timbrellstar

In response to Dave’s question relating to my previous post; Does the Christian faith need “repainting”?

Well, I don’t know. Obviously the original masterpiece is painted in scripture isn’t it?

I think Rob Bell is saying that in every generation through the ages and continuing on, we can ask ourselves how what we read in scripture ‘looks like’ for us today.

I think you have to be careful because obviously truth is truth, and what is essential and unchangeable doesn’t alter with time, culture or anything else.

However taking worship as an example, at the core of it, worship of God is what goes on between us and our Father but the expression of that worship has been demonstrated differently throughout the ages. Actually, probably history repeats itself, and therefore, our expressions of worship might too, but that’s not the point.

So I suppose how we ‘do church’, including worship and everything else is up for question.

I know Rob Bell doesn’t like labels, and he wouldn’t necessarily call Mars Hill an emerging church, but whatever, they are asking the same questions ‘How do we do church?’, ‘what is church for us going to look like?’. They are going back to the scriptures and working out church from the ground up, relating it to their culture.

Thinking about it, isn’t that similar to how the bible, Christianity, God, the Church would need to be translated within a missionary context? Not taking how we do church and Christianity and bending a culture to do church and Christianity the same way, but helping them to work out (or letting them work out) how they are going to be Christians within the context of their culture?

I don’t have a problem with any of that as long as we don’t compromise on what is unchangeable, and what matters most.

For me the most important idea is getting back to what we see in Acts 4, where all the believers were together and with one mind, and no one was lacking because where someone was without, other Christians gave what they had. They were a loving supportive, sacrificial community full of the love of God, working out Grace in each other. A living letter to the world, demonstrating the love of God.

That’s the kind of church I want to belong to, and that’s what I find most exciting about it all.

It’s great to ask questions and to be relevant, whatever. I feel like there’s a point we need to stop asking how we ‘do’ church, and just ‘be the church’, which is very messy, but very ‘real’.

I am currently reading, or have lined up to read, in no particular order;

Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith, Rob Bell
Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist, John Piper
Don’t Waste Your Life, John Piper
God is the Gospel, John Piper
Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis
The God Chasers, Tommy Tenney
Seeing and Savouring Jesus Christ, John Piper
The Purpose Driven Church, Rick Warren

Ok, so there is a lot of John Piper! Any other suggestions are very welcome

When I started timbrell.com again, I wanted to write about a number of different subjects. These included:

• Christianity, worship, church, teaching, leadership
• Technology, the web, web design, development, blogging, Web2.0, working in I.T etc
• Photography
• General life things, marriage, my cats, and the general state of my brain.

However, I’m not sure that’s useful to me right now. I want to blog about all these things, but obviously a lot of topics are covered there. I need to focus on what’s important, I need to focus my mind on specific things, not just on my blog, but in my life.

I need to write about Jesus. He’s got to be my passion and my hope, and I have to surrender the other stuff, so I can concentrate on Him.

I’ve let my mind become filled with a million ideas, thoughts and projects, and of course the first thing to go to make room is my attention and my focus on Jesus. Then my bible study and prayer start to slide, it’s a familier pattern for most of us.

I could just stop blogging aswell, I realise that. However, it’s helpful to me, and in the past, when I’ve written useful things, it’s been helpful to others too, so we’ll see what happens.

So there we have it. Watch this space, etc and so forth