Trinity is community on mission (Terry Virgo on the Church)

Listen to the new Theology Network Tabletalk, Mike Reeves interviews Terry Virgo on the Church.

May Miscellenia

April was a quiet month on the blogging front, for whatever reason, and a month of contrasts at church. Two of our biggest Sundays, 221 on Easter and 330 on Friend Day, and two deaths in the church, one a tragic road accident. I guess you can't be around a church...you can't be around people long before you see the wisdom, the necessity to weep with those who weep, to rejoice with those who rejoice.

This year i've also really been enjoying going through the Bible chronologically. I was a bit sceptical at first, because, after all, that's not how the Bible was written, but i really like it. I'm not sure whether reading longer chunks is more helpful in say, Leviticus than it would be in Romans, but it's definitely helped my understanding of the overall story line of the Bible, so i guess that's a pretty good endorsement. Reading 2 Samuel and 1 Chronicles side by side has proved really useful as well, particularly in appreciating why Chronicles were written. Although i still think i'd put it later in the Bible, who am i to argue.

And for those who know me and are wondering. I was at Adams Park on Saturday. I left North Carolina Thursday evening and got back Sunday afternoon. I had no clear idea of what time it was most of the weekend, but to be there, to see us great promoted with my dad and close friends, to experience the joy of hearing that Bury hadn't won by two goals, that we'd promoted by a goal, and then spill onto the pitch and off, and on again was marvellous. No more awful trips to Grimsby or Macclesfield, no more Tuesday nights at Barnet...hello Charlton, hello Southampton, hello Leeds, hello League One!

The Weekend

Goodness. I love my job, i love being busy, this weekend has been the daddy...i am ready to go to bed and sleep until people start calling me Rip Van Ed.

First off on friday night we watched the ACC basketball tournament at church. Now a year ago i wouldn't have understood the big deal about college basketball, but the south eastern united states more or less closed down on friday to watch the games. And that was just a regional tournament, the national championships start on tuesday, and from thursday to sunday for the next few weekends there are games for twelve hours a day. We left church just after midnight saturday morning.

Saturday was much the same getting to church about two, watching more of the games, hosting a Bible college choir in the evening before getting home about 830. Then we got a call that one of the older ladies in church was in a very bad way in the hospital, so we headed back to to Greenville, stayed and prayed for a couple of hours, and got back just after midnight sunday morning.

For once it was almost a relief that i'm not teaching on a sunday morning at the moment. I was just about awake enough for sunday school and kids church, but it was a struggle. Then back to the hospital then home for an all too short nap, then back to church, rounding everything off with a 15 minute parent meeting after the service.

I'm bushed right now, but thrilled at everything i'm involved in personally, and we as a church are doing. I'm excited about going to work again tomorrow, preaching on wednesday night, and twice on sunday as Rachel's dad is in Tennessee. I'm also excited about going to bed, very shortly!

On the bus to Onslow County

One of the things i really value about serving a church of 300-350 people is the diversity of groups that i get to speak to. By this evening i'll have spoken to the main adult meeting, the college age sunday school class, the fourty to fifty years old sunday school class and our group of special needs adults, all in the space of ten days.

What i love about that is it makes me think, and helps me to realize.

It helps me think about the words i use, particularly in the case of the special needs adults. This afternoon we're taking a group of them to Jacksonville, NC, to see the Christmas lights, enjoy a hayride, and eat hot dogs around a bonfire, where i'll lead a short devotion on Luke 2:11-12.

It's been tremendous to work on that for the last couple of days. To think clearly about every word i use. To lose some words like 'incarnation' and 'propitiation' while keeping their glorious truths in the message. it's helped me to...i don't know how to describe it, come face to face with those truths again. Come face to face with the beauty of simple language again. Now, as far as we can, we should learn to use words like 'incarnation', because they are important and God glorifying. But we shouldn't rely, i shouldn't rely, on theological nomenclature too heavily, because church isn't a club for the middle class, college educated people.

And it helps me realize. You know what (and you do know, i'm just saying) the Gospel is the same and true whoever you are, where ever you. If you're a Bible college student or you work at dairy queen, whether you're a politician or a phosphate miner, whether you've written books or you need 24/7 professional supervision, the Gospel is the name, and you need to saving blood of Jesus shed for you. This isn't a new thing i've learnt, but it is a cool thing i've been reminded of. The Gospel is the solid rock in our lives, and our jobs, our pay packet, where we live and who we spend time with are malleable. They must bend, and be infected and redeemed by the truth of the Gospel.

