Here’s the silly clip we showed on the beauty of our planet, as well as the desire for beauty within every one of us, even if it seems impossible or ridiculous.
The following is a post by Tim Chester that shares some insights on where our own community might be at
For many Christians church is an event. It is a meeting you attend or a place you enter. Churches may talk about being a family, but most of their resources go into the Sunday morning event. Acquiring a building. Preparing the sermon. Producing the bulletin. Equipping a venue with sound and light. Planning the show. Practicing the band. That’s were their money and their staff time go. We talk about being family and community, but when you look at how we spend our time and money it becomes clear that in practice we view church as an event.
People often ask me about our meetings. ‘When do you meet? Where? What do you do when you meet together?’ But if you ask those questions then you have completely missed the point! We’re not advocating a new way of doing meetings. Actually our meetings are not good! The music is poor and the teaching is nothing you’d go out of your way to hear. What matters to us is our shared life: sharing our lives, doing ordinary life with gospel intentionality.
The church will never out perform TV shows and music videos. But there is nothing like the community life of the church. There is nowhere else where diverse people come together. There is nowhere else were broken people find a home. There is nowhere else when grace is experienced. There is nowhere else where God is present by his Spirit.
Your thoughts?
Continuing our journey through the book of John
39 Many of the Samaritans from that town believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I ever did.”40 So when the Samaritans came to him, they urged him to stay with them, and he stayed two days.
41 And because of his words many more became believers.
42 They said to the woman, “We no longer believe just because of what you said; now we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this man really is the Savior of the world.”
I wonder if any of the Samaritans in the town asked the woman at the well – so what is it that you’ve done? I find it astounding that it seems many in the town ‘believed in him’ simply because of her testimony. Might we be shortchanging the power of our own testimony? Might we also need to include details on ‘everything I ever did’? Would we still do it?
It’s also amazing how simply the words of Christ (not miracles, not resurrection, not even works) were enough for people to acknowledge Jesus as “Savior of the world”.
How does that impact the way you interact with God and others?
Continuing our journey through the Gospel of John
27 Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”
28 Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people,29 “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Christ?”30 They came out of the town and made their way toward him.
31 Meanwhile his disciples urged him, “Rabbi, eat something.”
32 But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you know nothing about.”
33 Then his disciples said to each other, “Could someone have brought him food?”
34 “My food,” said Jesus, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.35 Do you not say, ‘Four months more and then the harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.36 Even now the reaper draws his wages, even now he harvests the crop for eternal life, so that the sower and the reaper may be glad together.37 Thus the saying ‘One sows and another reaps’ is true.38 I sent you to reap what you have not worked for. Others have done the hard work, and you have reaped the benefits of their labor.”
It’s interesting how often this passage is spoken of how Jesus reached out to a Samaritan woman. Rightly so, because it is surprising for Jews and Samaritans to in deep conversation. However, it says that she as simply a ‘woman’ here and that it was surprising.
What barriers might Jesus be breaking today?
It’s often also rightly noted that the woman had left her ‘water jar’ – likely alluding to how she had discovered ‘living water’ and no longer needed water that kept her thirsty, but what I find more fascinating is how she left the jar to immediately share her encounter with Christ with others.
What’s holding us back from sharing Christ?
v38 is also reminiscent of Matthew 25 in the parable of the talents – have a read and see how things relate for yourself.
Either way, we truly need to acknowledge the abundance of work and effort that has happened before and continues around us as we join God in what he’s doing.
How might you be able to end global poverty?
Continuing our journey through the book of John
1 The Pharisees heard that Jesus was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John,2 although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples.
3 When the Lord learned of this, he left Judea and went back once more to Galilee.
4 Now he had to go through Samaria.5 So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph.6 Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about the sixth hour.
7 When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?”8 (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.)
9 The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)
10 Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”
11 “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water?12 Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his flocks and herds?”
13 Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again,14 but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
15 The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.”
16 He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.”
17 “I have no husband,” she replied.
Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband.18 The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.”
19 “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet.20 Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.”
21 Jesus declared, “Believe me, woman, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem.22 You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks.24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth.”
25 The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”
26 Then Jesus declared, “I who speak to you am he.”
- Why didn’t Jesus do the baptizing himself?
- Jesus was ‘tired’ – it happens to the best of us – you don’t necessarily need to feel guilty
- Jesus strikes a conversation – not by offering something, but asking to receive something. How might this impact the way we interact with people?
- ‘a spring of water welling up to eternal life’ – have you encountered a source this deep within you?
- v19 ‘ i can see that you are a prophet’ – how else do you respond to a person who knows the very depths of your soul? What do you do when others begin to unearth who you really are? The woman at the well decides to change topics.
- ’spirit and truth’ – of all the possible descriptions in the world – why would god be seeking people who worship in ’spirit and truth’ specifically?
- This section of the passage ends with a thud. Jesus reveals himself and everything spoken of before suddenly takes on a new light.
