Question for your thoughts/discussion

Would Jesus Go to Church?





How do you think Jesus would feel in your Church?

Jesus - Who are we Following?

What is the picture of Jesus?
He loved the poor and accosted the arrogant.
So which one do you want to be?
Who is this that you follow?
This picture of the Pavalova Quarter Acre Paradise?
If Jesus was here would you walk by on the other side?
Or fall down and worship at His holy feet?
Blessed are the poor in Spirit
Or do we pray to be blessed with the wealth of this land?
Blessed are they that hunger and thirst for righteousness
Or do we ache for another taste of this world of shifting sands?
Because my Jesus bled and died for my sins.
He spent His time with thieves, sluts and liars
He loved the poor and accosted the rich.
So which one do you want to be?
Who is this that you follow?
This picture of the Pavalova Quarter Acre Paradise?
If Jesus was here would you walk by on the other side?
Or fall down and worship at His holy feet?
Pretty blue eyes and curly brown hair and a clear complexion
is how you see Him as He dies for your sins
But the Word says he was battered and scarred or did you miss that part.
Sometimes I doubt we’d recognise Him
Because my Jesus bled and died
He spent His time with thieves and the least of these
He loved the poor and accosted the comfortable
So which one do you want to be?
Because my Jesus would never be accepted in my Church
The blood and dirt on His feet would stain the carpet
He reaches for the hurting and despises the proud
I think He’d prefer to be with the blanket man to this stained glass crowd
And I know He can hear me if I cry out loud.
I want to be like my Jesus
I want to be like my JesusI want to be like my Jesus
I want to be like my Jesus
Not a poster child for prosperity, but like my my Jesus
You see I am tired of living for success and popularity.
I want to be like my Jesus, but I’m not sure what that means to be like You, Jesus.


The Word
Became flesh
with hands
to draw in dirt
clearing away the
stained bed sheets
stiring hearts
homeless
visiting the paralytic
through friends

-Laila Blanchard
In Sub-merge by John B.Hayes


Are we willing to accept the radical image of Jesus, or are we just serving an image of Jesus painted in an exceptable way that we can easily accept
Are we willing to accept the costs of living the life that God has called us to?
What step is God challenging us to take in our faith life – what is our next step in discipleship?

James 2:14-17
What good is it, dear brothers and sisters. If you say you have faith but you don’t show it by your actions? Can that kind of faith save anyone? Suppose you see a brother or sister who has no food or clothing, and you say “Good-bye and have a good day; stay warm and eat well” – but then you don’t give that person any food or clothing. What good does it do.
So you see, faith by itself isn’t enough. Unless it produces good deeds, it is dead and useless.

Repainting our Image of Jesus

Who is Jesus to you? How have you painted him? Is your image of Jesus western middle class, would be comfortable singing a few songs in church on Sunday. Or is your Jesus the radical, Marxist student, who will steal from the rich to give to the poor, the man who is looking to overthrow the government because of its corruption, or is your Jesus a poor Middle Eastern Man, who accosted the Hypocrites, showing them up for who they were, would only accept those followers who would give up all to follow him, accepted the rich and the poor into his community of faith, cared for the sick, the lost the lonely, Fed the Hungry and gave his all to show that He is the way to heaven and that he is divinity in human form.

Our View of Christ matters, If we sanitise the image of Christ, we are sanitising Gods call for us. Gods call for us is to be radical Christ followers. The middle class image of Jesus doesn’t do, because Christ was not about us been comfortable pew warmers. The image of Christ as a Marxist doesn’t do, because it forgets that Jesus accepted all into his arms, including the Tax collector, the image of Crony Capitalism in the Roman Period. At the moment I believe its closest to the last image of Jesus. We are called to embrace all those who are longing for something more, something deeper. We are called to be active, showing Gods love through our lives, reaching out and touching those around us.


God wants us to be real Followers of him, not people who attend church because its good then walk away after the service, not changing anything in our lives. Its about our whole life being aligned with Gods will. I repeat, we are not made to be Sunday followers, we are to be following Christ daily, following his call on our life.

I don’t care who you reach out to in your life, be they rich, poor, black, gay, straight, man or women, but do! Reach out beyond your comfort zone, share your life with those around you. Shine your light daily. Discover what God wants for your life. Learn to follow Jesus with Your All!

We are called to follow the man of sorrows

Donating to Simple way

If You feel called to donate to Simple Way for thier rebuilding you can donate here:
https://www.tonycampolo.org/simpleway_donation_secure.php

Jesus' Teaching on Fasting in the Sermon on the Mount

These are the notes for a study I did on fasting last night, Please look at this and be free to use it, critique it or whatever.

