Theology at FutureChurch
So turns out I have a few other blogs - one of which is FutureChurch, where I blog about the future of the church in South Africa. I tend to write my theological reflections there - and more about what is happening at Pangani and NieuCommunities here. This last week I've got some posts out of my system...
While talking about what church could be during our book discussion yesterday, and where Christians would go for community if they left the institutional church, this post was written: Resisting assimilation into the Borg: the future of the church. I'm not really a Star Trek fan, but I thought the tongue-in-cheek metaphor was a not-so-serious fit!
On Tuesday we were looking at the first four books of the New Testament and it reminded me of the first century scholar - N.T. Wright's - research on the Gospel (or "Good News") which the first Christians proclaimed (and why it got them killed by Rome) - "Jesus is Lord and Caesar is not."
I've also recently concluded my series on Easter by looking at Jesus's resurrection on Easter Sunday - and why the Christian hope is that what G-d did with Jesus on that day he will eventually do with all of creation. Earlier posts in that series on are on Good Friday - the death of G-d by G-d - and Holy Saturday - whether following Jesus is worth it.
The last post in my recent return to blogging is on a podcast from the parent organisation of NieuCommunities: CRM. They had a discussion on the shift happening within the church today - away from attractional church and towards missional church.
While talking about what church could be during our book discussion yesterday, and where Christians would go for community if they left the institutional church, this post was written: Resisting assimilation into the Borg: the future of the church. I'm not really a Star Trek fan, but I thought the tongue-in-cheek metaphor was a not-so-serious fit!
On Tuesday we were looking at the first four books of the New Testament and it reminded me of the first century scholar - N.T. Wright's - research on the Gospel (or "Good News") which the first Christians proclaimed (and why it got them killed by Rome) - "Jesus is Lord and Caesar is not."
I've also recently concluded my series on Easter by looking at Jesus's resurrection on Easter Sunday - and why the Christian hope is that what G-d did with Jesus on that day he will eventually do with all of creation. Earlier posts in that series on are on Good Friday - the death of G-d by G-d - and Holy Saturday - whether following Jesus is worth it.
The last post in my recent return to blogging is on a podcast from the parent organisation of NieuCommunities: CRM. They had a discussion on the shift happening within the church today - away from attractional church and towards missional church.
BTW on the whole missional vs attractional thing, in conversation with missional church guys in the States recently they encouraged me to consider where I might still be able to use an attractional model for people with a bit of 'churchy' hangover (i.e. those people who would still darken the door of church even though they have no personal kind of relationship with God and his people). I think SA might still have a significant number of people in that bracket and so I'd like to see missional and attractional living side by side. For me the thing that needs to be worked hardest on is the concept of community. So whether you go for attractional or missional you need to aim for authentic community - now I know missional lends itself more to that but I don't think its impossible in the attractional model - in fact I saw it at work in the States.
Anyway keep up the theological reflections.
Ja, the missional vs attractional thing: I guess we have a danger of polarising those and making one "good" and the other "bad" and then forcing a particular expression of church into one of those moulds without asking the question, "What would be appropriate here?"
And I agree - authentic community can work itself out in either context. I'd like to see more work done on partnerships between traditional attractional church and small expressions of missional church. Like the Church of England's recent decision to encourage fresh forms of church expressions within their own structure - and allow those expressions to take whatever form they want to.
I hope this works out within the South African church structures too!
As far as I know it is normally the Jews who write it that way. (Something to do with the word God being too holy...)
Are you now part of an extremist cult, or are you going Jewish? (Sort of like Jesus being a bit misunderstood - xref "The Life of Brian")
You're quite right: writing "God" as "G-d" is also a Jewish concept, for we know that the Jewish name for G-d is YWHW. We don't know what the letters in between are, so we guess that it's "Yahweh", but it's interesting to note that even in this revelation of His own name, there is mystery and concealment.
The theological name for this is the Tetragrammaton. Writing G-d simply reminds me that G-d is bigger than my previous experience of Him, my ideas of Him, my expectations and what other people say about Him.
That is both scary...and comforting!
I enjoyed this post and the links (also the spelling of G-D)! Shalom my friend.