3 Verbs, 3 Nouns & 1 Adjective
This past Sunday I taught from a very profound text of Scripture. I mean, they’re all profound, but this text seems to summarize the missional life that God calls us, the people who follow him, to.
Micah 6:8. Maybe you’ve seen it. If you’ve read much scripture you’ve probably come across it. There’s so much that can be said about it, but I love the words and break-up of what they say.
The question really is, ‘God, what do you want from me’? the answer is…
Do Justice
Love Mercy
Walk Humbly with God
God wants us to ‘DO’. So there’s actually something he wants me to DO. He doesn’t want me to watch or take in or even to just enjoy, but he wants me to DO.
What does he want me to DO? He wants me to DO JUSTICE. Justice is seeing what is wrong and attempting to make it right. It’s the broad meaning behind Righteousness. When I DO JUSTICE, I’m noticing what’s wrong with the world, disliking it, and trying to make it right.
God want’s me to ‘LOVE’. I knew that, but LOVE what? LOVE MERCY. So he wants me to LOVE love. Mercy is a form of Love isn’t it. They’re definitely related. So God wants me to LOVE loving the unlovely by showing MERCY & grace.
God wants me to ‘WALK’. God never saved any of us to sit, but he saved us to serve. What do you think of that church folk? So many people have this idea that God is happy cause we showed up at church and watched a show; most the time on our butts sitting down. Micah says that God wants us to WALK. Not just WALK, but walk with GOD. So I’m not doing this thing alone, God invites me to WALK with him. But how do I walk? With humility; knowing that I am not God - He is! WALK HUMBLY with GOD.
It’s simple, yet profound, and very challenging…all the time being very clear.
The question is, how does that work out for YOU? What does God want from YOU? How do those 3 verbs, 3 nouns & 1 adjective play out in your life? Well, that’s for you to figure out. The best place to start is asking God what Israel did and he’s bound to tell you. He’ll even fill in the details that are between the lines and words.
Ask him?
Planting Beauty
A Poem, by Lindsey Gallant of Red Letters
It’s not the way I usually would have done it
The apple tree sat waiting
In its plastic pot
Roots circling round and round
Without any room to breathe
I wanted ideal ground
But our “back 40” was less than so
Ground ridged by rocks and weeds
A pile of twisted rusty metal
neglected museum of days gone by
A heap of brush sprawled and sticky
like a shock of unkempt giant’s hair
A collection of broken glass, old medicine bottles
and the evidence of beer drunk in secret
A jumble of dirty plastic, torn and tattered
but never decomposing
I wanted to clear away all the ugliness first
Prepare a perfect environment for our darling sapling
A smooth lawn, a clear view, a clean start
But that was more than a few weeks’ worth of work away
I was almost loathe to do it
Behind the brush heap I pulled up weeds and grass
Collected more fragments of the last few decades
We dug a hole in the middle of it all
Sharp spade cutting into red clay
Filled it with rich, dark dirt harvested from the sea
And there
Surrounded by the brackish heaps
of our pioneer work in progress
We planted beauty
And there it blossoms even now
Unfurling roots and leaves, deep and high
Peeking over the giant’s mop top
Waving to the kitchen window
Happy only to be given a place
Yes, I will give up my stifling idealism
And give beauty a place to grow
Blood, Grace & Blueprints
by Josh Singh
Lent is now over.
I’ve been spending the last few days getting caught up on my digital life. To be honest…I didn’t miss it at all. I felt more connected to the people I love and I took in breaths I had long forgotten to breathe.
The lessons I learned were invaluable and they will stick with me, as marks on my soul for the rest of my life.
Jonathan Manafo live on 100 Huntley Street
Single-Handed Theology - Where Are The Children?
Single-Handed Theology: one hand in motherhood, one hand in theology, each inspiring the other.
Tonight, while nursing Arden before bed, all the while humming old hymns and drinking hot lemon tea, I was considering the relationship between Christ and the church. In a sacred mystery I am not sure I understand, the apostle Paul identifies Christ as the husband and the church as the wife. That got me thinking – where are the children?