Yoke: Matthew 11:29-30 “Take My Yoke upon you and learn from me, and I will give you rest for your souls. For my burden is easy and my burden is light”

When we this verse in Mathew 11 many of us think that Jesus is talking about an ox yoke, but in Jewish culture an tradition, according to pastor and teacher Rob Bell goes deeper than this. In Jewish culture, the Yoke was a Jewish Rabbis Teachings. It was a set of interpretations of the law. In the sermon of the mount, Jesus sets out his own Yoke, his set of teachings and interpretations of the law, he refocuses the law back on what it was intended to do, bring people in line with Gods desires.

Mathew 6:16-18
When you are fasting, do not look somber like the Hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show men they are fasting. I tell you the truth; they have received their reward in full. But when you fast, put oil on your head and wash your face, so that it will not be obvious to men that you are fasting, but only to your Father, who is unseen; and your father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

Fasting is an act of self-denial, it is the giving up of food, or something else to devote time to seeking out God and his desire for our lives. The time that we save from denying ourselves of certain activities can be given to serving others and the money saved from not spending on say those cups of coffee can be given to the poor or to the church. It can also be done as an act of worship. Many people perform the act of lent the 40 days leading up to Easter, giving up things such as TV, Chocolate, Coffee, anything as an act of worship and a living example that they want to put God first in their life during a period of time. As we all know the Baptist churches practice this act aswell with their month of self-denial leading up to Easter.


A little history lesson for us on fasting.
In Jewish Custom, there were six public fasts a year. Pharisees and devout Jews would also fast on Thurdays and Mondays, because according to Jewish tradition Moses ascended the Mount Sinai to receive the law on the Thursday and came back down on the Monday.

The Truly “Holy” person would fast more than this, and in these acts would advertise their “holiness” to the whole community – they would do this by not washing, not anointing the body, and by shaving their head and placing ashes on their head. It was said of the Rabbi Joshua that “all the days of his life his face was black by reason of his fasting.”

But what is fasting really for, is it about showing how “holy” you are? Not so, Jesus criticises these people he calls them “Hypocrites”. In the culture of the time the term hypocrite was a theatrical term used for actors, to describe people who were playing a role that they really weren’t. These Pharisees and other devout Jews were being unmasked by Jesus, he was showing them up as actors, people who did things to gain power in prestige in society, not out of a desire to get to know better.


Jesus seems to be having a good go at hypocrites. The word for hypocrite in Greek was a term used in thetheatre and was used for actors. Jesus gives a hard time to those who act like they are good and holy, but are really just all show and don’t get their stuff sorted with God.

So what is this about, is Fasting still important, and how should we conduct it. I believe that fasting is still important, I’m not very good at practising the disciple and would like to rediscover this discipline in my own life. Jesus is concerned in this passage particularly with private fasting. As Christians we should practice this privately, it shouldn’t be broadcasted to the world but practiced in secret. It is about sorting out our own personal relationship with Jesus, not about showing how holy we are to other people. If we are doing it to broadcast our holiness to people, we are missing the point.

Procrastination is fun!

I am 71% Addicted to Coffee

I found this while I was studying, I think I might get upto 90 -100% addiction to coffee by the end of the year

Simple Ways former building

Faith Reponses

Shane Claiborne is a man of faith who lives out his faith in a radically simple way. He is part of a ministry called "Simple way" which serves the poor in carolina. I was reading Eric Bryants blog from mosaic today and read that the building that the building that he serves from was burnt down last week. Please pray for this community in this time. I personally have been challenged by his ministry to the poor and how he simple lives out his faith. His community should be encouraged for its courage and its willingness to follow that call of Jesus

PC vs MAC - Money

This is a parody of the Mac Vs PC series by Laurie Mcguiness. Hope you enjoy!

PC vs MAC - The girl

PC vs MAC - Music

PC vs MAC - At work

Graduation Photos

I had my graduation ceremony on friday night, so I know have my degree and am a graduate of Victoria University Wellington. Hope you enjoy the photos of me in Academic Dress. Anyway, I better get back and do some more study on Chinese Energy Security, or I will get stuck in a rutt of further procrastination!

I got 21/25 the average is 18/25. See How well you can do

Hat Tip: David Farrar

How Not to Communicate the Gospel

I never want to see anyone in wellington presenting the gospel like this. It made me go No! No! No! This is just Naff and crap!

How to know the price of a ticket is too much at your local soccer game!

