Heaven and earth meet.

Last summer I read Simply Christian by N.T. Wright, in it he claimed that we are the new temple of God. This wasn't a new revelation to me I had read 1 Corinthians. Then he went on to describe all the things that it meant to be a temple of God. He said that the temple was the place where heaven( the place that God dwells) and earth overlap. Kind of a transcending place between two dimensions. In reading John 7:37-38 Jesus says "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him." Jesus is claiming to be the new temple and promising to make us the new temple has well.The implication is that now we as followers of Christ have become the place where heaven and earth over lap. I don't know about you but this excited me and bothered me all at the same time.
It is a pretty lofty thought that I am the temple of God the place where Heaven and earth over lap. Wow! The problem is I am an overlap in the dimensons of heaven and earth, and if people want to see God thay can look at me as this was God's intention for true humanity.......but I am fallen, yucky, full of false motives and less than what God intended me to be as a human. The reality is though that I am the Temple of God through Jesus Christ the place where heaven and earth overlap. It is a reality I need to explore more.

worship

Two years ago I went to a Coldplay show in Vancouver. It was really good, and gave me an emotional phyisical response, I call the warm fuzzies. Afterward I talked to a friend and she said that she found herself wanting to raise her hands in worship! This really disturbed her because Coldplay, isn't trying to get you to worship God, they are trying to entertain you. I have and know many others who in their youth sought out the warm fuzzies in worship, they were looking for a music induced emotional physical responses. In fact for many of us these moments where our first encounters with God's presence. But a maturing faith begins to recongnize that these responses( warm fuzzies) are not alway God given. and in fact can be misleading about the nature of our relationship with God. I remember feeling those same warm fuzzies with new relationship and ot
her things in my live that in fact were ungodly.
Relating to God is hard, difficult, convicting and stretching. Sometimes more like a cold glass of water in the face, or nothingness. Henri Nouwen in describing his own regular quiet time said it was a time of sleepiness, frustration, and distraction. to be honest that is more true than the lights the sound and video of the modern worship concert. I am challenged more an mor eto a depth of relationship that doesn't look like our cultures version of entertainment.

Worship?

Shaun Groves recently posted a series on worship – He indicated that our concept of worship is distorted – that worship is not what happens at the beginning of a service – that is worship music… I had this horrible realization that he is right about two Saturday’s ago when Willingdon hosted a worship conference. Willingdon and a worship conference – alliteration aside – the two don’t really go together in my books, but whatever. I got to hear Paul Baloche lead worship, supposedly from the introduction to the service this was to an experience equal to Bono leading worship – the supreme. Already I was uneasy – does it matter who leads – multi-million seller or first time 19 year old and his guitar? I almost left just after it started, it made me ill – Leaha looked at me – when the song ended I said I can’t do this – this is too bizarre. This is not worship it’s a concert, a visual overload of U2 proportions – moving lights, moving screens, moving people (remember I’m a Mennonite – people don’t dance and flail around – this woman just in front of me had actions for everything – there are actions for worship songs? Isn’t it just a gimmick to keep the kids hands away from each other and their noses?) It made me sad – to be in this room of people jumping and shouting and wondering, are you not present in the silence? How can I hear God when I cannot hear myself? Or is that the point? Claim I'm in His presence while ignoring all that I truly do not want to hear from Him? Like stop dating that person, leave your job, love your parents, trust me, give to me - your time, your money, your LIFE. When did worship become more like a concert experience and less like something, different - maybe sacred?

11The LORD said, "Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by." Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. 12After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. 13When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. Then a voice said to him, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" ( Courtesy of http://www.bbintl.org/bible/niv/niv1Ki19.html)

I realize the scripture isn't directly to do with worship, but it speaks to our idea/belief that when God speaks to us - it's in your face, loud, angels and the whole "Behold unto you, you shall have a husband - 5'11, blond hair and his name shall be ___." It does not work that way - it is persistent and it's more often than not quiet, through friends, circumstance and any other number of less direct methods.

Does worship need to be razzle dazzle, glitz and all that to be worship? Or in the end does it really come down to we've lost the ability to understand worship? What does worship look like to you?

Social Justice Day

When I received the Facebook notification about Social Justice Day the first thing I though of was a recent post of mine that originated out of a shlog/posting on Shaun Groves website - he had posted a YouTube account of Eric Volz. I'd seen the MySpace blurbs and etc but never stopped to long enough to pay attention/listen to it.

So have a listen - do whatever research you feel is necessary if you want - but the purpose in me posting this is to articulate the degrees to which social justice is being consumed and slowly destroyed. We see starving kids via World Vision and some how think that's all the social justice entails, or maybe we just don't think that anything will make a difference. We may feel helpless, but we aren't and it sure isn't a feeling we should accept or let pass us by without a second thought. So have a look, expand your ideas on the whole social justice thing, maybe see that injustice is all around us, and despite feeling overwhelmed we can do the little things.