Beauty isn’t mentioned very often within churches. Beauty is quite often pushed aside as being superficial, effeminate, fleeting, and purely aesthetic (which it can be).
But if you worship the Creator of heaven and earth, then beauty is inescapable. Christ himself is described as the ‘beautiful one’.
The word ‘glory’ is laced throughout the scriptures and carries with it the notion of the weight of beauty. Whenever the angels declare ‘glory’ to God they are proclaiming the overwhelming density and magnitude of the very source of beauty.
The scriptures go as far as saying that ‘the whole earth is filled with his glory’.
Our planet is chalked full of beauty.
If only we had eyes to see.
Coming soon: The next solarcrash event: broken-beautiful – Join our FB page, with details coming out this week. Let me know if you’d like to contribute.
A couple weeks ago I preached a message working through Van Gogh’s art and the inbreaking of the Kingdom of God. It was a really fun one, partly inspired by this book.
My favorite bit was on Van Gogh’s famous Starry Night painting. Van Gogh was really intentional with his colors using blue for mystery and the infinite, and yellow for divine sacred love.
You can see how he had a real sense of earth being a reflection of heaven. The yellow holy light is laced across the fields and echoed in every little home, except one… the church.
It’s as if to say that hints of the divine are everywhere you look in all creation, but ironically Van Gogh didn’t feel that it was in the church (He was a pastor/missionary before seriously painting).
What do you think? Do you see truth in it today? How might the church regain it’s glow?
If sharing Christ is a matter of communicating information, then Christians are in a lot of trouble.
It still boggles my mind that pastors can spend 30+ hours preparing for to articulate a half hour message each week.
I’m positive that no one wants to die simply knowing a lot of stuff, yet so many of us (Christians in particular) seem to often live as if we do. * Note the amount of money and time we spend on conferences, books, and other information acquiring vehicles.
Chris Anderson argues in his latest book “Free” that the future of business is free with the costs of a vast array of products rapidly declining to zero. In particular he cites how “information wants to be free”. You can get the book free here.
And information is free today. At least any insight that involves connecting to the Living God. The gospel ‘message’ is a google search away from just about anyone in the west. Whether they care to know is a whole different story.
I think what people desire today is formation, not information. Information is the easier option to deliver and receive. It can also easily deceive us into thinking we’re accumulating building-blocks to a stronger faith and life, when we’re not.
Information is a piece of the puzzle, but we’re doing ourselves, and others, a disservice when we’re fire-hosing data.
I often read the Scriptures scriptures and wonder if the people in ancient times had some other type of DNA allowing them to simply hear and believe, or discover and act. Or, maybe those we could respond the same today as well, if we weren’t so inundated with information.
What would your faith gathering look like if it didn’t center around the transmission of information?
Bridging the Gap invited me to do join their syncho-blog today as they’ve gathered over 60 Christ-followers, both gay and straight, to break open conversations on christianity and homosexuality.
The culture wars surrounding the topic of homosexuality have sucked up tremendous resources, have left devastated casualties in their wake, and continue to perpetuate polarization and enmity – most clearly seen in the divide between the Christian community and the gay community. The diversity and divisiveness surrounding gay issues is staggering. Even the above statement needs to be unpacked. The sense of polarization is not simply between the Christian community and the gay community as if both of those communities were completely monolithic and mutually exclusive. Rather, we see fractures within the Christian community and disagreements within the gay community. In the midst of this wasteland are gay Christians – a diverse group of people too – who often find very little safe harbour on either side of the divide.
Several years back I had a series of conversations with a friend of mine who I consider a serious and honest follower of Jesus struggling with his faith and sexual orientation. I’m pretty sure I responded with kindness and tolerance, but that’s just the problem. Tolerance is too low of a bar. I don’t think I had a clue of what conflicting emotions and hurt he was feeling. He needed more than my acceptance and tolerance. I often wish I could go back and offer him the love and embrace that I now know.
Even when we speak of tolerance, it seems like we’re reaching down, beneath us, to accommodate another person. And there are times for that. But I don’t think we in the church, realize just how far down we’ve already pushed the gay community. Christ calls the church to be a community known by our love. We are so far from that today.
My views on homosexuality have continued to evolve over the years. If anything my devotion to Christ has deepened, while my understanding of the human person has widened.
I limited myself to 10 thoughts for starters:
1. I couldn’t care less if there is or isn’t a gay gene
2. We are so much more than our sexual orientation. Sexuality ought not be the primary divider when it comes to faith in Christ.
3. Having said that, pushing homosexuality to the peripheries doesn’t seem to do it justice either. If it is the cause of your oppression, it’ll likely be fairly central to you.
4. I believe there are biblical default modes of life ie. a covenant relationship between a man and a woman, work, children, cultivating life, caring for creation, etc. But does veering off from any of this make you any less human? or sinful?
