Monthly archive: August, 2005

I was reading the story of Exodus yesterday evening, and Israel had just settled for a while at Mt. Sinai for Moses to hear from God. What grabbed me was God’s glory present in the Israelite community. I could only imagine what it would have been like for the people of Israel to hear from God.

God said to Moses, “Go to the people. For the next two days get these people ready to meet the Holy GOD. Have them scrub their clothes so that on the third day they’ll be fully prepared, because on the third day GOD will come down on Mount Sinai and make his presence known to all the people. Post boundaries for the people all around, telling them, “Warning! Don’t climb the mountain. Don’t even touch its edge. Whoever touches the mountain dies – a certain death.”

It’s as though the real glory of God, the real “weight” of God, is too great to be in our presence; or, I should say, for us to be in his full presence. We “know” this, yet we lose sight of the reality, the experience of it. Sometimes we’re too busy caught up in the minor details, the particularities of life, that we miss the big picture that God is almighty, all-glorious, and all-consuming.
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Doug

Doug Stuart is a committed follower of Jesus and passionate about building for the Kingdom of God through education and mobilization. He is a regular writer at LibertarianChristians.com as well as the founder of Living Loud.

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There’s obviously a lot of talk about postmodernism in the church today. There are really three sides to the debate:

1. Postmodernism is a philosophical threat that is antithetical to the Christian faith; it denies truth, or that we can know truth, and accepts any way as the “right way” to truth
2. Postmodernism is a welcome change to the world that offers a telling critique of modernism and its dangers; while there are dangers in any worldview or philosophy, postmodernism opens the way for the Christian community to be more like Christ, more like the early church, and more authentic in our culture
3. Being modern or postmodern is not the issue: being authentically Christian is the issue

Of course, there are varying nuances for each position, especially my own simplified description of them. And of course, there are those who fall somewhere in between each point. But I’d like to make some comments about point number three.
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Doug

Doug Stuart is a committed follower of Jesus and passionate about building for the Kingdom of God through education and mobilization. He is a regular writer at LibertarianChristians.com as well as the founder of Living Loud.

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Worship is truly a gift from God – a tool used in His hand to bring us into communion with Himself and to establish truth in our hearts. For sure, it is more than a song, more than an expression, more than a declaration of truth. True worship can only spring from a heart fully surrendered, a heart that has begun to glimpse the majesty of God and the frailness of humanity.

It is significant that He commands us in His Word to make music, play instruments, sing, dance, celebrate – not because there is anything sacred about these acts alone, but because God knows just how He made us. He knows that while He requires more than a song, song would be one tool (a powerful one!) that He would use to draw many hearts to Himself. How good of Him to command us to do that which He made us to do.

Worship (whether through song or other) done rightly – in spirit and truth – brings us into God and releases us of ourselves. That’s why I’m convinced that there is healing in worship. Healing, after all, is little more than the process by which we become more fully ourselves, more fully alive, more fully that which He intended from the beginning we would become (a process by which our new life in Christ becomes actualized). Since becoming what God intended has nothing to do with finding ourselves and everything to do with finding Him, we are actually being brought into wholeness when we worship. Worship has everything to do with finding Him… loving Him… walking in His Spirit and His truth. As our lives become saturated with Him, our worship becomes both more and more pleasing to Him and more and more satisfying to us. Simply put, He made us to worship Him. We’re not whole unless we’re doing just that.

Shiree

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I read an article in the August 8, Philadelphia Inquirer about the emerging church. The article was titles “‘Emergent’ churches seek a looser approach.” The article features the Well, an emergent church in Feasterville, PA. Brad Jackson, age 33, is pastor of the Well, and made the following statement. What is in bold is exactly the mindset I have about the emergent church. Not that critique isn’t necessary now; even McLaren would say that’s not helpful (to delay critique). Dialogue is wanted.

Anyway, here is what Jackson said:

We refuse to play by the established rules. It drives people crazy on both sides. On the right, they’re talking about better leadership or how to grow bigger churches. On the left, they’re almost in panic mode, asking “How do we save these churches”? But what’s not being talked about is the missional center of the Christian gospel.
We’re not trying to overthrow megachurches or Bob Jones or the Christian Century [magazine]. Just give us a little space where we can talk about these things with a little theoogical vigor. We’re trying to carve out a place in the American church for dialogue, where there aren’t set answers.”

Doug

Doug Stuart is a committed follower of Jesus and passionate about building for the Kingdom of God through education and mobilization. He is a regular writer at LibertarianChristians.com as well as the founder of Living Loud.

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