A Jesus Manifesto

http://ajesusmanifesto.wordpress.com/

Thoughts?

Holy Kiss

ESV Romans 16:16 Greet one another with a holy kiss.

I wanted to encourage us at Harambee to greet one another, not with a holy kiss but to understand the importance of genuinely welcoming one another and loving one another as a family in the scriptures. This encouragement is repeated 5 times to the body of Christ in the NT. We are part of something, a fellowship of those who believe in Christ. While in college I used to walk by the office on my way to some of my classes and the receptionist would always greet me like I was Norm walking into Cheers, remember the TV show? At first I would just give her a strange look and a nod because I thought the only way you know me is from my records or something, but I noticed that she greeted everyone in the same warm and welcoming manner. She genuinely greeted people. I began to see that you don’t have to “know” someone or even be super friends to be able to greet them. Greeting one another with a holy kiss is only an encouragement to use the culturally appropriate form of greeting in a sanctified manner. The people of Paul’s day already greeted each other with a kiss, it is roughly equivalent of a handshake in our culture. Could we say greet one another with a holy handshake? I think that is fair, but what does a holy handshake look like, what is a holy greeting?
Ok, step one: make holy eye contact. Step two: walk in a holy fashion toward the person you are going to greet. Step three: … Just kidding. Many people get hung up on how to do a holy kiss, what are the mechanics of it. Do we kiss the cheek? Both or just one, do we shake hands at the same time? While I living in Ecuador the common greeting for women was to shake hands and then kiss on the cheek. It took me a while to get the hang of the kissing on the cheek thing, you basically just touch cheeks and make a kissing sound. I remember practically head-butting one poor lady because I stumbled as we leaned in to greet. (Side note: If you are going to greet someone with a kiss make certain of your footing.) Initially, I didn’t do much for the reputation of Gringos, sorry. Eventually, I became comfortable with it and no more head-butts. It was just the way we greeted, as a good missionary I tried to fit into the culture. Of course there where some sisters at Church who also tried to be culturally sensitive to us gringos. They were the greeters at the Sunday services and would stand at the door warmly greeting everyone as they entered. When the got to us gringos they would stand up straight and stick out their hand to shake ours, with a knowing look of compassion for us who didn’t understand how to greet someone. The external mechanics of the cultural greeting are not the ultimate issue here. Once again it is the heart. The Pharisees accussed Jesus of not being ceremonially clean when he and his disciples ate. Jesus replied
5”And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” 6 And he said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, “‘ This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; 7 in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ 8 You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.” 9 And he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition!” Mark 7:5-9
The point here that bears constant reminder is that external practices do not make one holy. Even circumcision the sign of the Abrahamic covenant did not make one holy. God says circumcision is of the heart. The encouragement to greet each other in a holy way is speaking to our heart. Encouraging a heartfelt greeting, a sincere greeting that recognizes the individual and welcomes them with a genuine love and care. One might say, but I don’t genuinely love and care for everyone who comes to church I don’t have time, or…
“But God has so composed the body, giving greater honor to the part that lacked it, 25 that there may be no division in the body, but that the members may have the same care for one another. 26 If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. 27 Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.” -1 Corinthians 12:24-27

Remember Jesus taught the Apostles and us that our love for one another would be a distinguishing mark by which we would be recognized as His followers. What is our motivation in greeting each other in the Church? We are exhorted to let our love be genuine and not to show partiality in the Church. Ultimately we are greeting Christ, when Jesus said “And whoever gives one of these little ones even a cup of cold water because he is a disciple, truly, I say to you, he will by no means lose his reward.” (Matthew 10:42) and, “And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.” (Matthew 25:40) In the body of Christ we are to think more highly of others than ourselves and take into account that we should treat the disciples of Christ in the way we would treat Christ. How would you greet Christ if he walked in the front door on Sunday morning?

Missional living – The basics

As mentioned in several excellent previous posts on the Pastor Rant site, Harambee has joined with Soma Communities and adopted the Missional model of living out church every day. For many of us, this is a dramatic shift from traditional church structure, where we as consumers go on Sunday to get charged up, and continue to think of church as a place where we gather to worship, study, learn, receive, etc. We (the Elders) keep hitting on this topic because we know that some people are really struggling to make this change.

Missional living is about living constantly for Jesus, doing everything we do (work, school, eating, swimming, whatever) with God in mind and along side of us. Sounds simple, and it really is, but it’s hard to understand in the context of everyday life for many people (me included). We naturally compartmentalize our lives and often think or act differently depending on what situation we are in at the time. The truth is that we are believers or non-believers at all times in our lives so why should we change gears depending on our circumstances?

