Living Spirituality: Books

Friday, July 4, 2008

From Coleridge Coeli Enarrant, (1830?).

The stars that wont to start, as on a chace,
Mid twinkling insult on Heaven's darken'd face,
Like a conven'd conspiracy of spies
Wink at each other with confiding eyes!

Turn from the portent -- all is blank on high,

No constellations alphabet the sky:
The Heavens one large Black Letter only shew,
And as a child beneath its master's blow
Shrills out at once its task and its affright --

The groaning world now learns to read aright,
And with its Voice of Voices cries out, O!

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

The Living Church - Chapter 8

This is the last chapter of John Stott’s excellent new book: The Living Church. Stott is a writer, pastor, and teacher who is well worth reading. Next week I’ll post his Conclusion.

What impact will Christianity have in today’s pluralistic culture and how will it fare? The terms salt and light are prominent in Matthew 5:13-16:

13 You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled by men.
14 You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. 15 Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. 16 In the same way, let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.

Stott builds off this passage and highlights the relevance of the metaphors salt and light for the living church.

First, Christians are and should be ‘radically’ different from non-Christians. Be holy, as God is holy.

Second, Christians are to be involved in the world. Salt is to be seen as an active agent to preserve the truth in a world that has rejected God. Light is to be tasted as it shines in the darkness of the world, which has gone its own way.

Third, Christians can possibly bring change to the world. Salt and light make a difference to the environments they enter. Social evils are to be addressed and confronted and Christians have a role and responsibility in this formidable task. As we await the final redemption of societies and the world we are to have an impact for Gods’ love and justice. Question: Where is the salt and light today and do see and taste them in your context? Christians, says Stott, have six ways of contributing to social change.

1) prayer

2) mission

3) example

4) argument

5) action

6) suffering

Question: Can you think of others?

Fourth, Christians are to hold on to Christian convictions. Salt must continue to remain salt and light must continue to shine in the darkness. Being salt and light refers to a greater righteousness, a broader love, and the ambition of following God’s rule. ‘So let us offer ourselves to God as agents of change.’

Friday, June 27, 2008

From Coleridge Humility the Mother of Charity, (1830?).

Frail creatures are we all! To be the best,
Is but the fewest faults to have: --
Look thou then to thyself, and leave the rest
To God, thy conscience, and the grave.

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

The Living Church - Chapter 7

In the next few weeks I’ll be posting on John Stott’s excellent new book: The Living Church. Stott is a writer, pastor, and teacher who is well worth reading.

This chapter brings Stott’s to a crucial, yet often ignored dimension of church: giving. The apostle Paul, in 2 Corinthians, saw giving as an extention of having received grace. Stott draws out ten principles from this letter at chapters 8&9.

First, Christians are to give as an expression of God’s grace. Paul starts with the generousity of God and goes from there. The Macedonian Christians gave themselves to Christ and then to the apostles; they gave as they were able and even beyond what they could afford.

Question: Where is this happening in the Western church today and do you see any signs of this attitude?

Second, Christian giving can be a gift of the Spirit. All Christians, says Stott, are called to be generous, but some may have the special grace of giving to others.

Third, Christian giving is connected to the cross. As Christ gave so much so that we might be rich, in turn giving to others is a reflection on the cross.

Fourth, Christian giving is to be proportionate giving, while at particular time as in the case of the Macedonians, it may go beyond that. The norm, however, Stott underlines, is to be proportionate giving.

Fifth, Christian giving is a move towards equality. Affluence and need meet on the cross. Stott quickly points out that this equality is not sameness, but embraces creational relation and distinction.

Sixth, Christian giving is to be supervised and 2 Corinthians 8: 16-24 is a good example of this. We need to be accountable here and to take care of giving and receiving in a propwer manner before the Lord.

Seventh, Christian giving may be stimulated by noting the generousity of others. To know that our brothers and sisters are committed to giving money for people and projects can be an encouragement to give ourselves.