On Buildings

Moving to America meant a lot of cultural changes, but one is a lot more obvious than many others...It's the first church i've ever been a member of that has had it's own building, which is interesting given that the south east of England isn't that far removed culturally from the Bible belt. Well, when compared to Africa and south east Asia anyway.

I think buildings are helpful but dangerous for churches, and i think both of these are illustrated by this coming wednesday.

This wednesday night we have the normal adult meeting, a full dress rehearsal for saturday's Christmas play, teen church and our kids programme. It's very cool, and illustrates why buildings are helpful. The dress rehearsal will be in the sanctuary (i don't like calling it that but 'the big room with pews' is less catchy somehow), the kids programme as normal in the fellowship hall on the other side of the parking lot, the teens upstairs in the teen room, and whoever is left over in one of the sunday school rooms. To be able to hold four different, differing meetings on one site is excellent. It's cheap and it's unifying. Good. Thank you buildings.

It's also dangerous as anything. We, I, can be so sucked into the thought that God only operates where there is a pulpit, good lighting and a baptism pool. That the 'sanctuary' is God's place, the holy of holies, and the sunday school rooms are just the outer courts, behind the curtain, away from the Glory. That thought couldn't be much more muddle headed could it? What sort of a God is that? 

Will wednesday evening be less special because there are fewer people than normal and we're not where we normally are? No. Should i preach the end of Titus 2 differently because i'll be behind a lectern not in a pulpit? What a stupid question. And yet, somewhere in my heart these questions flickered as we discussed this all in our staff meeting this morning. And thats not good. This is all without even considering the question of whether buildings make 'going to church' the same as 'going to walmart'.

Of course, the problem is not bricks and mortar. The problem is my heart. My sinful heart that loves prestige and security and nice lighting and a dozen other attendant things that i haven't even though of. Like so much, buildings are neutral. Sometimes we use them for very, very good things. Sometimes our hearts make them ugly, sometimes our hearts make them a functional god.

Matt Chandler on preaching to the 'saved'

Justin Taylor has highlighted an excellent preach from Matt Chandler on 'preaching the Gospel from the centre of the evangelical world.' I listened to it originally a few days before i moved to the USA (on the way home from taking Bish to Together on a Mission, if you're interested in that sort of thing) and was very much struck by it.

The centre of the evangelical world is, in this context, Texas. But i'd love to see what it's like there compared to North Carolina. In Washington, a small rural town, there are about 9000 people and fifty churches. It's incredible, for the first few weeks i was here i'd spot a new one every time i was out, even now i still drive past a couple that have escaped my attention. 

Of course, its more or less impossible for us to judge who is and isn't saved. Wolves don't come wearing jackets that say 'i am a wolf'. It's also not our job. But it's a huge problem and headache for churches in an area where Jesus is as much a part of every day life as apple pie and blaming all your ills on the yankees. It produces some churches where people really believe that Psalm 33:12 is about them. Thats why what Matt Chandler has said is so helpful and important. Thats why we must always preach, never assume the Gospel.

Why i like my job

Well one of the reasons anyway.

Yesterday between 1930 and 2000 i was preaching, urging people to trust nothing less, nothing else, nothing more than the grace of God for their salvation. I think it went ok.

Today between 1930 and 2000 i was with the teen group, helping to stuff 150 bears to send to an orphanage in Bulgaria, listening to them talk about Aragon (freakin awesome) and Emma Watson (duuuude). 

I like how different those things are, and the broad spectrum of activities that church life gets you into.

Anyhoo, i'm going to watch Top Gear.

A delayed update

Well that was some week.

October is turning out to be some month.

The reason i've not blogged for nearly a week is that i've simply not had time to. Sunday was Homecoming, one large morning service followed by lunch in the fellowship hall, and the next three days we had our Fall Revival, which basically meant we met for church three nights a week instead of one. It was a really cool time. I quite like having church every night. Anyway, it did all mean that i left home before eight each morning, and by the time i got back at about ten pm it was all i could do to get into bed and fall asleep. But there's something satisfying about going to bed when you've been working long days. This week was also when we started in earnest the application process to be sent to Bulgaria. Denominational life is new to be, and can be very frustrating, but overall, i like it!

Tonight and last night i went with Rachel's dad to Five Points Church, where he is preaching their revival. This is probably the coolest located church i've ever been to. It's about fifteen minutes in any direction from the nearest town but two or three times a week about seventy people gather for worship and instruction. It's neat.