The leadership of Soma Communities has come up with some very useful tools to try and bridge this gap from traditional thinking to missional thinking. These tools are not some new “5 steps to salvation” or anything like that, they are simply a way of communicating this idea – which by the way is not anything new necessarily, just different from the “western modern” structure we’ve become used to.

The first of these tools is the Identities. If we trust and believe in God, then we are in the process of becoming new through increasing faith and discovery of God and His will, and the circumstances he brings us through in our lives. Reading through and meditating on the Identities and associated scriptures is a great reminder of who we are in Christ. It relieves much of the pressure and fear of change by helping us realize that God is in charge of making ministry happen, not us. We just need to be willing to be used. Whew!

The extension of the Identities is the Rhythms (same page, further down). These are examples and reminders of how our identity in Christ is lived out. We were created to serve God and others, and it comes natural to us. The Rhythms then are ways to express this life for which we were created, and to be examples to others of the new life we have in Jesus.

We don’t need to wait until we’re perfect to live the Christian life. Growth comes from making mistakes, learning from them, and getting stronger from them. It’s time for the body of Christ to begin to live like we believe and love one another, not to depend on the Church to do everything for us because the leadership has more training or seems more gifted than we are. We need to shine His light all the time, not just with our church friends. We need to serve each other as Jesus was a servant. And we need to look to the Lord to teach us about himself and his will every day, not just on Sunday or at a bible study or conference, etc. Once Jesus comes into our lives and begins to heal us, we need to “Get up, take up our beds and walk”.

Having said all of that, please remember that our job as Elders of Harambee is to gently lead you, the body, and each other through this transition. We need to help you bridge the gap, and discover for yourselves what this means to you in your individual life. Please do not hesitate to ask questions or express your frustration (or anything else) with us. It’s all about growing together as a family!

Also, we believe that the Sunday gathering has great value for fellowship and corporate worship, as well as biblical preaching and teaching. What we’re learning is that the Sunday gathering is only a small part of the overall life of a Christian, and both we as God’s people and the world we live in benefit greatly if we take it beyond Sunday into daily life.

In Christ’s Love,

Doug

A message to Mr. Obama from John Piper

Islam’s growing demographics

This is a little over the top and more on the fear side, but you get the gist. What do you all think?

The Neighborhood MC group — What does it look like?

When we think about what it means to be missional (sent by God to carry out his mission where we live and work as daily practice) what does the place where we do that look like these days? Leslie Newbiggin wrote some good stuff on understanding western (now postmodern) culture and how that culture views the gospel of Jesus (ridiculous nonsense, according to philosophy and science). So that’s generally the mind set of people in our area. You can count on it. But modernism is a house of cards quickly collapsing under the weight of its own ridiculous claims, and so people are developing their own forms of spirituality, sort of like a Ben & Gerry’s ice cream flavors. They have to, because humans are spiritual beings, created in God’s own image (spiritual, eternal, creative, industrious, etc). But it’s a mess. Now we hear about people forming an MC group to help single Moms, to serve the poor, to reach their Muslim neighbors, to make a 3rd place for inner-city high school kids. It’s like Jesus leaving the temple court yards and going back out into the hills to talk with the prostitute, or the lowly educated guy, or the sick people, or the demon posed. No matter what the local culture looks like, an MC group is simply Jesus in society, modeling the real church and its mission for all his disciples to see. Is the concept of an MC group all that complicated?

Gilles Gravelle

Better Than Heaven and Worse Than Hell

Better Than Heaven and Worse Than Hell

Here is a riddle for you: What is the only thing better than heaven and worse than hell?
Jesus said

19 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust1 destroy and where thieves break in and steal, 20 but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Matthew 6:19-21