Eighth, Christian giving is like a harvest in 2 Corinthians 9:6-11a. Sowing and reaping are two metaphors that Paul uses. In giving generously with a joyful heart we will reap God’s grace to meet our needs so that we might continue in sowing (giving).

Ninth, Christian giving is of symbolic importance. It expresses solidarity with others and has theological (a commitment to God’s salvation in the gospel) and economic (an effort to improve the lives of those in need) dimensions.

Tenth, Christian giving promotes being thankful to God. Paul stresses four times in 2 Corinthians 9: 11b-15 that the Corinthians’ giving will give rise to thanks to God.

‘What an awesome privilege we have in helping others right across the world to give glory to God.

Releasing more of the money which he has entrusted to us as stewards will end in this. And to increase thanksgiving to God for the sake of his own glory is surely our highest goal.’ p. 136.

Question: Would you agree with Stott?

Friday, June 20, 2008

From Coleridge To William Wordsworth, 1807 (60-74)

Ah ! as I listened with a heart forlorn,
The pulses of my being beat anew :
And even as Life returns upon the drowned,
Life's joy rekindling roused a throng of pains--
Keen pangs of Love, awakening as a babe
Turbulent, with an outcry in the heart ;
And Fears self-willed, that shunned the eye of Hope ;
And Hope that scarce would know itself from Fear ;
Sense of past Youth, and Manhood come in vain,
And Genius given, and Knowledge won in vain ;
And all which I had culled in wood-walks wild,
And all which patient toil had reared, and all,
Commune with thee had opened out--but flowers
Strewed on my corse (corpse), and borne upon my bier,
In the same coffin, for the self-same grave !

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

The Living Church - Chapter 6

In the next few weeks I’ll be posting on John Stott’s excellent new book: The Living Church. Stott is a writer, pastor, and teacher who is well worth reading.

This chapter deals with preaching. Preaching, says Stott, is not considered to be ‘in’ today, but he still wants to encourage it as essential to the living church. He proposes a number of characteristics of ‘authentic’ Christian preaching that complement each other and that should be held in tension.

First, authentic Christian preaching is biblical and contemporary. This is shaped by an exposition of Scripture that resonates with today’s world. We need to listen to both. Be careful here, says Stott, not to make a false polarization between being biblical and contemporary. This is one of the great liberal – evangelical divides.

Second, authentic Christian preaching is authoritative and tentative. Good hermeneutical work and a central focus on Scripture are necessary – Scripture says, not I say – while at the same time it is essential to admit and embrace that God has not revealed everything. Not all in Scripture is equally clear or made known. I would call what Stott is aiming for: confidence and humility. Good preaching should lead people into the Scripture so that they learn to read and live it for themselves.

Third, authentic Christian preaching is prophetic and pastoral. Everyone in church is to be both of these. Prophetic in giving testimony to God’s word in the midst of those who may be deaf and pastoral in helping them to hear. Being firm and gentle, says Stott, is the tension.

Fourth, authentic Christian preaching needs a preacher. Who? One who is ‘called, equipped and anointed by God.’ And these three have to be built up and nourished through study and prayer.

Fifth, authentic Christian preaching is thoughtful and passionate. Both mind and emotions are to be involved. Exposition and appeal are traits of good preaching.

Authentic Christian preaching is to be found in these five ‘unresolved paradoxes.’

Friday, June 13, 2008

From Wordsworth The Prelude 1805, Book II (255-276).

In one beloved presence, nay and more,
In that most apperehensive habitude
And those sensations which have been deriv’d
From this beloved Presence, there exists
A virtue which irradiates and exalts
All objects through all intercourse of sense.
No outcast he, bewilder’d and depressed;
Along his infant veins are interfus’d
The gravitation and the filial bond
Of nature, that connect him with the world.
Emphatically such a Being lives,
An inmate of this active universe;
From nature largely he receives; nor so
Is satisfied, but largely gives again,
For feeling has to him imparted strength,
And powerful in all sentiments of grief,
Of exultation, fear, and joy, his mind,
Even as an agent of the one great mind,
Creates, creator and receiver both,
Working but in alliance with the works
Which it beholds.―Such, verily, is the first
Poetic spirit of our human life…..