Alongside all this October sees our operation Christmas child kick off, as we endeavour to send 140 shoe boxes of Christmas gifts to children in Bulgaria, operation saturation, a saturday morning door knocking scheme aimed at reaching 1500 houses in October, the Carolina crisis pregnancy dinner, the Family Missions Day to Suffolk, Virginia and various fund raisers for our teens mission trip to France over easter, these are busy busy days in rural North Carolina.

October is for Freshers

It's October again, which means that soon new fresh faced freshers will be flodding Reading University and others around the country. Although locations and trends may change, truth and the neccesity of living and speaking for Jesus doesn't, so, it's with a hopeful heart i repost my 'advice for Christian freshers' that i originally wrote this time last year:

Get involved in a local church
The church is the hope of the world, the church is where you’ll meet God’s people, learn from His Word and reach out to those in the community around you. It’s easy to hide in a student bubble for three years…but this is where you’ll be spending the majority of your next three years, go get stuck in! Join a cell group, serve on a Sunday morning, be generous in your giving.

Find your Christian Union
CUs are student lead mission teams there to reach out the students on campus. They are supported by staff to support and envision you about doing on campus mission. They are a great place to get equipped and strengthened to live and speak for Jesus on Campus

Don’t hide in a Christian ghetto
As important and true as the above are, you won’t meet many non Christians at church or CU. So make sure you make the time to spend with them. Get to know the guys on your corridor, you’ll be living with them for a year and they’re the most likely people you’ll be living with in your second and third year as well. Get involved in a club or society. Be a Christian in all areas of your life.

Work hard
God is glorified by excellence amongst His people. So do your degree to the glory of God. It’s sometimes easy as a student (perhaps especially at Reading!) to end up seeing your degree as just something you do in your spare time. But don’t less this happen. Your degree is primarily why you’re here, so do it well and do it for God. Get to know people on the same course as you.

Eat well, sleep well
This will help you to study and live more effectively. Your body belongs to God, treat it well. The next few weeks could be the busiest and most emotionally exhausting of your life, so rest well, eat well and live with a clear head.

Think about 2012
It’s easy as a student to think in one year blocks…the world doesn’t work this, so think about what you’ll do when you finish. Makes God’ will and being settled in a good church paramount in your thoughts, don’t spend your life chasing a bigger paycheck, spend it pursuing the glory of Christ.

Refreshed by the Church

One of the things i'm looking forward to the most about next months trip to Bulgaria is the chance the team gets to do some teaching, to encourage and share ideas with the guys out there. The topic i've been given is 'encouragement for the Christian.' I'm looking at the ground for all our encouragement (the cross) the centre of mutual encouragement (the church) and the way of self encouragement (um...read your Bible and pray folks! Needs some work that one) I've spent most of the week in 1 Corinthians 12:11-29, which has so refreshed me for two main reasons.

Aside from the wonderful oneness which the indwelling of the Holy Spirit gives us, Jew or Greek, slave or free, verses 14-22 show us that the church needs everyone...everyone as we are. We need to be different. The body needs feet, eyes, ears and noses. The church needs preachers and singers and instrument types and deacons and set up people and set down people and pa/techie type people. It needs evangelists and councillors and cell leaders and people gifted in hospitality, introverts and extroverts. Imagine if the whole church was made up of PA people, or preachers, or turn up early and put chairs out. Imagine if one particularly ministry of the church had most of the people. The church would be lopsided at best.

So there is encouragement from Paul to those who feel that their gifts aren't needed, and a rebuke to those who are self sufficient and don't feel they need anyone. First the encouragement:

'if the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing. if the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell. But as it is God has arranged each one of them in body, as He chose.'

Be encouraged Corinthians, if everyone had the same gift, where would the church be? We're one body, but we need many parts. What about the self sufficient? Those in Corinth who can prophecy and speak in tongues and don't feel the need for those who can't? Paul has words for them too:

'The eye can not say to the hand, i have no need of you, nor again the head to the feet, i have no need of you, on the contrary, the parts that seem to be weaker are indispensable'

There's no room for self sufficient individuals and factions in the church. One group can no more separate from another than the eye to the hand. We need each other. We all rejoice together, we all mourn together. We are all one body.

I love the church. I love that it is as much home for the CEO, the war veteran, the full time mum and the guy who can't find work. I love that in the best churches, Christians really are a family, that what binds us, the Holy Spirit, is so much bigger than what divides us. The Church at is best is the Gospel in action, the Gospel displayed, the Gospel magnified.