I want to emphasize the second part of this command. In my opinion our culture might tend toward stopping half way through or not understanding the admonishment here. We love to store up treasures here, and we don’t really believe in heaven anyways. We could hear Jesus the proverbial poor mystic railing against our standard of living. Or see the revolutionary Jesus with a beret and machine gun inciting a revolution against the bourgeoisie. Or we could just skip over the impact of this teaching which takes aim at the heart of our cultures preoccupation with self-sufficiencey and the implicit materialistic caste system that worships the almighty dollar. Jesus was poor, he didn’t know what he was talking about anyways, he was just a provincial bumpkin wandering around an uncivilized time in history when men were barely able to walk and chew gum. Actually they hadn’t even invented gum yet that is how stupid they were! We on the otherhand have thousands of different flavors of gum and smartphones. But my heart responds to Jesus, “What’s in it for me?” Treasure in heaven is good but I’ll take mine now. Honestly, we sound like our children complaining about not being able to eat cake at every meal.
I think I hear another voice whispering to me, “Did God actually say don’t store up any treasures?”; “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” No that is not what God said at all Jesus is actually helping us kind of like an inside trader would do but this is completely legal, because he is telling everyone. Inside traders get in trouble because they have information about the companies which is not available to the general public and they buy and sell stock in these companies based on that inside information. Jesus took out an add in the most widely publicized and translated book ever published to warn us not to put stock in this world. Read the passage carefully though because he is not saying stop storing up treasures, he is saying don’t store them in this failing system which is not secure at all. He is saying store up treasures in heaven. Here is why it is important to study escatology, or the last things. In my head when I think of heaven, an insidious cartoon image of a guy in a white robe with a little harp sitting on a cloud flashes into my mind before I can blink. This is not an article concerning escatology and what you should believe, just an encouragement to study it so that the reality of what Jesus is teaching here has a firmer foothold in your imagination than a simplistic cultural characterization of a homogenous heaven. Please don’t run out and buy a plane ticket to the Mount of Olives or just go and get the latest pop escatology book or movie, I think most of that stuff should be left behind. A good place to start is in Mathew 24 and 25. All of these parables in Mat 25 are illuminated by Mat 24. It seems that Jesus wants our understanding of the future to focus our thoughts on the present. Jesus is commanding us not to store up treasure here but to use it for it’s purpose, namely his kingdom. This scripture is teaching us about what our finances look like when our heart set on Christ, however I think there is another aspect here that we miss because money is such a huge issue for us.
One of my favorite analogies here is from CS Lewis. He talks about a little boy being told that when people grow up they like sex better than chocolate. And he asks if they eat chocolate while they have sex. When he is told no these people have other things on their minds at the time, he thinks that sex means no chocolate. He knows what chocolate is but not sex and so thinks that it is impossible to look forward to going without chocolate. “We are in the same position. We know the sexual life; we do not know, except in glimpses, the other thing which, in Heaven, will leave no room for it. Hence where fulness awaits us we anticipate fasting.” CS Lewis. We don’t know what treasures in Heaven look like or what is the return rate? Does God have matching funds? Won’t we have anything to show for all our hard work? The answer to that last question is yes, in a way.
So what would be a treasure in paradise? Did Adam and Eve need anything? Do you think they would have been excited to find a treasure chest full of gold? No, but Adam was sure excited when God created Eve. Think of all the people you have known in Christ over the years and the prospect of seeing them again. Won’t it be awesome to sit down with relatives or beloved friends and mentors who God used to lead us to himself? I also look forward to seeing Noah and Moses, and just seeing the Blue Ray of “the crossing of the red sea”, starring Moses as Moses. But the relationship the person who I most look forward to seeing is Jesus. That relationship is more valuable to me than all the treasures of earth. That is a real treasure. How much would a man give for his life? All his possesions. So how much is eternal life worth? The gift we have been given freely is relationship with Christ. The one who has always been with us authoring and perfecting our faith and trust in him. “And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” John 17:3. Growing up in the church I always heard people say, “You can’t take it with you.” In reflecting on that I realized there is something you can take with you into heaven, something that won’t be burned up; Relationships. All the people we interact with and love in Christ. All the people who could potentially hear the gospel from God through us, all the people who have gone before us in Christ, and most importantly Christ himself.
I wonder how shocking death, the transition, from mortal life to eternal life will be. Will our transition be like greeting our oldest and best friend who we truly love and long to see, or will it be a shocking introduction to someone we barely know? I hope it will be like finally coming home, to the home we have always missed and never been to, the place our heart is restless to see although can’t fully imagine. To have all our tears wiped away, no more mourning, crying or pain. To meet up with our faithful and loving Lord whom we have served and hear him say,”Well done good and faithful servant.” Now that is a treasure worth waiting for, worth working for and it is freely given to us by grace through faith. “ But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. 8 Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ” Philippians 3:7-8
That we would be able to see the surpassing worth of knowing Christ with such clarity is my prayer. To treasure relationship with Christ like that enables us to see him in his body, the Church, and treasure the relationships we have in Christ. To be able to love one another and demonstrate that we are his disciples is to be storing up treasures in heaven.
In answer to my riddle, what is the only thing better than heaven and worse than hell?
Taking somebody with you.