5. There are some very strong biblical passages warning against ‘unnatural’ behaviors that we need to honestly struggle with, along with the thousands of passages on caring for the poor.
6. Sexuality is not clear cut. For example how do you respond to individuals born intersexual (with both sexual organs)? Could these conflicting physical expressions also be a ‘natural’ expression of something much deeper for them, and many others?
7. Christians often feel righteous and reasonable when they say ‘hate the sin, not the sinner’. But how do you do that when that ’sin’ is so deeply a part of who that person is?
8. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with identification – I do however have a problem with over-identification – whether it’s about your sexuality or your christianity. Identifying with certain labels ought to help us, not reduce our humanity.
9. If we trust that God is sovereign, just, and loving – why does it seem like christians act like he’s not, when we interact with those who are gay?
10. If there is a cultural war between the church and the gay community, we lost the battle ages ago when we abandoned the culture for our traditions.
You can order the Bridging the Gap DVD series here. Check out a diverse array of thoughts from 60 other bloggers on the right column here Follow the twitter hashtag #btgblog
According to Global TV: There’s a Christian reformation stirring in Canada’s Christian churches. Forsaking the traditional pew and altar, these Christians are dropping pop culture references, defying the orthodoxy, and creating their own brands of worship. Suddenly, it’s hip to be holy.
To which I say, really? I can’t honestly say I see a ‘reformation’ happening. Inklings of goodness coming out of the cracks absolutely, but the church still has a long way to go in Canada.
My friend Nathan Gerber will be featured in it, which will definitely make it worth watching. (Revealed: Hip 2B Holy on Global TV Monday May 25 10pm EST, 9pm Central, 8pm Western).
See the video below interviewing director Karen Pinker and Kevin Newman about the show. They sound like tourists who’ve read all the brochures, but haven’t quite lived with the natives yet.
I sure hope it’s not lame. Pray that it’s an honest depiction (beauty and ugliness and all), and that it actually helps move conversations across the nation forward.
Update: Some clips from the show laced with post-production reflections.
Your thoughts on the ‘reformation’ of the Church in Canada?
I don’t know how many times I’ve been in this conversation. I’m in a gathering of largely ‘white’ folk, and the conversation veers over to Jesus being for all nations and multiculturalism…
Someone usually mentions how they believe that every culture has something unique to offer to the body of Christ…
Since I’m avoiding eye contact at this moment, though it’s probably not true, I feel like every eyeball starts honing in on me.
There’s a lot of conversation that needs to happen about multiculturalism and the church and how to go about it all, but before that I’ve had a sense of having to get my own cultural story straight.
I hear lots about the roots of the reformation in Europe, liberation theology out of latin america, the oppression shaped narrative from African American brothers and sisters… but what about them Asians?
What do Asians uniquely bring to the table?
How does being Asian shape your understanding of Christ?
If God is the redemptive creator of all cultures, why’d he make you, what you are? (and yes, I know you’re so much more than your ethnic/cultural heritage)
From people I’ve asked so far… 2 people said “they work hard”, one person said “Good or bad, they have a high regard for authority”… and the Chinese house church movement gets mentioned a lot when people are looking for good news about Christianity…
Two babies are in intensive care, one that will only survive if given a new heart; another with a strong heart, but no chance of survival.
The latter child, Kaylee, was taken off life support, so that her heart could be donated to baby Lillian. Kaylee shocks doctors as she hangs on to life, and according to hospital protocol she can no longer be a candidate for organ donation.
The longer Kaylee stays alive, the less viable her heart becomes for transplant.
Kaylee’s father is quoted as being very upset, not because his child remains alive, but because his daughter’s heart is still good, and their only comfort would be to donate it to baby Lillian who is desperately in need of a new heart.
Besides all the legal and ethical implications of all of this, a few thoughts…
What must it be like, to hope for the death of your own child, so that another might live?
What must it be like to want to give the most precious gift possible (the very heart of your own child), and not be able to do so?
When God and all his angels watched Christ die upon the cross, was there any doubt that life could only come through death?
If this transplant ever does go through, what would it be like for Kaylee’s parents, seeing that other child as they grow up? I imagine some type of deep and special connection, knowing that their dead child’s heart, remains alive beating within another little girl.
Could that be the way God the Father sees us, knowing that a part of his son and his sacrifice, beats within all of us?
After reading “The Back of the Napkin” I’ve been doing more brainstorming and message preparation on my whiteboard. Above was last sunday’s talk on “Wounded Healer”, decipher that…
… the gist centered around Our woundedness, Christ the Wounded Healer, and our calling to be Wounded Healers in the world as well.
Beauty isn’t mentioned very often within churches. Beauty is quite often pushed aside as being superficial, effeminate, fleeting, and purely aesthetic (which it can be).