1 Corinthians 5 (and a bit of Exodus 12!)

One of the best reasons i can think of for blogging is to help me think. I'm meeting up with Lorenzo tomorrow for some 1 Corinthians 5 action, and i'm not sure i'm really there yet...so maybe this will help. These thoughts owe a lot to Joel Edwards.

1-5

The Corinthian church didn't care about sexual purity, they didn't care about being a church after Christ's heart. We can see this because they didn't deal sufficiently with the man caught in incest. Maybe they were worried about what the rest of the city would think if they started kicking people out. maybe this guy was a leader, maybe he was well supported by his faction. Paul calls them to remove him from membership (i guess thats what 'hand him over to satan so he might be saved). This was serious, this was purity. They didn't care.

6-8

I'm slightly obsessed by this at the moment. Perhaps providentially i was studying Exodus 12:1-29 earlier also for tomorrow. I've never been sure what to do with the middle bit about future dinner plans in the description of the narrative. Paul quotes it here and it's fairly clear he's talking about deal with sin, and the pervasiveness of sin. Get rid of the leaven, because it affects a whole lump. But that can't be a fair application from the Exodus passage can it? That can't be what the Israelites were thinking when they were told/read it at the time/years later. Text + context = meaning i guess.

9-13

Paul doesn't want the church to avoid all the immoral people of Corinth, that would mean hiding from all of them! God will judge the outsider, their conduct was outside the jurisdiction of the church. The insider, however, wasn't. The church needs to deal with this immoral behavior. They need to look different to the world for the sake of the world.

Grace isn't licence. It's not a chance to indulge in sinful passions knowing that it will be ok because of the blood. Christ bought us a new life on the cross, life to the full. Not a life doused in sexual immorality. The church is a group of sinners, so we need to look after eachother. To look out for eachothers sin. Not because some people are without sin, but because all are wary of it's consequences.

As Paul says, Christ, our passover lamb has been sacrificed. So, like the exiting Jews should have done, we need to live in the light, and truth, and beauty of what happened on the cross. And help others to as well...

Musing on Church buildings

Pre Reformation, broadly speaking, churches were designed so that everyone's attention was drawn towards the altar, where the Catholic sacraments took place, because sacrament was central.

Post Reformation, broadly speaking, churches were designed so that everyone's attention was drawn towards the pulpit, where the preaching took place, because the Word was central.

In the two of three big, new church buildings i've been in recently, my attention was drawn first of all to a large stage area, where, presumably, the worship band plays. Does that tell us anything about church meeting life today?

As Sean helpfully pointed out, it probably tells us as much as anything, that most new church buildings are multi-use, and that the stage area helps with that, which is also interesting.

Hello Christian freshers' part 2

So that was your first term at uni... Glad to be home? I recently joked that at this time of year you could tell which student was in which year because of how they looked. Freshers: eager to get home, eat home cooked food, go to pubs they know the names of. Second years: looking forward to seeing family, but their life is more or less at uni now, so less excited overall. Third years: so busy they haven't even noticed it's Christmas yet...well some of them at least.

If you haven't settled into a church yet, i'd say two things: keep trying, but don't worry. Keep trying because you're going to be around in your uni town for the majority of the next two and a half years (probably) and you need support, stability and accountability while you're there. You need somewhere you feel at home to gather with brothers and sisters and worship the Lord together. You need people who are going to miss you if you're not around for a few weeks. So keep trying. Don't necessarily go to the church where all your friends are, but go somewhere that the Bible is taught, and where people look out for you. Truth and community, that's what you're after. Lots of other things, but those two need to be top of any list.

But don't worry. To an extent of course you're unsettled. You might have been at your home church for eighteen years before coming to Uni, so things are going to be weird going somewhere new. But keep trying, and make it a priority in the next term. The same truth and community advice applies. Church is important, and sometimes it can take a long time to find somewhere that you feel at home. This won't happen if you're still going somewhere different every week by March though. So make your choice soon.

If you're involved in your Christian Union, and if you're not you're missing out, keep in touch with your hall group and friends over Christmas. They'll be the people you look for when you go back, so stay accountable to them, don't fall off the radar over Christmas. In the same way don't ignore your friends or church at home and long to be back in halls. Make time for your family and friends and home church because thy are too valuable not to. Be committed to CU and in so doing be equally committed to your unsaved friends. Don't fall into the sacred/secular divide of saying 'i can't see my friends because i'm doing too much CU stuff'. You'll make me crazy.