We’ve got all sorts of relationships pictured in the Bible, relationships that exist among God and between God and humanity. There’s God the Father, and His Son, with the Spirit as the bond of love between them (to use Augustine’s analogy). There’s Christ the bridegroom, winning a bride for Himself, the Church. The Spirit may also be seen as the chemistry, or divine electricity that draws and binds each to the other. (Of course the Spirit is also a person, not simply a force, with whom we have a relationship with as well, though He is always handing us off to Christ.)
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Anger-Tweets, Annoyance, No Smiles and more (Off Days)
You know you’ve had one…
Something isn’t…right. Your timing is off, your rhythm is one beat behind, you’re slow on the uptake. Off.
If you’re normally thoughtful, you’re brash and too quick. If you’re funny, well…you’re just not. If you’re normally warm, you’re distant. Off.
My off-days consist of short answers, distant eyes (the kind that look over the shoulder while talking), not a lot of laughing and not a lot of patience. Becca gets it the worst because she gets it first (first person to see me in the AM, when I’m at my worst) so kudos to her for setting me straight when it’s really unbearable. I become very on-my-own with a book, a coffee and my phone and that’s about it. Just the other night, I said something to someone I know (or not enough, I suppose) and Becca, who was there with me, turned to me quietly and said, “That was mean”. And I knew she was right. Off.
So I’ve made a list of things I won’t do when I have an off-day because of lack of full judgement:
The Renaissance of Holy Hip Hop
Let’s start with the obvious: I’m white. I’m middle class. Suburban. Only gun I’ve ever shot was my dad’s hunting rifle at target practice out in the woods at grandma’s. I draw graffiti on paper, not illegally on walls. I’m anything but “rough rugged”. Certainly not a “Playa” of any significant Game. I have soft spots in my heart for indie rock and uptempo metal (not that I should call any metal “uptempo”, doing that’s not very metal of me). Oh, and for folk, electronic, and (recently) jazz. Apparently, that makes me a prime candidate for loving hip hop music. And I do. Boy do I love me some deep bass, a sharp snare, and clever instrumentation all slathered together into tasty beats. I have no affection for a lot of the ‘culture’ that usually gets packaged with it (after all, hip hop is not on the radio) – the bling and sexploitation and violence and whatnot. But I have a great deal of affection for the sounds of hip hop. Let’s make matters worse: I’m an English and Philosophy major with a background in Biblical Studies. I LOVE words. My brain plays with words. Sentences are like playgrounds to me – places to frolic and laugh exuberantly and enjoy life. I’ve always been enamored with communication and the means by which we accomplish it. Most of all, I’m dumbfounded by how God has chosen to communicate Himself to me (and the rest of you humans) through words – recorded in text, preserved through aeons of history, study-able, deep deep depths of words. As I’ve been reminded much lately – God wrote a book. It is written – “it” being the communication of God to man, the holy Scriptures. Inerrant, authoritative, sufficient, complete… profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, exhortation… all of it communication from God, put in human words for humans to read, know, and understand. We serve a God who communicated his Word with perfection – we should strive for excellence in our communication. It should be our goal to grow in clarity, conciseness, robustness, ‘copiousness’ (depth and breadth), and total self-control. A love for words makes me a prime candidate for loving hip hop music. See, rap is the music of words in a way unparalleled by other forms. Hip hop is the modern theater for poetry – it really is. I don’t read modern poets, I listen to them “spit rhymes” (read: recite) over beats. Through hip hop I am able to enjoy such (otherwise neglected) vocal magicks as cadence, flow, rhythm, meter – all the hallmarks of performed poetry. Through hip hop I am able to enjoy sonnets and rhyme schemes and rhyme forms of all kinds – polysyllabic, internal, complex, couplets – the list goes on. In terms of structure alone, rap is responsible for so much remarkable innovation in poetry. Besting that, hip hop provides the ideal theatre to showcase thoughts and treatises on subjects far more detailed and technical than most other forms of music. Long words aren’t frowned upon, but