Mar 30, 2021 | Care Conversations
10. Correlation and Alignment
The most common issue expressed by those who walk away from faith and/or faith communities is the lack of cohesion between experiences and observations and the seeming inability of a Christian faith to address those issues.
Parents and educators must commit to continued conversation. If conversations do not take place with a seven-year-old, they are not likely to begin with a fourteen-year-old.
We must spend time helping young hearts and minds to find faith and experience alignment with the issues of life.
Thoughtful questioning is an essential initiative for adults. There needs to be a personal engagement and connection. We need to be like Paul who says,
“…we were ready to share with you not only the gospel of God but also our own selves…”[1]
We need to share how we came to know Christ and be known by Him. We can then ask: Where are you in your journey of faith?
We need to be wary triumphalism and talk about the times when a miracle didn’t happen for us, or prayer was not answered in the way we desired in our life[2]
We can then ask: When have you been disappointed?
We can talk about times when we possibly misunderstood God’s leading; when maybe we thought one thing, then realised it was different
We can then ask: “When have you been surprised?”
We need to reflect upon times when we did something wrong and we thought we were disqualified from being used by God
We can then ask: “Has there been a time or situation where you feel that you let God down and thought He would be disappointed with you?”
Real, vulnerable, but strong conversations help our young people to be honest and seek solutions to the alignment of faith and experience.
Blessings
Brian
[1] 1 Thessalonians 2:8
[2] 2 Corinthians 12:7-9
Mar 30, 2021 | Wens Pen
Hello Everyone
The ultimate love story. Everyone loves a love story and we humans happen to feature in the greatest love story of the ages. God has drawn the shape of His love-heart around us, inviting us into the ultimate love story. 1 John 4:9-10.
The love of God for humanity truly is the ultimate love story. God’s love for us is like a King-sized accent upon humanity; a cosmic punctuation mark that sends a message around the universe that we are the object of His affections, the treasure of His heart, and the lover of our souls. In the ultimate love story, our Maker strides towards us, leans in every day, gazes into the eyes of our humanity and kisses our souls with an eternal kiss, reminding us we belong to Him. His love is a lifelong, unbounded, timeless love that dances us through life (in the good and the difficult) and into eternity. His love is unreserved. He never breaks His gaze. He speaks every love language. His love permeates every nook and cranny of life and we get to bask in the sunlight of His love forever. He has placed His unbreakable seal of love over our hearts as the guarantee of His unrivalled pledge of love.
As we read the ultimate love story in the Scripture, we see this majestic King of heaven, who loved us so greatly, He left His throne to search for His beloved and subjected Himself to unthinkable suffering and shame to find and claim His bride. From a human perspective, the love of God is truly unimaginable. It is inexplicable. Yet it is unmistakable, irrefutable, infinite, and irresistible. Even in our corrupt, broken, and offensive, fallen state, God chose us to be His precious, beautiful bride and placed the eternal ring of love upon the finger of humanity, binding us to Himself forever. We don’t have to jostle for His love. We don’t have to be perfect. We don’t need to prove our worth. We don’t need pretence. We don’t need to compete for His love. Nothing can or will eclipse His love. He will never faulter. We are irreplaceable to Him. We are breathtaking to Him and He literally moved heaven and earth to mount His redemptive campaign to make sure we know that we are unconditionally loved, accepted, and held securely in His grand embrace. Now, that’s the ultimate love story.
So, friends, get your “love story” on today.
Best days to come.
Wen
Mar 23, 2021 | Wens Pen
Hello Everyone
The precious promise box of God. A special part of our childhood growing up was our Mother’s ‘precious promise box’. It was a small box containing a collection of Bible verses, printed on small scrolls of paper, that all fitted snugly together into the promise box, each bearing a promise of God. Every day we would use the little tweezer-like implement to select a scroll and we would read out the promise together. This little compendium of treasure was like picking out a piece of gold that would make us rich for the day.
God’s Word is full of His promises; promises that are precious as we encounter life. As the grand designer of all things, God has sewn every person of faith into His grand patchwork of life. He has joined the pieces of life together with His promises and embroidered them upon His creatures as ornamental expressions of His faithfulness and goodness. There are thousands of God’s promises. Think about that. Thousands of promises, each bearing the signature of the Promise Maker. Knowing God’s promises are for us is one thing, but knowing they flow out of His character makes them a certain thing. As the expression of who He is, God’s promises give us the assurance that no matter what things we face in life, God will pin his promises on us at every turn. The precious promise box of God is His ‘yes and amen’ (2 Corinthians 1:20); His guarantee that as sure as reality hits, so do His promises. For example, just to name a few. When anxiety hits, the promise of His transcendent peace infiltrates our troubled thoughts. Philippians 4:6-7. When there are times of loneliness, the promise of His presence will be intimately ours. Isaiah 41:10. When fear hits us, the promise of His perfect love will banish fear. When we feel broken, God promises to bind up our gaping wounds. Psalm 147:3. When we feel overwhelmed, God promises to lift the weight off our shoulders. Matthew 11:28-30. When we grieve, God promises to comfort us. 2 Corinthians 1:3-4. When we are tired, God promises His rest. Matthew 11:28. When we feel lost, God promises to locate us. Luke15:4-7. When we feel unknown and our voice feels silenced, God promises to hear us. John 10. When we scan the horizons of our lives and feel the pinch of the temporal, God promises us the eternal. 1John 2:17. The precious promise box of God contains endless promises.