In the second term you'll probably need to start sorting out somewhere to live for next year, which is pretty scary. Be strategic in your living choices. There might be a group of three or four other Christians that you want to live with but is that really the best choice for the glory of God. It's hard being the only Christian in a big house, but better to be there than not most of the time. So think hard about that. Try to live in single sex houses if you can. It's just better.

Rest well in the Lord over Christmas and come back ready and eager to make disciples of Jesus Christ in 2008!

my iPod and my church

Isn't life a bit odd these days? On my great-grandfathers generation, most people never left their locale, never mind their country, everyone worked within walking distance of where they lived and whole vallages went to church together. My granddad's generation probably saw more radical change than anyone, from horse and trap to man on the moon, the whole lifespan of man travelling at the speed of sound and more international travel than you can shake a stick at. I guess it was the first world war that changed so much. The great war started with a cavalry charge and ended with the death of hundreds of thousands of men in the saturated, muddy fields of France. The world wasn't such a small place any more. People met people from other places, they lived and worked together. They fought another world war together. The arms race started, the arms race ended, America was nearly nuked, America nearly nuked it's enemies. Life in the last eighty years has really changed beyond all recognition. I, to my cultural shame, can not really imagine a world without mobile telecommunications, i mean, how did anyone ever talk to anyone else? How were last minute plans ever changed?



What has any of this got to do with anything? Well not much, only this. We live in an age of unprecedented information sharing, and i love that. I love the availability of online sermons and resources. I love that people like Desiring God and Mars Hill make their resources available for free. I applaud them for that. I really like that i could fire some words into Google and come up with preaching on just about anything, from just about anywhere. Thats progress, thats the church serving The Church. I guess.



We need to watch out though, for the hidden pitfalls in this. (can you look out for something thats hidden?) We're now in a time where it's possible to be 'part' of a local church from the other side of the world. If you were in Sydney, you could never darken the door of a building but still be regualrly fed by good preaching on your iPod. If you woke up late on a sunday or simply didn't fancy it, thats ok, wait until monday, it will all be online, if not from your own church, from somewhere else. Local church by proxy.



Now, not for a single moment do i think that listening to preaching from the internet is a bad thing. The bad thing isn't the itself, it's the person, it's what the person does with it. If, in our endevour to be fed by preaching from sources other than our church, we lose our lustre for the local church itself, we've really defeated the object. I love to pack my iPod with truth, but i never want to prefer that to being in the community of the local church. My local church are my family, they're the people who i do life with. I need to be careful, we need to be careful that in our pursuit of preaching and truth from the wider sphere we don't miss or minimise where God has put us, for the reason God has put us. Our local churches.

Three things

Yesterday Terry Virgo and Michael Ramsden were both in Reading. What a day. I loved sitting under the ministry of these men, at RFC in the morning and at a seminar at Wycliffe Baptist Church in the afternoon. Here are some of my favourite things they said:

'for the first disciples 'Christianity' was simply about being with Jesus. They'd wake up each morning...where are you Lord? What sort of adventures will we have today?' Terry Virgo.

'all good people go to Heaven, the problem is that no one is good' Michael Ramsden

'i believe in the Gospel as i believe in the rising sun. Not only do i see it, but by it i see all things' CS Lewis quoted by Michael Ramsden,

TFA 07: Lessons for the present

Mark is well known for his books that cover all the old and new testaments, Promises Made and Promises Kept. These books cover the message of each individual book of the Bible, and it was this skill that we saw in the third and fourth sessions on saturday. For the third session on the present, we were taking through 1 Corinthians.

1 Corinthians is a good book to look at because it covers a large range of issues that are faced in churches today. Discipline in chapter 5, being wronged in chapter 6, the ressurection in chapter 15, the rights of apostles in chapter nine, gifts in chapters 12 and 14 which are all joined together in love according to chapter 13.

Theology then is foundational and crucial, we need to know what God is like so we can know what our churches are like. So what should we be like in our churches?

Holy
We are called to be holy, according to Chapter 1:2, and blameless in 1:8. Holiness is a strangeness to the world. We are estraged from the world, and we should be buried in the Word. Chapter 3:15 and 17 tell us that we are special to God, so we must be pure. We must not be overtolerant, according to chapter 5. Paul is yelling at the church here. Toleration of sin in the church is an immune system failure, it's that serious. God is concerned that His people be pure. We have church discipline to avert eternal condemnation. The unholy will not inherit the kingdom of God...chapter 10 shows us the results of people who did not obey God in the Old Testament. We are to be holy.

