by Elizabeth | Jul 12, 2010 | Learning Story
Some of you know my 18-year-old daughter is doing a summer internship with World Harvest Mission in London, an area called Camden Town. Today, join me in praying for young hearts leaning into what God calls us all to do…to look around us, wherever we are, and LOVE the people in ways that communicate God’s love for them:
We finally moved to Camden and live in a backpackers’ hostel, a room about the size of an average 2-person college dorm room with 6 girls, 6 beds, and 6 jumbo lockers in it. I don’t mind living like sardines so much as the fact that the entire hostel is crowded and cramped as well—showers, common room, kitchen, hallways, staircases…etc. On the other hand, the location is perfect for us, a 5 minute walk from Dan’s house, the market & canal, the Tube station, and the grocery store.
The main problem with that is 2 things: one being I spend too much on coffee because I have to get some space every once in a while (not to mention no one makes “filter coffee” around here—its either instant or some espresso drink). The other problem is that we are sinful human beings whose selfishness comes out pretty blatantly in less-than-desirable conditions.
I think I’ll skip all the juicy details and move on to what you’ve probably been wondering (as I have myself) about what we’ve been doing and why I am doing this internship this summer.
We’re working with a very new church plant called Lysan, an Old English word meaning “redeemed or set free,” headed up by Dan Passerelli and his wife, Somer, and 2 daughters, and Oli Smith, who, get this, is actually British. And really fun too. Our job as interns: pray for Camden, and meet people.
So we’ve been doing exactly that. We pray a LOT (Euro style, with eyes open) and do outreach. So far, this includes but is not limited to:
- Prayer walks around Camden, praying for specific areas and people
- Playing music by Regent’s Canal—right by the Camden Lock market, a place where lots of young people come and hang out.
- Handing out free ice cream, water, and ice-lollies (popsicles) on the canal
- Handing out bags with water and snacks to vendors in the market to meet and encourage them
- Going to pubs to meet people
- Offering to buy coffee or tea for the flier-hander-outers who stand by the Tube station on Saturday nights from 10-1:30am advertising bars and clubs
Friday afternoon on the canal was a HUGE blessing for all of us. A couple people walked up and down offering ice cream to people, but we also brought a guitar and jembe drum and jammed a bit. (Pretty proud of the head bobs we got when we sang Oasis “Wonderwall”) It was really great.
I ended up talking to three teenage girls (around 16) about Camden and all the different clothing styles, the places to go, and whatnot. It was a really enlightening conversation—I enjoyed it, but it really left me feeling burdened for the youth culture here. Like any culture, there are things that reflect the glory of God and things that reflect the brokenness of our world—example. Raves. Techno music, neon clothes, strobe lights. Sound awesome? I think yes. Heavy drugs, alcohol, generally really destructive behavior. Not so much. That’s just one example. But that conversation really woke me up to the hunger for Jesus that these youth are trying to fulfill in anything but him.
Speaking of culture and its simultaneous reflection of God’s glory and man’s sin, I have some other really good examples that I’ll share in the future, so I don’t bore you to death.
So prayer for this week:
- “If I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing” (1 Cor. 13:2)—Pray that the Holy Spirit would give us a strong love for Camden and its people so that we’ll be empowered to minister to them.
- Pray for unity with our team that we would love each other well in work and in our free time.
- Pray that God would continue to prepare hearts of people in Camden—pray that God would send those who are searching our way, and pray that people would generally see a love that exists in us that is not of ourselves.
Jackie Turnage, www.jacksnack91.wordpress.com
by Elizabeth | Jul 10, 2010 | Learning Story
Grace is good; grace is great, but, as many pastors and church folk, and non-church folk, have noted, as St. Paul noted, MISUNDERSTANDINGS about grace lived out abound. Tomorrow I get to teach the seniors about OBEDIENCE, and I’m pretty excited about what I’ve learned and been reminded of. Here is part one — Monday we’ll continue to consider what obedience is all about:
2 If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2 then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. 4 Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.
5 Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in very naturea God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
7 but made himself nothing,
taking the very natureb of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8 And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
9 Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
10 that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father. Philippians 2:6-11
Some E.T. thoughts on these verses and where obedience begins. The perfect Sunday school answer: Obedience begins with…
JESUS!!! Jesus didn’t just “model” obedience. He lived it and died it. And because he was raised from the dead, we too are raised to be NEW CREATION. That’s why we live differently in this world.
Obedience relates to worship. It is the question of “Whom do we worship?” Before whom do we bow? If we bow before ourselves, we will do what feels good, what is easiest, follow the path of least resistance. If we bow before Christ as our King, we will ask him what we are called to do in each situation, and we will obey him, even when it does not agree with what we want to do.
But don’t take my word for it, listen to what Tim Keller says:
“Today’s preacher must argue against the self-serving pragmatism of postmodernity. The gospel does say that through it you find your life, but that first you must lose your life. I must say to people, “Christ will ‘work’ for you only if you are true to him whether he works for you or not. You must not come to him because he is fulfilling (though he is) but because he is true. If you seek to meet him in order to get your needs met, you will not meet him or get your needs met. To become a Christian is not to get help for your agenda but to take on a whole new agenda — the will of God. You must obey him because you owe him your life, because he is your Creator and Redeemer.” – Tim Keller, from a contributing chapter of The Art and Craft of Biblical Preaching
by Elizabeth | Jul 9, 2010 | Learning Story
What better way to come to the end of a week focusing on reclaiming the Bible as the Living Word that shows us who God is, what we are like, what the world is like, and how we shall live as a result than with a Bible study that does just that. This is from Jimmy Davis’s second article on Bible study at Worldview Church webzine. Be sure to read the whole article. He offers an approach that will help you study any portion of God’s Word.
