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  • Mark 4:06 pm on June 28, 2006 Permalink | Reply  

    f7.gifWhat is your center?

    That’s the question that was tossed around by a few friends of mine this morning.  I, barely conscious from my sickness, was only catching bits and pieces of the conversation, but I knew that it was one to latch a hold of.
    If we look all around us, all we see are repeating patterns focused around a center.  A human face: a symmetrical nose and mouth with a pair of matching eyes and matching ears.  A bird: two wings with identical feathers, a pair of claws, and a center to keep it balanced while in flight.  God’s beauty in his creation teaches us something about his character; that he is the center AND the pattern.  Unlike machines, living organisms (from a giant ape down to a strand of DNA) must function as self-replicating shapes focused around a center.
    God is the being that we should be aiming our lives after, the center from which everything else should replicate and flow.   He is also the pattern.  As the Triune God, he is the triangular shape of self-sacrificing love that completes the function of the center!  As we are given new revelations and learn more about who God is, it all filters under the “center” that God is LOVE. (1 John 4:16).

    If we want organic churches to be planted, we have to ask one question: “What is your center?”  To our one soul friend in whom we confide everything, we must ask them, “Who is your center?”  to our band of brothers/sisters we ask the same question.  To our family of faith…to the network throughout the city, region and beyond, if we do not know that GOD, who is LOVE is our center, then we are creating little house-temples of self-worship.

    Bonhoffer said, “He who loves community, destroys community.”  As we live in close relationship with our brothers and sisters, creating a healthy family of Jesus, we must remember that we are not the center, but God is.  And we must remember, that we are a self-replicating pattern of the Triune God, who is established in sacrificial love!

    What an awesome God we serve, that gives us clues about himself not only throughout his Word, but also all throughout his creation.  Just keep your eyes open, and see if you cannot find that center, and the multiple repeating patterns that in “chaordic” fashion find balance in the common principle of sacrificial Love.

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  • Mark 4:14 pm on June 23, 2006 Permalink | Reply
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    Tinkering 

    earth_th.jpgI’ve been tinkering around with Google Earth lately…what an awesome program! It has been especially fun for me as I’m spending more time this summer thinking about how North America is on the precipice of moving deeper and deeper into more authentic expressions of the Christian faith.

    Over on my sidebar of this blog, I have written one of the goals that has been central to what I am to be about: I want to see a vibrant family of Jesus in close proximity geographically and culturally, of every single person in North America. So many of the established, “legacy” churches (which is exactly what they are for many of us, since that is our legacy) reach out only to a select number of people, leaving millions on this continent without a vibrant, healthy expression of Jesus anywhere close to the lost. Within organic church conversations, a central principle is that of keeping only the essentials, in order for the “church” to take on many strange, new forms. Always new wineskins, for the ever-new wine.

    But how will we know if these “vibrant families of Jesus” are in close reach? How will we know which neighborhoods to pray for? There’s probably lots of ways to do it, but for a small group in Abilene, we are looking carefully at our city’s ethnographic and geographic fingerprints. Programs like Google Earth, are helpful, but we are also setting out on foot, meeting new people who are very different from your standard issue church-goer. (Finally!)

    Who are the different people groups in this city? In other cities? What makes them tick? What are their hopes, dreams, and deepest fears? What is their “God-language”? If we’re serious about raising up a family of Jesus in close proximity to every people group in the nation, and eventually the whole world, we can’t just sit back and hope it happens. We have to begin to examine the harvest field!

    There are many others in many other cities doing similar things as we are. Not connected through anything more than their connection to Christ, these brothers and sisters are praying that the lost of this world come to Christ, and are discipled by Him. Among others, DAWN is one great resource and has given me words to form a lot of the hopes and dreams I’ve been having lately. They are a grassroots system for getting the word out about church planting and reaching the lost.

    Simple, and organic churches are certainly not the only way to reach the lost world, but they are making a significant impact in places like China, India, Africa and now in Latin America (there called “Base Ecclesial Communities”). God is knocking at the door of the West, ready to unleash a new/ancient power: his very people as the multi-ethnic church.

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    • Guy Muse 7:58 pm on June 23, 2006 Permalink

      I want to see a vibrant family of Jesus in close proximity geographically and culturally, of every single person in North America.

      What a great goal. May the Lord grant this desire of your heart. Keep at it and don’t stop till He returns for us!

      I just ‘discovered’ your blog and have really enjoyed reading through several of the articles.

    • Mark 3:23 pm on June 24, 2006 Permalink

      Thanks Guy, and I have enjoyed reading your blog as well. You bring some great wisdom and plenty of experience to the table in this new emerging world of church planting. Keep praying that the Lord of the Harvest will send out workers in Ecuador, as will I!

      The goal of seeing a “vibrant family of Jesus in close reach of every person” will be impossible to attain if there are not workers, and any minister will tell you, its like pulling teeth to get “volunteers” to do anything. So I’m praying Luke 10:2′s prayer of asking the Lord of the Harvest for honest-to-goodness WORKERS in his harvest field! You are one of those workers in Ecuador, Guy. God bless.

  • Mark 9:30 am on June 23, 2006 Permalink | Reply  

    Welcome Morning 

    by Anne Sexton

    There is joy

    in all:

    in the hair I brush each morning,

    in the Cannon towel, newly washed,

    that I rub my body withh each morning,

    in the chapel of eggs I cook

    each morning,

    in the outcry from the kettle

    that heats my coffee

    each morning,

    in the spoon and the chair,

    that cry “hello there, Anne”

    each morning,

    in the godhead of the table

    that I set my silver, plate, cup upon

    each morning.

    All this is God,

    right here in my pea-green house

    each morning

    and I mean,

    though often forget,

    to give thanks,

    to faint down by the kitchen table

    in a prayer of rejoicing

    as the holy birds at the kitchen window

    peck into their marriage of seeds.

    So while I think of it,

    let me paint you a thank you on my palm

    for this God, this laughter of the morning,

    lest it go unspoken.

    The Joy that isn’t shared, I’ve heard,

    dies young.

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