United.
There were already problems with this in Corinth as we see from 1:10. They are being worldy in separating from eachother rather than from the world, as they should. The church should not divide for carnal reasons.

Loving
Chapter 8:1 shows us that love and concern for others should govern all that we do. Pauls example of this comes in chapter nine, he had laid aside his rights to be married or be paid for the good of the church. Chapters 10-12 are the implications of this, chapter 13 is explicit in what it looks like, chapter 14 shows us how we should work this out in practice. Even with all of us questing for truth there still must be love. Christians mustn't wrongly use their freedom, but rather the concerns of others should be paramount.

So thats the 'for all' bit...what about the theology bit. Why should we be like this? The church is supposed to reflect it's Lord, it's supposed to be holy and united and loving, as Jesus is. Be holy because God is holy, be holy because you are holy, the Lamb has been slain...do you not know? Our holyness is derivative. Be united because God is united, all the work is His, be it though Paul or Apollos. We are mere men, He is the foundation and the judge of the world. We are His body, and this many parted body should be a unit.

Paul deals with the factions of chapter one, with good theology. Mark made the comment that this was strage. Paul didn't investigate who was behind the factioning or what the rights or wrongs were, he points out that the church is the body of Christ (as Paul learnt on the road to Damascus) and that Christ is united.

And we are to be loving because God is loving. The church must manifest the charecter of God to the world. Is there any higher challenge or calling than that? We must have good theology, good 'knowledge of the holy' to do this well, or even anything approaching well.

Northern Rock and the church

I walked past Northern Rock in Reading just before lunchtime today...there must have been close to a thousand people queueing to get in. Now, most of me has every sympathy with these people, if i was just about to retire and had my whole life savings with an institution that was probably about to fall to pieces, i'd want my money under my pillow frankly. I want to weep with those who weep.

The other part of me wants to slowly make my way down that line, telling people that, y'know, your money isn't actually stored in a vault in that building, that, in many ways, thats the problem because NR banked so much on the international money market rather than just spending their customers money. I want to tell them that by doing this, by withdrawing all their money, they're actually only making it much much worse. Sit tight, get some impartial advice, stop reading the Daily Mail, and things may well get back to normal.

Now, i can't believe that all these people were financial experts. That they had spent their weekend pouring over the FT or the Economist trying to work out what the best move was. Probably the majority were just doing what everyone else was doing. Interesting. Last week i had a conversation with a friend who knows someone who is a teacher's assistant. The girl she's looking after was being systemactically bullied by some boys sitting next to her in class. The weird thing was that on their own none of the bullys were that bad, but together, they were as vile as you could imagine. Interesting. I remember when i was in school, (and before i say this, i went to a very good school, so the bullying there was rarely anything more than adolesant male banter) when i was picked on by people in a group, they were people who on a one-to-one basis i got on with pretty well. The people i picked on (including one kid because his parents were missionaries. Bravo Ed) i got on ok with when it was just me and them. But in a group of others i could be a nightmare. Interesting.

In a society, in a culture where so much is made of indivudualism, where people will get offended if you try and group them with others, where a group of kids at the end my road dressed more or less the same will hang around for hours on end doing nothing, seemingly so they can just be together, what is the church to make of it all? Apart from the practical level of counciling and looking after those who may have lost their life savings, the bullys and the bullied, sharing the Gospel with the disenfranchised kids, what are we to do?

When God saves us, He calls us into a community. Not by any any means a perfect one, but a community hopefully marked by grace and love and justice. Into a community of people revolutionised by the Gospel. A community where Ethiopians and Phillipinos can worship shoulder to shoulder, where the doctor and the recovering addict can talk about football over a cup of tea. Where Christ's glory is all. The people who are probably still queuing outside Northern Rock are doing so, in part because of the safety in numbers, but more so because those numbers have made it the right and attractive thing to do. Because people in that community have taken the time and effort to tell people that they need to be there. They've crossed cultural biundaries to do so.

You know where i'm going now. Money is the most important thing in our culture. Because things rule people and you need money to have things, money is king. People are staning for hours to protect their money. They are a new community. What about God's new community? When will we unleash the Gospel? When will we see people queuing to get into church, because of what they've heard, because people have convinced them that it's the right thing to do?

Lets learn from the communities of the disenfranchised.