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

The Living Church - Chapter 5

In the next few weeks I’ll be posting on John Stott’s excellent new book: The Living Church. Stott is a writer, pastor, and teacher who is well worth reading.

Fellowship is a term that is overused, yet misunderstood. Taking fellowship as much more than a pleasant tea-time together, a re-definition is appearing today. Stott underlines that there are biblical (people are not to be alone), historical, (small groups can have an impact), and pastoral (all Christians are to be involved in caring for others) reasons for this development.

Koinonia – fellowship is something shared in common. There are three things that are shared.

First, koinonia is not a feeling of togetherness. Stott says it is an ‘objective fact expressing what we share together.’ We have received grace from the same God, Lord, and the same Spirit. We participate in community with God and have a ‘common inheritance.’

Second, koinonia is not only receiving, but giving. Grace is to be passed on to others.

Third, koinonia is a ‘partnership’ of giving and receiving love. Questions: Do we really love one another and does it show? Have you been loved by the church and seen the impact and expression of koinonia?

Friday, June 6, 2008

From Wordsworth's Tintern Abbey, 1798, (75-91).

… I cannot paint
What then I was. The sounding cataract
Haunted me like a passion; the tall rock,
The mountain, and the deep and gloomy wood,
Their colours and their forms, were then to me
An appetitie; a feeling and a love,
That hath no need of remoter charm,
By thought supplies, nor any interest
Unborrowed from the eye. – That time is past,
And all its aching joys are no more,
And all its dizzy raptures. Not for this
Faint I, no mourn nor murmur; other gifts
Have followed; for such loss, I would believe,
Abundant recompense. For I have learned
To look on nature, not as in the hour
Of thoughtless youth; but hearing oftentimes
The still, sad music of humanity …

Tuesday, June 3, 2008

The Living Church - Chapter 4

In the next few weeks I’ll be posting on John Stott’s excellent new book: The Living Church. Stott is a writer, pastor, and teacher who is well worth reading.

Stott’s next chapter is on ministry. He looks to Luke’s narrative in Acts and highlights the Holy Spirit and the work of Satan (see Acts 5). The latter he says is out to persecute, corrupt, and distract. Stott draws our attention to Acts 6:1-7 to focus on the tactic of distraction:

1 In those days when the number of disciples was increasing, the Grecian Jews among them complained against the Hebraic Jews because their widows were being overlooked in the daily distribution of food. 2 So the Twelve gathered all the disciples together and said, "It would not be right for us to neglect the ministry of the word of God in order to wait on tables. 3 Brothers, choose seven men from among you who are known to be full of the Spirit and wisdom. We will turn this responsibility over to them 4 and will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word."
5 This proposal pleased the whole group. They chose Stephen, a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit; also Philip, Procorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and Nicolas from Antioch, a convert to Judaism. 6 They presented these men to the apostles, who prayed and laid their hands on them.
7 So the word of God spread. The number of disciples in Jerusalem increased rapidly, and a large number of priests became obedient to the faith.

The point Stott wants to make here is that there are different ministries for different people in the church. No one should or can do everything, and this is crucial, because all Christians are called to a variety of ministries.

After having made this important point, Stott turns to explore the pastoral ministry. We have either elevated or regulated pastors, and both these orientations create problems. Pastors are to have oversight in teaching and participate in shared leadership. Those who pastor are to value people, deeply care for them, and show them increasing love as they are part of God’s church, not the pastor’s.

Friday, May 30, 2008

From Wordsworth The Prelude 1805, Book XIII, (52-65).

Meanwhile, the Moon look’d down upon this shew
In single glory, and we stood, the mist
Touching our very feet; and from the shore
At a distance not the third part of a mile
Was a blue chasm; a fracture in the vapour,
A deep and gloomy breathing-place through which
Mounted the roar of waters, torrents, streams
Innumerable, roaring with one voice.
The universal spectacle throughout
Was shaped for admiration and delight,
Grand in itself alone, but in that breach
Through dark deep thoroughfare had Nature lodg’d
The Soul, the Imagination of the whole.

