Windows On The Soul

Some Christian traditions have always associated the Church with a mother image. Although not an actual scriptural term, the Bible does however call her the “Bride of Christ” ( Rev.21:9 ). Without stretching the analogy, we can learn a lot about what a church should be like by considering motherhood. The first is the birth of new disciples. The Church’s Great Commission ( Mk.16:15 ) echoes the first biblical commandment to Adam and Eve, “ Be fruitful and multiply ” ( Gen.1:28 ). Evangelism will not be fruitful because of programs devised by man, but as a (super)natural outcome of the attractiveness of the deep love between the Church and her ‘bridegroom’, Jesus the Christ. And having born new disciples into her family, the Church’s other function is the love and nurture of her members, with special attention to the ‘new-born’. There are both spiritual and physical needs to be met. There is feeding and teaching and cleaning up after ‘accidents’. Nursing of injuries (both spirit...

“ What the Church needs are more ‘deep’ Christians ” (Richard Foster, “Celebration of Discipline”).  The Apostle Paul wrote, “ Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!!” ( Rom.11:33 ) How does one become a ‘deeper’ Christian? It takes ‘Time’ and ‘Experience’. To know the depth of something, one must have ‘plumbed’ the depth, that is attempted some sort of measure. To have some knowledge of the depth of God, one must explore the consequences and implications of Christian faith on one’s life and society, and thus to start to see the vast possibilities. Such exploration, takes time in God’s word, time with Him in prayer, and time in constructive, exploratory fellowship together. But most of all, depth of understanding and knowledge of the wisdom, grace and ways of God, come from experience. We learn only a small amount from what we hear, a larger amount from what we read and s...

The Bible uses a number of different analogies to describe The Church, such as a ‘body’ ( 1 Cor.12 ), a ‘garden’ ( Isa.61:3 , Jn.15:5 ), a ‘family’ ( Jn.3:29 , Rev.21:9 ), or a ‘building’ ( 2 Cor.5:1 , Eph.2:21 ). All of these images illustrate multi-faceted growth, extension and adaptation, and all apply equally to The Church, any individual congregation or individual Christians. I’ve always liked the slogan, “ Please be patient. God hasn’t finished with me yet ”. When a ‘lost soul’ finds Christ, there is a sense of completeness in that a void has been filled. But as we grow in Christ, there is another sort of sense of incompleteness, not like an emptiness that needs to be filled, but rather being called onward in constant improvement. As God is constantly revealing areas of our lives that are not ‘up to scratch’, we are challenged to renewal. As our lives encounter new experiences and situations, we are challenged to meet them like Christ, with love. We are called to st...

One of the greatest inhibitors to personal and church growth is the FUD factor (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt). After the horror of Christ’s crucifixion, the incredulity then ecstasy of His resurrection and His times of sharing with His disciples, Jesus ascended to heaven. What did the disciples feel then? I’m sure they must have felt very “flat” after their mountain-top experiences, and probably uncertainty and doubts crept in - “ What do we do now?” , “ Why has He left us like this?” . In many ways, these phases in the birth of The Church mirror the phases in the birth and growth of our children. The teenage years are times of much questioning, of moving out from under the sheltering presence of parents, to discover one’s directions and goals in the ‘real’ world - these are the “Why?” years. Then the young adult blossoms, the world is at their feet and they are prepared to take on anything, with courage and determination. Just as parents must hold back in order to release thei...

That's the title of one of the exercises I have to do in the coming weeks in preparation for a career planning seminar. I've done various goal setting and life-style evaluations in other training courses, but "Obituary" has a ring of finality about it. As an old preacher friend advised on sermon structure, "First tell 'em what you're going to tell 'em. Then tell 'em. Then tell 'em what you’ve told them". The progressive life (as in moving forward in a direction) is like that, a beginning, a middle and an end.  Another view is "Plan, Do, Evaluate". In the Christian life, the planning stage is a matter of obedience and seeking God's will personally. In obedience, the doing follows (super)naturally as we are driven and empowered by the Holy Spirit. The evaluation is ultimately the Lord's - will our obituaries include "Well done my good and faithful servant"? ----xxxXxxx---- Rom.11:29 "God's gifts...