Misfit

by | Jan 23, 2007 | Faith

I keep coming back to this phrase these days… misfits.

In so many ways God keeps leading me back to it. Through conversations with friends, via blog posts, and so on. During Scott’s and Dan’s recent trip to Thailand, they visited NewSong Bangkok. Scott writes:

I came to find out that their main focus is in connecting with what they refer to as “misfits” – or the “third culture” – which, according to their website, “describes a person who can move in and out of different cultures, and build relationships with people who are different from them.”

I love this description. I really believe God has given me some form of gifting in terms of relationships and networking. Right now I’m not sure how to use that, but I love NewSongs description of the misfits… I want to be that kind of person.

On NewSongs website they describe their dream of “creating community for misfits“…

Our dream is to create sanctuaries for people who feel marginalized, left out, beaten down, and voiceless to find real relationships.

This resonates with me so much right now. Maybe it will become my dream.

Wake Up

by | Jan 21, 2007 | Faith

Daley wrote a great, heartfelt post here. People like this, that are going hard after Jesus, these people inspire me and challenge me. May there be many more of you… and my thanks to you all who already play these roles in my life, even (and maybe more so) if you don’t realise you do.

“Kids my age keep complaining…they keep nit picking.
I want to wake up.
I want to feel my heart beating.
I want to lose myself for others.”

Sex God :: Endless Connections

by | Jan 19, 2007 | Books, Faith

I recently read the first chapter of Rob Bell’s forthcoming book Sex God: Exploring the Endless Connections Between Sexuality and Spirituality. If you’ve been around here long enough you’ll know I have a lot of respect for the guy, and that I got to meet him back in November.

Here’s a brief quote I liked…

“Moments when all of the ways that we divide ourselves and rank each other and convince ourselves of how different, better, and unalike we are disappear, and we are faced with the fact that first and foremost, we are humans. In this together. And not that much different from each other.

Jew. Gentile.

Marine. Iraqi.

Orphan. Family.

Pastor. Prostitute.

We could be them.“

We could be them. I’m stuck by how easy it is to lose sight of people’s humanity, their dignity. I walk down the street here and every day I pass numerous Big Issue sellers… I don’t do enough to help these guys and it’s so hard to find a balance of knowing how to help. I’m increasingly coming to the conclusion that the tension is so important. It’s not insignificant, but rather the tension is a vehicle for God to continually be prompting me to keep my heart soft, to remember that I could be them. There are no hard and fast rules that I can follow… “Give this amount…” etc. It is subjective, changing, and progressive… there are no rules… I could be them.

Get the first chapter of Sex God here.

sex god

SYNOPSIS:
God and sex go together. You can’t separate the two, says Rob Bell, because this physical world is intimately linked to deeper spiritual realities. And so, in order to make sense of sexuality, at some point you have to talk about God. With beauty and unusual insight, Sex God explores this connection.

Half-Right

by | Jan 14, 2007 | Faith

Been thinking about the phrase ‘half-right’ recently. Jenni posted recently on it here. I guess I’m looking at it from the perspective that I’m reading a lot of “emerging church” stuff these days, and I’m aware that I want to have a balanced perspective on it. I’m kind-of coming from the same perpsective as Jenni, in that some of the stuff I’ve been reading is really helping me incredibly to get new perspectives and the likes, and yet some of it I’m not so sure about. As I’ve been thinking about this, the first thing that tends to pop into mind is Jesus’ words in …

“…whoever is not against us is for us….” [Mark 9]

Then my mind wanders back through thoughts I’ve had, similar to Jenni’s, that if I disagree with some of their teaching, how trustworthy is the rest of it? I don’t think we can write off everything good someone says on the basis of one bad thing they say… everyone’s human, right? We all stumble and fall. We have to test everything.

The philosopher Arthur Holmes once said “All truth is God’s truth.”

I love this truth (yes, I believe it’s truth). When Paul is speaking to the people in Athens, he quotes their own poets and philosophers. It’s important to realise the context here – the Athenians were very learned people, who were always debating the latest theories and philosophies, so the emergence of this new, knowable God that these followers of The Way were speaking about would have been intruiging to them. For Paul, anybody is capable of speaking truth. He takes it and claims it for himself, using it to turn people’s hearts and minds to God.

So I guess my conclusion at the minute is that it’s ok to take and claim truth wherever I find it. But I’m still wrestling. Anyone else got thoughts to share?

[I do not guarantee that this will be my final thoughts on the topic either!]

Blessed

by | Dec 30, 2006 | Faith, Photography

I spent today in Portstewart with a really amazing friend just hanging out, resting, enjoying each other’s company.

Blessed. That’s how I feel. Enjoying her company, rejoicing in God’s goodness in giving me her friendship. She challenges me a lot too!



Today she made this comment about noticing the little things. It made me realise that, in many instances, I don’t notice the little things anymore as much as I used to. Kinda made me sad. How many gifts does God send my way everyday that I miss?

Been reading John Ortberg’s book ‘God Is Closer Than You Think’ lately (needed something less academic for a few days!). He quotes a passage from a novel called ‘The Prince of Tides’ which I thought fitted in very well with this:

“I would like to have walked his world, thanking God for oysters and porpoises, praising God for birdsong and sheet lightning, seeing God reflected in pools of creek-water and the eyes of stray cats. I would like to have talked to yard dogs as if they were my friends and fellow travelers along the sun-tortured highways intoxicated with the love of God… I would like to have seen the whole world with eyes incapable of anything but wonder, and with a tongue fluent only in praise.”

I think this may be a point I need to work on a bit again! Becoming incapable of anything but wonder… how amazing would that be?