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

The Living Church - Chapter 3

In the next few weeks I’ll be posting on John Stott’s excellent new book: The Living Church. Stott is a writer, pastor, and teacher who is well worth reading.

This chapter is on Evangelism. Stott points out three types of evangelism: personal, mass, and local church, which he sees as the most ‘normal, natural, and productive.’ In order for the local church to follow through on its task it has to meet four conditions:

First, the church must understand itself. Stott begins with theology. Church today has two false images: a religious club that is status orientated and ingrown or a secular mission. Stott prefers a third option: a church that is called out of the world and sent back into it. He refers to this as a God given double identity.

Second, the church must organize itself. Structure must reflect theology and the double identity. There is plenty more here for the interested reader. Good stuff!

Third, the church must express itself. This is to be done through sharing the evangel, ‘the essence of the gospel is Jesus Christ himself.’ Stott see two poles to avoid in our day of pluralism. ‘Total fixity’ where the gospel is packaged like cheap soap, or ‘total fluidity’ when situations and contexts take control of the message. There is a place for preservation and being aware of the need to contextualize, but they must be in dialogue with each other and not opposed.

Fourth, the church must be itself. The church is, Stott notes, ‘God’s new society.’ The challenge is to live like it and to be a sign of the inbreaking Kingdom of God. Church is to make the invisible God visible through acts of transformed love.

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

The Living Church - Chapter 2

In the next few weeks I’ll be posting on John Stott’s excellent new book: The Living Church. Stott is a writer, pastor, and teacher who is well worth reading.

Stott now takes up worship. This, he says, is the church’s primary obligation. But what is worship? Four points:

First, true worship is a ‘response to revelation.’ Public Scripture reading and study therefore are central to worship.

Second, true worship is in community. Granted, there is a place for individual worship, but the biblical focus is most often on the corporate.

Third, true worship is ‘spiritual worship’ and spiritual worship is connected to Scripture, the Eucharist, and praise and prayer.

Fourth, true worship is moral. Living Christ like lives both in our hearts and relations is to practice holiness.

Friday, May 16, 2008

From Wordsworth The Prelude 1805, Book XI, (258-265).

There are in our existence spots of time,
Which with distinct pre-eminence retain
A vivifying virtue, whence, depressed
By false opinion and contentious thought,
Or ought of heavier or more deadly weight,
In trivial occupations, and the round
Of ordinary intercourse, our minds
Are nourished and invisibly repaired

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

The Living Church - Chapter 1

In the next few weeks I’ll be posting on John Stott’s excellent new book: The Living Church. Stott is a writer, pastor, and teacher who is well worth reading.

This chapter sets out what Stott calls God’s vision for the church. Question: What would you see as necessary marks or traits of God’s church? Stott is a person who is about church through and through. His vocabulary for the church is ‘God’s new community.’ Stott argues that all believers should be committed to church, its mission, and its renewal because God is committed to these. Each of the three are essential.

But what is a living church and God’s vision of church? Stott offers us a picture from Acts 2:42-47:

42 They devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. 43 Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. 44 All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45 Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. 46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

‘The early church,’ Stott states, ‘was radically stirred by the Holy Spirit.’ In following Luke’s recounting we notice four marks of this Pentecost event, which will help us in shaping the church today.

First, a living church is a learning church. ‘Devoted to the apostolic teaching,’ according to Stott, didn’t mean that people left their intellects behind in exchange for a mystical experience or that because the Holy Spirit had arrived they no longer needed a teacher. True, says Stott, the New Testament apostles are no longer with us, but we do have in the New Testament their teaching and witness.

Second, a living church is a caring church. ‘Fellowship’ is to be taken seriously and we’re to make a difference in extending generosity wherever possible.

Third, a living church is a worshipping church. Joy and reverence are to be combined in a mixture of both formal and informal structures.