Let us know what you think.

Chuck Smith was right, or was he?

Pastor Chuck Smith was right after all!
It’s finally happening! In the 70’s the pastor of my church (Pastor Chuck) talked and wrote about how the book of Revelation revealed, among other things, that a world government would arise within the next 50 years, and that followed by the Anti-Christ. Most writers at that time believed that the European Union would model this new world government. Today, a blogger seems to think the time has arrived (and Now for a World Government), and the EU is indeed the model. The anti-Christ must be close behind! Who could it be? And how should this new evidence of the end times affect Christians? Should we sell everything and move to Idaho? Let’s see… in Mathew 24 Jesus says a lot about “birth pains”. All the calamites and distresses on the earth are just signs of the end. But he also said when the end comes it will be like Sodom (Lk.17). That is, people will just be going about their daily business with no warning whatsoever. So if that is the case, then the tumultuous days of 2008 really haven’t revealed much about the end. Is it just birth pains brought on by the latest generation? Paul said, “Don’t waste your time on unimportant things, because the days are evil” (my paraphrase, Eph. 5). So maybe that is what we believers are to do. Stay focused on the important things, and don’t worry about the things of this world…because as Jesus said, “I will be with you until the end.” For the new year, how about writing out a list of what the “important things” are, and focus on that for 2009.

Gilles

The Gospel on a global scale

There is alot of controversy and discussion around the topic of unreached people groups. Even missiologist debate on definitions and terms in describing people groups that are “unreached” or “least-reached”. Thankfully, regardless of where you stand on your perspective, the Joshua Project gives us some great statistics (admittedly NOT perfect) to help us see the progress of the gospel on a global scale:

http://www.joshuaproject.net/global-progress-scale.php

So if you just take into account the “Unreached” section of their chart, on a global scale there are 6 to 7 thousand people groups, totaling 2.5 to 3 billion people, that have less than 2% evangelicals in their midst. Remember that for more than 4,000 of these people groups, which totals over 1 billion peoples, the Joshua Project doesn’t even know if there is a single believer in their midst.

So how does this connect to the Great Commission for you? Does this even matter?

Indian Brothers and Sisters Suffer

Here is an article from the New York Times 10/13/2009. Please be in prayer for the Indian believers who are suffering persecution.

Hindu Threat to Christians: Convert or Flee

By SOMINI SENGUPTA
BOREPANGA, India — The family of Solomon Digal was summoned by neighbors to what serves as a public square in front of the village tea shop.

They were ordered to get on their knees and bow before the portrait of a Hindu preacher. They were told to turn over their Bibles, hymnals and the two brightly colored calendar images of Christ that hung on their wall. Then, Mr. Digal, 45, a Christian since childhood, was forced to watch his Hindu neighbors set the items on fire.

“ ‘Embrace Hinduism, and your house will not be demolished,’ ” Mr. Digal recalled being told on that Wednesday afternoon in September. “ ‘Otherwise, you will be killed, or you will be thrown out of the village.’ ”

India, the world’s most populous democracy and officially a secular nation, is today haunted by a stark assault on one of its fundamental freedoms. Here in eastern Orissa State, riven by six weeks of religious clashes, Christian families like the Digals say they are being forced to abandon their faith in exchange for their safety.

The forced conversions come amid widening attacks on Christians here and in at least five other states across the country, as India prepares for national elections next spring.

The clash of faiths has cut a wide swath of panic and destruction through these once quiet hamlets fed by paddy fields and jackfruit trees. Here in Kandhamal, the district that has seen the greatest violence, more than 30 people have been killed, 3,000 homes burned and over 130 churches destroyed, including the tin-roofed Baptist prayer hall where the Digals worshiped. Today it is a heap of rubble on an empty field, where cows blithely graze.

Across this ghastly terrain lie the singed remains of mud-and-thatch homes. Christian-owned businesses have been systematically attacked. Orange flags (orange is the sacred color of Hinduism) flutter triumphantly above the rooftops of houses and storefronts.

India is no stranger to religious violence between Christians, who make up about 2 percent of the population, and India’s Hindu-majority of 1.1 billion people. But this most recent spasm is the most intense in years.

It was set off, people here say, by the killing on Aug. 23 of a charismatic Hindu preacher known as Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati, who for 40 years had rallied the area’s people to choose Hinduism over Christianity.

