Godgrown

Updates from November, 2011 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

• 

  Mark 9:36 am on November 10, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

  Twins! 

  This week is an exciting one.  Our house church network here in Chicago is having “twins!”

  Over the last year a simple church has been meeting in our home for prayer, communion, fellowship and scheming up the Kingdom of God in our city.  It was born out of a desire to be the church…the church we want to see in the world.  It was nothing earth-shattering, it but it was always real.  This last year I’ve seen people in our house church grow leaps and bounds – learning to trust in God, to hear his voice, to share their true selves with brothers and sisters.  And they’ve learned to seek out their purpose and mission.

  Over the last few months, several in our group have felt the call to take a step of faith and plant a church in a new context, opening up more living room space to new faces, new hearts.

  It was not something we imposed on folks, not something we pressured people in our group to do – it was talked about and dreamed about – but these two churches seem to have been born organically – from a continual stance of listening to the Holy Spirit on the next steps for our community.

  One church had its first gathering on Monday night, the second was last night (Wednesday).  Both are beautiful, fragile, yet complete pictures of the Bride of Christ.  I am so thankful and proud to be a part of the church family emerging all the time here in Chicago.  These two new churches, like all the others in our church network, will be able to reach out to people far from God – which is what its really all about.  It reminds me of how families grow to include new people, to leave the nest and venture out into new territory!

  It is beyond any one person – it is a people movement… it is a God movement!

  
   

  Reply Cancel reply

  Required fields are marked *

  Name *

  Email *

  Website

  

• 

  Mark 8:20 am on October 10, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

  “Slow Cuts” Over Short Cuts 

  

  This is a great time of year to take the “slow-cuts” over the “short-cuts” on our ways to work, errands, etc — the leaves are changing, the final climax of 2011′s symphony is upon us!

  In our day, there’s little respect given to the longer, sometimes meandering, but always intentional paths that lead us to our destination.  We’ve devised GPS systems and shot things into space in hopes of finding the quickest, most fuel-efficient way from A to B.  The least amount of time and energy from where I am to where I want to be.  That’s the generally accepted path.  But Jesus had another route he took…

  Matthew 12:1-21 is an amazing fulfillment of the entire Old Testament – it reminds me of a mountain climber after several days of hard work, finally reaching the summit.  Or an engaged couple after months of waiting, finally hearing wedding bells.  In Jesus’ day, Jews and Gentiles alike were awaiting a traditional form of kingship – uprising, rebellion, and more – but Jesus instead quotes Isaiah 42; and remind us that the King Isaiah anticipated was different – “he will not fight or shout” –

  The route to power through force and might has been tried, time and time again.  Its the quickest and easiest route to power in our world.  It works too!  Revenge, abuse, murder, cheating… they are all names for the same boulivard in the human heart – the highway that leads to “what I want.”  Trouble is, we end up in the ditch.

  The way Jesus points to through his life (and specifically in Matthew 12) describes a new way.  Not another short-cut or get rich-quick-scheme; his is the only way not to trample over the weak and the outcast in your establishment of power.  Some people think that power is inherently bad - I disagree.  Power is like currency – it is amoral, it is the wielder of that power that invests himself into that power and through that power he becomes more of who he already is.  If you are a jerk, then with power, you will be an even BIGGER JERK!

  But Jesus saw that his power was displayed through weakness, through healing the poor on the Sabbath, through dying on the Cross, and being raised by the Power of God.

  — Jesus, I believe that you will eventually see the final victory – “Finally his cause for justice will be victorious.” I wait for that day – when we don’t have to take the compromised shortcuts in life, but all of us will be on the pathway you showed us – to the relational Kingdom of God.

  I choose today to participate in that “slow-cut” toward freedom.

  I want to find a way to cut out all my power grabs, personally, and in society. Help me Father to learn what areas of my life need a “lower-archy” introduced, so that I do not “crush the weakest reed, or put out a flickering candle…” You spoke out of a confidence of who you are as a Messiah. Let me be just as confident in my practices.

  
   
• 

  Mark 9:36 am on July 11, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

  Pickin’ and Grinnin’ 

  Yesterday was our first experience at a “U-Pick” farm.  I guess you might count the apple orchards I’ve been to before, but this was a full-out organic farm that invites anyone to step out into the black soil and pick what they’ve worked so hard to grow.

  Raspberries, gooseberries, currents, eggplants, onions, peppers of all kinds.  Peach trees were firming up their fruit and the green beans were right on the verge of being picked.  There is just something right about spending an hour in the hot sun with a straw hat and your hands stained with berry juice.

  Picking these fruits made me think a bit about the passage in 1 Cor 1 where Paul mentions that it was he who planted the seed, whereas Apollos watered it, and God made it grow.  There is a memory I have of my mission trips with Let’s Start Talking, a great missions organization doing good work around the world.  One of the leaders of that organization confessed that when there was a baptism of one of the members in the LST ministry, he would think about all those who had come overseas to contribute to the faith of the person he now had the privilege of baptizing.  They planted the seed, someone else watered, and he was seeing the “harvest.”

  Back to the raspberry fields, I was amazed at how much it takes to grow a bush of raspberries, and even with all that effort, how much it takes to pick even a single pint of the delicious fruit!  It is just so much effort, and makes you appreciate the fruit of your labor.  We brought our berries to a potluck, and they were snarfed down with lightning speed.  I watched as heaping spoonfuls were dolloped onto plates, including mine.  Could anyone else but the pickers possibly know the work that went into the getting that berry to their plate?  Could I possibly know how much it takes for God to bring someone’s heart to the point of conversion?

  Harvesting is such a wonder to behold, as is spiritual transformation – and I’m happy to be a small part it.