Fourth, a living church is an evangelistic church. Mission and outreach are to identify the people of God.

Friday, May 9, 2008

The Living Church – Introduction

In the next few weeks I’ll be posting on John Stott’s excellent new book: The Living Church. Stott is a writer, pastor, and teacher who is well worth reading.

Stott begins his account with a Preface entitled ‘Emerging Churches.’ In spite of all the books today about church, Stott thinks we are in a time of crisis and that the church may be way out of step with the culture in unhelpful ways. He finely balances the need for Christians to be attuned to culture and to also be counter-cultural. ‘Scripture is unchangeable,’ Stott writes, ‘culture is not.’ We are to conserve Scriptural teaching, yet be radicals. Traditional and emerging churches need to be open to dialogue and learning from each other. Persistent practices of both types of churches are to identify with Jesus, avoid the sacred-secular divide, and be authentic communities.

Friday, April 11, 2008

THE TROUBLE WITH PARIS by Mark Sayers

Mark Sayers’ new book The Trouble with Paris (Nelson, 2008) is outstanding. Well informed, insightful, articulate, and down to earth are just a few thoughts that come to mind when describing this tour de force. Sayers has a unique ability to have his finger on the pulse of contemporary culture and Christianity, and proves to be a capable guide through the thickets of that which is counterfeit and fake. Today we’re submersed in the media driven and publicity shaped hollow promises of hyperreality, which are driving us to embrace the unreal and consequently an impoverished spirituality. Reading this powerful book will help us get back to the real and lead us to a rediscovery of our spiritual bearings for the present and the future.

In working with Swiss L’Abri for over twenty years now, my take on this book is that it’s exactly what we need to get our priorites aligned with living in God’s reality, instead of trying and failing to make it up as we go along. Hyperreality is deceptively addictive, and if we are to touch a generation of people for the sake of Christ, it is books like Sayers’ The Trouble with Paris that will help pave the way. Highly recommended.

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

LIVING APOCALYPSE:

A REVELATION READER AND A GUIDE FOR THE PERPLEXED

by

Gregory J. Laughery

Everybody is interested in the subject of the end of the world. Debates proliferate today. Are we living in the end times? Will the world ever end? If it all comes down, does it matter whose side we are on?

Gregory J. Laughery's Living Apocalypse: A Revelation Reader and a Guide for the Perplexed (Destinée, 2008), points out the dangers of false predictions and highlights the possibilities for living faithfully in our perilous times. This careful and insightful analysis of the book of Revelation will awaken us from our slumber, alert us to the journey ahead, and set us on the path to life.

Friday, February 15, 2008

Wordsworth’s words are striking. From The Prelude, 1805, Book VI (525-537):

Imagination! lifting up itself
Before the eye and progress of my Song
Like an unfather’d vapour; here that Power,
In all the might of its endowments, came
Athwart me; I was lost in a cloud,
Halted, without a struggle to break through.
And now recovering, to my Soul I say
I recognize thy glory; in such strength
Of usurpation, in such visitings
Of awful promise, when the light of sense
Goes out in flashes that have shewn to us
The invisible world, doth Greatness make abode,
There harbours whether we be young or old.

Friday, February 8, 2008

Passing the Meme

John Frye, over at Jesus the Radical Pastor, invited me into this Meme.

Pick up the nearest book of 123 pages or more. No cheating!
Find Page 123.
Find the first 5 sentences.
Post the next 3 sentences.
Tag 5 people.

John Coulson in Religion and Imagination:

"What their use in Little Gidding seems to do is urge the reader on (or back) to the generalizing and explaining language of Burnt Norton, to such statements as in movement II:

I can only say , there we have been: but I cannot say where.

Here is surely a Wordsworthian echo, and in particular of that statement in the Prelude:

but that the soul,
Remembering how she felt, but what she felt
Remembering not, retains an obscure sense
Of possible sublimity."

I Tag these 5:

Jasie Peltier
Dan Brennan
Jazz Theologian
Floating Axhead
Robby Mac

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