier Library
Bible Dictionaries:
I. H. Marshall et al, New Bible Dictionary. Source: Local Christian Bookstore
W. R. F. Browning, Oxford Dictionary of the Bible. Source: Napier Library
John Drane, The New Lion Encyclopedia of the Bible. Source: Napier Library
Don Fleming, Bridge Bible Directory. Source: Napier Baptist Library
How to Read the Bible:
John Drane, Tune in to the Bible. Source: Napier Baptist Library
Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart, How to Read the Bible for All its Worth. Source: Local Christian Bookstore
Bible Commentaries:
Tom Wright, Paul for Everyone. Source: Local Christian Bookstore
William Barclay’s Commentaries. Source: Local Christian Bookstore
D. A. Carson et al, New Bible Commentary. Source: Local Christian Bookstore
Marva J. Dawn, Joy in Our Weakness. Source: Napier Baptist Library
F. F. Bruce, Romans. Source: Napier Baptist Library

Just in case you were interested....

Paul has a very good post on the humanity of Jesus with a link to an essay by NT Wright. It's a little off the current Bible reading series but it's all good.

Here's a snippet regarding Jesus' self understanding: " Jesus believed himself called to do and be things which, in the traditions to which he fell heir, only Israel’s God, YHWH, was to do and be. I think he held this belief both with passionate and firm conviction and with the knowledge that he could be making a terrible, lunatic mistake." Go and have a read here.

We've started a short series at Napier on How To Read the Bible on Its Own Terms. I think getting the Bible read is one thing but getting it read on its own terms is another thing. I'm keen to hear what stops us from reading our Bibles, what sort of 'stuff' would you love to explore about reading the Bible or how it came to be etc? What topics should we raise and consider? What would be helpful to explore about the Bible that might help you to read it, understand it and live it out? I haven't finalised the topics in this series and I'd love your input on it...

If you have any good resources to recommend then let us know.

Cheers,
Andrew

I used to (and still do sometimes today) moan on about the church and the people in it to my then mentor Brian Smith. Brian used to listen intently and then say to me "Yep, the church is a crummy place Andrew, full of people like you and me. But you must remember Jesus loves the church and gave himself for it. The church is God's plan A and there's no plan B"

A great quote from G. K. Chesterton: The difference between a schismatic and a saint is that the schismatic loves their criticisms of the church more than they love the church, while the saint loves the church more than their criticisms of it.

I'm still learning what it means to love the church more than my criticisms of it and to love the church more than I love myself. I'm further along this road than I was when a few years ago when I was cynical and bitter but I've still got a long way to go. I'm learning and I'm growing...

The thread over at Paul Windsor's blog on the issue of alcohol is so good I want to plug it again. Go check it out. My own experience is very similar to that of Servant's.

Each day I visit The Hunger Site and click on an icon that helps to give food to the hungry. It's part of my online spirituality. It's only a simple click each day and it contributes towards making a difference in our world. Check it out and I'd be very keen to hear of the other things people do online as part of their online spirituality...

Anyone on the hunt for online devotions for Advent? I've come across a couple that I have found really helpful recently:

D365 - organised by students at Baptist Theological Seminary of Richmond and sponsored by the Co-operative Baptist Fellowship

If you're looking for some Advent devotions I've stumbled across a Mennonite college that provides some very good Advent reflections:
Goshen College