pearls or seeds

I just came across a great quote in Eugene Peterson's "The Pastor" and it connected because of something Luke and I have been trying to do lately which is: have dinner together as a family with no TV on. The no TV is the easy bit...having a nice dinner with an almost 3 year old and a 16monther - now that's what's tricky! Last night Luke and Aleksia had a stand off over soup, which led to a complete meltdown from Leksi...anyway, mandarin for dinner never hurt anyone right? Needless to say dinner in our house isn't always a pleasant affair and rarely ever relaxing or containing warm family moments...one day it might though.
Here's the quote:
'Someone asked, "Do you have any pearls of wisdom that you can give us for raising our children?"
Her answer: "Have a family meal every evening."
There are no 'pearls' out there that you can use - no scripture verses to hand out, advice to guide, prayer to tap into. As we live and give witness to Jesus to our children and whoever else, we are handing out seeds, not pearls, and seeds need soil in which to germinate. A meal is soil just like that. It provides a daily relational context in which everything...gets assimilated along with the food and becomes you...Nothing is abstract or in general when you are eating a meal together. You realise, don't you, that Jesus did't drop pearls around Galilee for people as clues to find their way to God...He ate meals with them. And you can do what Jesus did.' 
So cheers to the crazy mealtime. May we have the faith to believe that in the middle of the chaos (read: tears, soup all over people, floor and furniture, cutlery being thrown, and cranky parents) Jesus is here.

What can't we talk about at church?

Recently a church where we have lots of friends did a series on "you can't talk about that in church!". It got me thinking it could be good for us to dig into some sticky subjects sometime too, but I thought I'd ask what people would be keen to hear about/discuss. This is what C3 Thirroul covered:

• Climate Change
• Shame
• Reality of Hell
• I didn't get healed
• Armageddon
• Psychics/Star Signs

Let me know what you think we at Central should talk about.

Parables

I read this the other day and thought it was simply wonderful:

“..parables are like windows through which we see into the heart of God. Yet sometimes, when you gaze through a window, there is a moment when you catch the reflection of your face.”

(from William Willimon's book "Why Jesus?")

Grab your Bible, flick to the gospels and choose a parable through which to catch a glimpse of yourself and God.

More Hafiz

Tripping over Joy

What is the difference
Between your experience of Existence
And that of a saint?

The saint knows
That the spiritual path
Is a sublime chess game with God

And that the Beloved
Has just made such a Fantastic Move

that the saint is now continually
Tripping over Joy
And bursting out in Laughter
And saying, "I Surrender!"

Whereas, my dear,
I'm afraid you still think

You have a thousand serious moves.

Hafiz

Pulling out the chair

Pulling out the chair
Beneath your mind
And watching you fall upon God –

What else is there
For Hafiz to do
That is any fun in this world!

Hafiz

Poetry to think and laugh about

I've been reading a bit of poetry by this quirky ancient Persian man called Hafiz. His writing makes me think about the joy and fullness of God, and it makes me want to celebrate always the wonders of life. Here's one about God:

Love wants to reach out and manhandle us,
Break all our teacup talk of God.

If you had the courage and could give the Beloved His choice,
Some nights He would just drag you around the room by your hair,
Ripping from your grip all those toys in the world
That bring you no joy.

Love sometimes gets tired of speaking sweetly
And wants to rip to shreds all your erroneous notions of truth
That make you fight within yourself, dear one,
And with others,
Causing the world to weep on too many fine days.

God wants to manhandle us,
Lock us up in a tiny room with Himself
And practice His dropkick.
The Beloved sometimes wants to do us a great favor:
Hold us upside down and shake all the nonsense out.

But when we hear He is in such a "playful drunken mood"
Most everyone I know quickly packs their bags
And hightails it out of town.

Hafiz

Transformation

Our vision and goal this year at Central is to be people who are being transformed by God. One of the most amazing things about God is that He loves us in our mess and brokenness and sin. One of the other incredibly amazing things is that His power is at work within us so that we don't have to stay living in our mess and brokenness and sin.

So why is it that so many Christians are no different to those around them that don't follow God. We claim to have relationship with the good and powerful creator of the universe but we're still just as anxious, fearful, proud, annoying, angry and consumed by obtaining more money, possessions and popularity as the next person. Something is wrong with that!

Jesus didn't come into this world to usher in a Kingdom that is no different to the kingdoms of this world. He didn't come so that we could stay trapped by our mess and broken by this world.He didn't come so that we as his followers would continue to maintain the status quo of a messed up world.

He came to set us free from the prison of our fears, anxiety and pride, to heal our sickness and brokenness, He came to give sight to the blind - and that also means that we could have eyes to see through the shallow and meaningless allure of all that this world has to offer. He came to pour out God's goodness into people so that they in turn could minister God's goodness to others.

So why are we often not that different?

Is it possible for us to thwart, reject, undermine God's transforming power in our lives?

Maybe...

Maybe we are ignorant and don't realise God can do all He promises that He can.

Maybe we are lazy and don't ask God to transform us.

Maybe we think we're fine just the way we are.

Maybe some of us are spending too much time praying for a supernatural miracle and not enough time practicing self-control...

Maybe others of us are striving too hard for perfection and have forgotten that it's not by might or power but by the Spirit of God...

Maybe we've prayed and tried but nothing seemed to happen so we gave up.

Maybe too many of us embrace the excuse that 'this is just the way I am...I was born this way, raised this way, I can't help it...'

Whatever our excuses I passionately believe that God can transform us, I believe He wants to see us free. I believe that God's transforming power gives us a taste here on earth of what heaven is like, where there is no pain, no tears, no grief and where God's peace, joy and love pervades every living thing.

And frankly...who wouldn't want that?

Lent

This year for Lent at Central we've decided to do something different. Traditionally Lent is a time of fasting leading up to Easter. The Catholics fast meat (and eggs and dairy if they're really keen), I've known people to fast cups of tea, facebook, dessert.... Instead of fasting something we are going to add something to our lives that is going to draw us closer to Jesus. If we're honest, many of us would admit that we have a somewhat lazy Christianity. We know what we should do - pray, read the Bible, be generous, encourage, forgive etc but we get apathetic in actually doing these things. So to kick start some freshness into our spirituality we're going to fast our laziness and do one particular thing every day of Lent. Some people are committing to praying for 10 minutes every day, some are considering giving away $5 every day of Lent, someone else is going to try and bring Jesus into one conversation every day, another person is going to say something nice to her husband every day.

My prayer and hope is that as we do this we will experience God's transforming power at work within us which will lead us into a rich and meaningful celebration of Easter this year marked by an overwhelming gratitude to Jesus.

As a bonus I reckon we'll also discover that being faithful to practicing what we believe will transform us and our opinion of the people and circumstances around us.