indeed are often celebrated (this is significant when we consider the potential for proper theological, philosophical, scientific, or linguistic use). I love hip hop. Particularly, I am drawn to hip hop that honours and glorifies Christ Jesus the King of Kings. I was first introduced to what is sometimes called “Holy Hip Hop” back in the late 90′s when my bimonthly copy of now-defunct music mag 7ball arrived in the mail, sporting its usual compilation CD filled with usually unheard-of artists. Although the mag focused primarily on rock and alternative music, it sometimes ventured into the then-risque territory of hip hop. This particular issue featured a song on the album called “Cypha The Next Day” by The Cross Movement. I was hooked – great old-school beat, clever and talented emcees busting out wonderful God-honouring rhymes, and to top it off, theological depth. This wasn’t some campfire “sing-songs to Jesus” deal, this was a bunch of Pastor-Rappers roughing me up with biblical insight and not only dropping poetry, but sermonettes, expositions, and commentaries on biblical passages in their verses. Average people like me started calling it “holy hip-hop” (hereafter “HHH”) and the name stuck. Here’s something that excites me greatly – there’s been a real renaissance of HHH over the course of the last decade. What began with artists like P.I.D., SFC, and Dynamic Twins in the 80′s and continued in the 90s with artists like The Cross Movement, Urban D, and Corey Red & Precise… has experienced a renewed fervency and urgency in the last five years in particular. Artists like Lecrae, Trip Lee, 116 Clique, Shai Linne, Sho Baraka, Flame, and Tedashii (not to mention solo efforts by Cross Movement members Ambassador, Phanatik, and Tonic) are quite literally tearing things up. The beats are amazing, the rhymes are full of bounty, and the biblio-theological depth, missional focus, and Christocentric emphasis is both refreshing and disarmingly confrontative. So, this post (which has been on the backburner for two months) is just a simple expression of my thankfulness for how God is using men (and women) that he has greatly gifted in wordplay and music to glorify Himself through hip hop; to glorify Himself through the proclamation of his word and his Gospel through skillfully crafted poetry put to the kick and the snare. Thank you, Lord: James 1:16-17 ESV Author: Jerry Bolton
Do not be deceived, my beloved brothers. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.
Blog: www.jerrybolton.com
Tags: Music
Penis or Vagina…Which Makes a Better Leader? A Pentecostal Perspective
I’m always floored when I hear about pastors and denominations who refuse to allow women to be in positions of pastoral leadership.
I’m even more floored when I hear about fellow pentecostals that think that this is an acceptable position to take in respect to leadership standards. Now to be honest, there aren’t very many Pentecostals who OFFICIALLY feel this way, but much of the leadership culture within many Pentecostal groups is still dominated predominantly by men.
I have to admit, it is changing but not rapidly enough. Many women in our circles who aspire to lead in a pastoral capacity still feel like they are on the fringes of leadership for the most part. They are hardly ever asked to speak at events outside of their local churches (Unless accompanied by their husband who is also a pastor), they are always asked to organize events for women even if that is not their heart in ministry and they are rarely included or even promoted to senior leadership position either in a local church or our district/national offices.
So overwhelmingly, we can say as Pentecostals that we value and encourage women to take part in pastoral leadership, but once in those positions (mostly children and youth ministry) we almost never invest in or encourage them to aspire to higher levels of senior leadership in a local church or our district/national offices. I also have this sneaky suspicion that if a young female pastor aspired to someday become the senior pastor of a big PAOC church, we would say something like “Hold on to that God dream,” or “Pursue your destiny in Jesus name.” Meanwhile in our hearts we have this little voice that tells us “that will probably not happen, but I should encourage her anyway.” Tragic really.
With a growing Pentecostal population of young male pastors who are following non- egalitarian/complementarian leaders like Mark Driscoll and John Piper I worry that this might become an issue within the Pentecostal church.
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