With the thousands of promises at our disposal, why not go to the treasury of God’s precious promise box, begin to explore the jewels in His treasure chest and when the enemy wants to strip us bare and leave us bankrupt, the jewels we discover in God’s precious promise boxwill keep us rich and become a valuable, ongoing reserve. Always remember we don’t just read about God’s promises, we are the recipients of God’s promises. So, what is one precious promise of God that is, or has been a jewel in your life? Take that promise, write it on a little scroll, place it in your own little promise box and be assured that God will be faithful to you, not only with that one promise but with all His promises as you continue to open God’s precious promise box.
So, friends, get your “promise” on today.
Best days to come.
Wen
Mar 23, 2021 | Care Conversations
A Deepening and More Mature Understanding
The Bible does not encourage us to have a child-like faith. Rather Jesus suggests that faith is to be seen as a gift and we are to receive that gift as a child might. That suggests gratitude, openness, humility, delight, and unrestrained joy.
Those who suggest that children simply accept everything, without question, probably don’t know children very well! One of my greatest fears is spending time with a Kindergarten or Year One class – because their questions are unending and seemingly unrelated, and I don’t know how to handle that!
So, the Bible’s call to accept faith like a child, certainly does not mean we are to have a childish and immature faith.[1]
I have seen immature belief causing a faith shipwreck on many occasions. One of the common scenarios is that we teach our children that God loves them. The experience of a child is that one who loves, does not allow us to be harmed or to suffer.
By the time a child reaches the age of 10 or 11, the likelihood of family sickness or sadness occurs. Maybe a grandparent is diagnosed with a painful cancer and the child struggles with how this can fit the perspective of a loving God who cares.
Often these difficult situations do not seem to allow space for us to process these occurrences with our children. They are left in their immature thinking which is deeply unsatisfying to them. They need help to see God’s plan, grace, and mercy in all aspects of life.
Blessings
Brian
[1] 1 Corinthians 14:20; Hebrews 15:12-13; Hebrews 6:1-3
Mar 23, 2021 | Teachers Talking
Talk 5: God’s Impossible People
“From barbarism to civilisation requires a century, from civilisation to barbarism needs but a day” (Colson & Pearcey, 2004, p. 19).
Just as the Jews in exile cried out may centuries ago “How can we sing the songs of the Lord in a foreign land?” (Ps 137:4) so the same questions come to us ‘How shall we live out God’s story?’ in our unique historical and cultural time.
Greg Sheridan in his book God is Good for You (2018), says that if Christians are to be successful in sharing the Gospel then there must be boldness in the unambiguous declaration of core beliefs and in practice a cultural coherence which is humanly intelligible and contains an element of beauty.
A story is told of Pompey, the great Roman General who on entering Jerusalem (1st Century BC) insisted on entering the sacred, inner chamber of the Jewish synagogue to see the Jewish god. Of course, he found nothing. Like the Holy of Holies in Solomon’s temple before it, there was no graven image of God. Pompey was infuriated with disbelief as he had no idol to put in his Roman pantheon. What was not representable was not able to be assimilated. “The God of the Jews was an utterly impossible God” (Guinness & Seel, 1992, p. 206) and intolerable to Pompey. As the grandeur of Imperial Rome collapsed, in came the impossible followers of this impossible God.
Our relationship with this impossible God who is our Creator and Redeemer means He alone is worthy of our worship and whole-hearted allegiance. His truth critiques all other worldviews – beliefs, traditions, opinions, and loyalties. For the Christian faith is a total life-system as it enables us to make sense of who we are and the world we live in.
What does this mean for Christian teachers as they fulfil their educational task in this generation? As God’s chosen children, we are to submit to the Lordship of Jesus and follow His way. The reality is that God has given us His Spirit so that we can participate in Jesus’ sovereign and saving rule over the world: his recreation project. This is the solid rock on which the mission of Christian education is built. Having been called and equipped, we must speak about truth to a generation for whom this claim is automatically dismissed and put in the shredder of deconstruction. In this context we feel the pressure of the social dualism of Biblical truth against our dominant culture where the curriculum tells the story of a closed universe.
We need to deeply immerse ourselves in the Biblical story as the authority for living. The Scriptures must be brought back from the margins to be re-established at the centre as the text for living life well and implementing the educational task.
As teachers, we need to prepare our teaching and learning content in a way that engages our students’ contemporary culture and their hearts and minds in Scriptural truth. This requires us to immerse ourselves in the study of God’s Word and professional learning that equips us to live out a Biblical worldview that contends for faith in every area of life.
This exploration of truth and the gaining of wisdom will change our students’ lives but it is a journey for the long haul.
For true wisdom, the capacity to live well is to have true knowledge of God and His world and how to live in this reality “To be wise is to know reality and then accommodate yourself to it” (Colson & Pearcey, 2004, p. 16).
Our modern global world is not so much divided by geographical boundaries but by people’s deeply held religious and cultural beliefs as expressed in their worldviews. The study of history reveals to us the dominant belief systems as they have ebbed and flowed through the ages.
The very process of designing learning for others that flows from one’s deeply held Biblical beliefs is indeed a picture of redemption at work. When God’s truth informs the mind, inspires the imagination, and moves the heart it brings cultural renewal.
We must recover our calling to redeem minds as an act of discipleship where our students can be equipped with the Word of God to participate in the great cosmic struggle between conflicting worldviews.
Let’s be God’s Impossible People.
“The unfolding of your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple.” (Psalm 119:130)
Grace and Peace
The Team
The Excellence Centre
References
- Colson, C. & Pearcey, N. (2004). How Now Shall We Live? Tyndale Publishing House
- Sheridan, G. (2018). God is good for you. Allen & Unwin
- Guinness, O. & Seel, J. (1992). No God but God – Breaking with the Idols of Our Age. Moody Publishers