How To Use The Bible As Drama, Doctrine, and Directions
“I’ve been going to Sunday School all my life, and I’ve even been teaching Sunday School for years, but I’ve never understood how the whole Bible fits together until now.” That’s the response I received a couple of years ago when I taught this drama-doctrine-directions concept to an intro-to-the-Bible class in the adult continuing education program of a local college. It was one of the saddest and gladdest moments of my teaching ministry. I was sad because I could sense the question she was asking inside, one I’ve asked myself, Why didn’t anyone teach me these things? It grieves me that I and others have grown up in the church and have never understood what the Bible is, much less what to do with it. But her words also made me glad, because there are few joys like watching God help someone see the Bible with fresh depth through the 3D glasses of drama, doctrine, and directions.
Trying on the 3D Glasses
Last week I promised a sample of how this works in my own personal study. Recently I was considering the one another passages in the New Testament. The obvious place to begin such a study is John 13:34-35:
34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. 35 By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”
Having put on my 3D glasses, I can quickly identify this passage as directions because any command from God is His way of saying “If you want to live in the story of Jesus, do this.” I can also identify some doctrine in these verses. Jesus is saying something here about the theology of God, God’s love, man, the church, evangelism, the cross, and more. But I need to start with the Story, the drama that unfolds in the pages of Scripture. So, my first question is always Where does this passage fit in the larger story that the Bible is telling? Jimmy Davis, Associate Pastor, Metrocrest Presbyterian Church, Dallas.
by Elizabeth | Jul 8, 2010 | Learning Story
This is “Back to the Bible” week, and I’m inviting us all to fall in love with the Living Word all over again. Today, two quotes from an excellent article and a wonderful series on what the Bible is and how to study it. My friend Pastor Jimmy Davis LOVES to teach the Bible in a way that students get excited about spending time in the Word. Listen to what he says, and then read the whole article.
What is it? may be the most often wondered but seldom verbalized question church-goers ask about the Bible. It’s the same question the wanderers in the wilderness asked Moses the first morning they found manna scattered on the ground. Manna, a name derived from the Hebrew word for “what?,” was the “bread from heaven” God used to train His people to hunger daily for and hold dearly to His Word (Exodus 16; Deuteronomy 8). Morning by morning the people woke to find manna covering the ground like dust. Imagine how comical that first manna breakfast must have been as folks not only asked What is it? but then having in it hand also wondered Now, what do we do with it?
What is the Bible? is the question the people in our pews (or the folks in our folding chairs) are asking themselves but are hesitant to ask to their pastors and Bible teachers. They know that God has provided His Word as heavenly food for daily consumption, but morning by morning, as folks wake up to find God’s Word sitting on the chair-side table covered with dust, they wonder: What is it? and What do we do with it? As preachers and teachers of the Word of God, we must help our listeners understand what sort of book the Bible is and what purpose it serves in the life of God’s people. Jimmy Davis, Associate Pastor of Metrocrest Presbyterian Church
by Elizabeth | Jul 7, 2010 | Learning Story
“Being a Christian and reading the Bible is not a way to get all your questions answered. There are few answers in the Bible. God is wanting to draw us into a relationship of faith, intimacy, and love. That doesn’t come through information alone. It comes through trust, obedience, and the willingness to be present in the mystery of God. It comes through letting Him reveal himself to us as we’re able to receive the revelation. If God just dumped all the answers on us at once, we probably couldn’t handle it. We’d misuse it. We’d think we had control of it now.” Eugene Peterson, Christianity Today Interview
“These are not words that we laboriously but impersonally study, as if for an exam. These are not words that we anxiously scan lest we inadvertently transgress a boundary or break a protocol. These are words we take in — words designed for shaping new life in us, feeding the energies of salvation. This delight develops into meditation — torah meditation.”
These are the words in my mouth;
these are what I chew on and pray.
Accept them when I place them
on the morning altar, O God, my Altar-Rock,
God, Priest-of-my-Altar.
Psalm 19:14, The Message
by Elizabeth | Jul 6, 2010 | Learning Story
This week, we will focus on the transforming Word of Life, Scripture, and why we need not only to LEARN this story but fall in love with it. The person who first ignited a passion for Scripture in me was Tremper Longman III, in his book Reading the Bible with Heart and Mind. Today I bring an excerpt from a review of his book, Understanding the Old Testament, in which the author summarizes some of the key principles of reading the Bible, specifically the Old Testament. Let’s fall in love with our core narrative all over again:
What are the keys to understanding the Old Testament?
Addressing his first question, Longman surveys attractions in the Old Testament (gripping stories, heart-wrenching poems, images of God, guidance for life, background to the New Testament, pp. 13-17) as well as obstacles to understanding it (length and diversity, antiquity, cultural distances, position in the history of redemption, pp. 17-22). Longman than provides nine principles for interpreting the Old Testament accurately:
- Discover the author’s intended meaning (p. 23).
- Read Scripture in its context (p. 32).
- Identify the genre of the book and passage (p. 39).
- Consider the historical and cultural background of the Bible (p. 47).
- Consider the grammar and structure within the passage (p. 48).
- Interpret experience in the light of Scripture, not Scripture in the light of experience (p. 50).
- Always seek the full counsel of Scripture (p. 51).
- Discover how the scripture passage presents Jesus Christ (p. 52).
- Be open-minded and tolerant of other interpretations (p. 53).
Seth Kniep, 2MakeHimFamous website