The police have blamed Maoist guerrillas for the swami’s killing. But Hindu radicals continue to hold Christians responsible.

In recent weeks, they have plastered these villages with gruesome posters of the swami’s hacked corpse. “Who killed him?” the posters ask. “What is the solution?”

Behind the clashes are long-simmering tensions between equally impoverished groups: the Panas and Kandhas. Both original inhabitants of the land, the two groups for ages worshiped the same gods. Over the past several decades, the Panas for the most part became Christian, as Roman Catholic and Baptist missionaries arrived here more than 60 years ago, followed more recently by Pentecostals, who have proselytized more aggressively.

Meanwhile, the Kandhas, in part through the teachings of Swami Laxmanananda, embraced Hinduism. The men tied the sacred Hindu white thread around their torsos; their wives daubed their foreheads with bright red vermilion. Temples sprouted.

Hate has been fed by economic tensions as well, as the government has categorized each group differently and given them different privileges.

The Kandhas accused the Panas of cheating to obtain coveted quotas for government jobs. The Christian Panas, in turn, say their neighbors have become resentful as they have educated themselves and prospered.

Their grievances have erupted in sporadic clashes over the past 15 years, but they have exploded with a fury since the killing of Swami Laxmanananda.

Two nights after his death, a Hindu mob in the village of Nuagaon dragged a Catholic priest and a nun from their residence, tore off much of their clothing and paraded them through the streets.

The nun told the police that she had been raped by four men, a charge the police say was borne out by a medical examination. Yet no one was arrested in the case until five weeks later, after a storm of media coverage. Today, five men are under arrest in connection with inciting the riots. The police say they are trying to find the nun and bring her back here to identify her attackers.

Given a chance to explain the recent violence, Subash Chauhan, the state’s highest-ranking leader of Bajrang Dal, a Hindu radical group, described much of it as “a spontaneous reaction.”

He said in an interview that the nun had not been raped but had had regular consensual sex.

On Sunday evening, as much of Kandhamal remained under curfew, Mr. Chauhan sat in the hall of a Hindu school in the state capital, Bhubaneshwar, beneath a huge portrait of the swami. A state police officer was assigned to protect him round the clock. He cupped a trilling Blackberry in his hand.

Mr. Chauhan denied that his group was responsible for forced conversions and in turn accused Christian missionaries of luring villagers with incentives of schools and social services.

He was asked repeatedly whether Christians in Orissa should be left free to worship the god of their choice. “Why not?” he finally said, but he warned that it was unrealistic to expect the Kandhas to politely let their Pana enemies live among them as followers of Jesus.

“Who am I to give assurance?” he snapped. “Those who have exploited the Kandhas say they want to live together?”

Besides, he said, “they are Hindus by birth.”

Hindu extremists have held ceremonies in the country’s indigenous belt for the past several years intended to purge tribal communities of Christian influence.

It is impossible to know how many have been reconverted here, in the wake of the latest violence, though a three-day journey through the villages of Kandhamal turned up plenty of anecdotal evidence.

A few steps from where the nun had been attacked in Nuagaon, five men, their heads freshly shorn, emerged from a soggy tent in a relief camp for Christians fleeing their homes.

The men had also been summoned to a village meeting in late August, where hundreds of their neighbors stood with machetes in hand and issued a firm order: Get your heads shaved and bow down before our gods, or leave this place.

Trembling with fear, Daud Nayak, 56, submitted to a shaving, a Hindu sign of sacrifice. He drank, as instructed, a tumbler of diluted cow dung, considered to be purifying.

In the eyes of his neighbors, he reckoned, he became a Hindu.

In his heart, he said, he could not bear it.

All five men said they fled the next day with their families. They refuse to return.

In another village, Birachakka, a man named Balkrishna Digal and his son, Saroj, said they had been summoned to a similar meeting and told by Hindu leaders who came from nearby villages that they, too, would have to convert. In their case, the ceremony was deferred because of rumors of Christian-Hindu clashes nearby.

For the time being, the family had placed an orange flag on their mud home. Their Hindu neighbors promised to protect them.

Here in Borepanga, the family of Solomon Digal was not so lucky. Shortly after they recounted their Sept. 10 Hindu conversion story to a reporter in the dark of night, the Digals were again summoned by their neighbors. They were scolded and fined 501 rupees, or about $12, a pinching sum here.

The next morning, calmly clearing his cauliflower field, Lisura Paricha, one of the Hindu men who had summoned the Digals, confirmed that they had been penalized. Their crime, he said, was to talk to outsiders.