The Consequences of Blind faith in Modernity

What happens when you put all your faith in your GPS Navigation system and fail to use a little bit of human intuition and common sense. Deep water it seems! This is what a U.K. Lady discovered when she managed to put her 300,000 Mercedes into the river scence in Leicestershire. You can read the whole story at the register

Hat Tip: Ried S Monaghan

I found this at the emergentkiwi blog. Really challenges me on a whole lot of areas as a christian. In christian community, we are there to serve and care for one another, and care for those who are lost, hungry, needy. As a great socialist writer wrote years past "no man is an island" and the disney work Highschool Musical reminds us with its great philisophical insights "we're all in this together" Reflect on this picture, think about it, are you really plugged in. Are you just in a community becuase it fulfills your needs, or are you really serving? Plug into God, ask him about where he wants to take you next, seek his will, you will find that you are challenged to go places that you never thought you were willing to go. God doesn't want some of us, he wants all of our being (Rom 12:1-3) seek him out and he will invade your life and change it.

Resurgence Remodified

If you don't know Resurgence you shoud check it out. It is a theological website run by Mars Hill Church Seattle. It runs many articles on many controversal theological issues remaining quite conservative theologically in its arguments. I went to check in out today anyway and it has had a full makeover, making it alot easier to use. Anyway, you should check it out, especially if you have an interest in theology and issues facing theology today.

Anberlin have been one of my favourite bands over the last three years. There first two albums were stunners, well crafted rock albums with hardhitting rifts and melodies. The latest album, Cities, for me sadly has failed to impress me. It isn’t the full album that I expected from this band. The album starts off very strong, but the middle of the album wanes to the point that it has very little carrying you through the momentum of the album, unlike the impressive all on action of Never Take Freindship Personal which unfolds an impressive range of musical stories of pain, relationships and addiction. The reliance on synthesised sounds and psychedelics failed to impress me at all.

So, as you can see I’m kind of critical of the latest release of one of my favourite bands.

(Debut) starts of the album, it is a typical instrumental start to an album, which pulls you into the second track of the album, Godspeed, which is highly reminiscent of the the track Never Take Freindship Personal, containing the classic hardhitting rifts and fast paced drums of the second album. The Album then continues into Adelaide, which contains the classical melody brilliance found in Anberlin, and is reminiscent of the song Foreign Language. The Album goes into its downhill patch. The song A Wisper and a Clamour misses the mark, it could be a brilliant song, but doesn’t have much to carry its energy through, it is one of my favourite songs though on the albulm. The Fourth Song The Unwinding Cable Car, this track is an acoustic number, again maybe waning in its direction. Most of the rest of the album doesn’t really deserve mention, it clamours onto the most powerful track of the album, the finale, (*fin), this track is very much a masterpiece, carrying you through a symphony of sounds and feelings and carries you with the message of the track, in many ways, the work you see put into this song you wish was reflected in the rest of the Album. It doesn’t rely on Christians voice to tell the story of the musical piece.

Most of the album is only carried by the vocals of Stephen Christian, it seems that the rest of the band has gone into hibernation on this album and they have left Christian to carry this album to completion. His vocals make the album work, but it’s a very inadequate show from a band that I expected better from. You can’t just make an album from your vocalist!

The Album has some of the most powerful lyrics I’ve heard from the band though. Some of the songs have brought me to tears and made me think a lot about my faith recently. The Song Alexithymia lyrics carry so much meaning to those who have been broken. The song (Fin*) has amazingly challenging lyrics, asking the question of Christians, are we the patron saint of lost causes? Does the way we treat those who are lost, depressed, hungry for God really reflect the love of Christ, or are we really selfrighteous hyprocrites who seek after our own interests. The Most challenging line of this song was “we’re not questioning God, just the ones he chose to carry on his will”. This again makes me ask myself ask how am I showing the love of God to those who are lost and hurting. Am I just leaving them be, while I go on my journey.

Something I’ve come to realise is that Jesus expressly challenges us on this issue. He says in the bible


Mathew 25:31-46
31"When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. 32All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.
34"Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 35For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 36I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.'
37"Then the righteous will answer him, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 38When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 39When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?'
40"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'
41"Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, 43I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.'
44"They also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?'
45"He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.'
46"Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life."

An Issue that we try to sideline, because of our own selfish desires, we forget that Gods cry for us it to care for the lost and the needy, and that we show our love for God by the way we act towards those who are lost. So God is all for the lost the needy the spiritually hungry.

I think the lyrics of the songs by this band are thoughtful and challenging. The words "I am the patron saint of lost cuases" is a mission cry of my heart at the moment.