In Christianity spiritual growth is not meant to be a solo endeavour – though there have definitely been times I wish it was because people are hard to love and I can be heard to live with!
It’s been a little while since I did a podcast but I have a few great new ones lined up so hit subscribe if you’ve not already done so. Ness is a great friend so full of wisdom I always enjoy meeting with her and I think that comes across as we talk. I’m so excited that she will be joining us again at LAUNCH this year, I made the mistake one year of not having her Keynote and trying to have her do a seminar instead and so many tried to cram in there I’ll not make the same mistake again this year! Book here now before the early bird misses the worm! Listen to the podcast here – or on your favourite streaming platform search for Future Church with Anthony Delaney
The poor, the lost, the hurting, and the broken are not problems to be solved or burdens to be borne; they are gifts to us, because they help us experience God’s grace afresh as we meet Jesus in their faces
The commission was directly given to the apostles but indirectly given to the ecclesia in every generation. After the early apostles died, the commission remained – and so does the authority, until it is fulfilled it will remain in force.
So they had a commission and were sent to fulfil it. In their generation the church grew like crazy and changed everything, everywhere. We have the same commission and we are sent to do it. That’s the key, they went, because they were sent. That’s an apostolic church.
As I stood there on Tuesday praying in the waters of the Jordan where He was baptised I reflected that Jesus did not just drop down some divine dictat from the safety of heaven for us to try to follow. He chose to come into the midst of the mess in the Middle East as the Prince of Peace by revealing himself as the friend of sinners, the one John the Baptist saw is ‘the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.’ God got his feet wet in the Jordan. God got his hands dirty. He is the answer.
Benedict rose to the challenge (calling others who would awake to it also) of another way than that offered by the Church of his day – creating alternate counterculture learning communities to live simply, biblically and faithfully. He didn’t set out to change the world and had no idea how important these little groups of faithful, obedient disciples would prove to be for generations to come. What might such ‘apostolic hubs’ look like in our day?
You may know already I’m on sabbatical and you’re thinking, ‘Why’s he going meeting with people?’ but I had a dream just the other week where pretty clearly God was telling me I needed to go and connect with Ken Gott, and I know he likes quick obedience – so we did it.
For years, decades, I said to myself ‘I’m too young, nobody will want to learn from me.’ Now it won’t be long before the lie becomes ‘I’m too old, nobody wants to listen to me!’
We must talk about eternity, but just about eternity – here are the REAL questions of life people are asking.