Faith arise!

Read my mind

Stole the idea from Marc and generated a word cloud on SnapShirt , so you can get an over all picture of what I'm pondering in my blog.

What does the church of tomorrow look like

Visited Petra  last weekend and together we attended a seminar around theme of tomorrows church. I didn't have an opportunity to stay for the whole weekend so my perspective might be limited. One slogan that the speaker shared seemed to be quite useful: The church should seek to have low control and high accountability ( where there has normally been high control and low accountability in church).
The seminar was actually a very traditional teaching on five-fold ministry. What was interesting was that when the question of how the five-fold ministry can function practically in existing church structures, everyone bursted into laughter but no real answer was given. This is Finland...of course I tryed to input some propaganda, and shared about foundations of the church that are actully enabling and often quite invisible, calling forth what is needed in certain hour...Looking forward to the time when we can actually get beyond attempts of trying to do organised church better and start to share on radically Jesus-following lifestyle and how to live in a way which touches the world around us. Will it take much longer still? Was really good to reconnect with some friends in Turku and to meet some new ones, grateful for that.

Still God

I've been listening to Godfrey Birtill song "Where, o where's your presence God" where it says

How we need to understand
You're still God even when we're unbelieving
You're still God even through the things that hurt us
You're still God when the government has no answers
Still God when the media lost the standard
Still God when the plans we make go worthless

I think these days I love God that He's so omnipotent, that he's SO above our religious systems, SO above our man-made divisions and our stumbling politic systems. I don't mean we shouldn't take part in efforts directed in changing society; media that's lost the standard for example.

But most times these days I just spontaneously burst in laughter when I read the insane headlines of yellow press magazines. Instead of moralising I just laugh at our earthly systems in amazement of Creators greatness. Cause EVEN WITHOUT GOD we can moralise, we can become worried,  legalistic and  depressed when we hear what's going on in the world. But without him it's really hard  to  keep the hope and gain sensitive and merciful attitude towards others and ourselves. I'm reminded of Thomas Merton again: "A saint does not know sin, he knows the mercy of God. He knows that his own mission on earth is to bring that mercy to all men."

You're still God even though You were rejected
Still you were ridiculed, deserted
Still God when You suffer an execution
Still God , You're alive
So we will be still and know You are God

Ghetto detox

I had an Indian (no Native American this time) friend visiting me on Saturday. Yes, the food this friend cooked was excellent and my apartment still has a distinct smell of incense... It's funny how I feel God connecting me with different people from different cultures these days. I take it as a very welcome challenge to confront different perspectives on life, I somehow believe that it doesn't threaten my own values as much as staying in a Christian or Western ghetto would in the long run. And it's also good to challenge my thinking by the fact that in many ways nowadays India is more Jesus-following than Finland is.

Another friend, Gaz, introduced me to interesting analogy while writing about faith in postmodernism. He used a picture of recovering of an addiction. Our taking distance from organised ghetto church structures may help us detox from unbiblical and expired ways of living out our faith and save the next generation from that process. But the real question is if we actually succeed in the rehabilitation process, if we actually learn to develop countercultural Jesus-following life style that's sincere and relevant to this world.      

"We will not walk in fear of one another"

Went to see the movie "God night, good luck" the other night. The film depicts the communist "witch-hunts" in the early days of broadcast journalism in the 1950s America and CBS crew's desire to report truthfully in climate of fear and reprisal. Watching the movie it becomes obvious that the film speaks to the actual situation in especially US foreign politics. Intersting quote: "We can't defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home."

The situation around the cartoon controversy and the much bigger issues that led to it need to be put in the context. I think we can't afford just to identify as Christians in this conflict between the Muslim world and the Western world without asking two questions: Should we really take part of dividing the world into "Muslim" and "Christian"?  and Does this mixing of politics and religion do any right to either Muslims or Christians? (Of course you can't in no way fully separate the two either).

The Muslim world has become a major prayer point in many Christian prayer campaigns, for example this one. I think that's well needed acknowledging both the spiritual forces behind Islam and the fragile peace that's left between the the West and the East. But I would want to raise consern that looking back the Christian history we're awfully good in seeing things black and white, and fighting people when we are supposed to fight spiritual powers and principalities.  Language is one of the most powerful ways to construct reality, even our well meaning prayer language. When we pray, I hope we can open doors in Spirit to reach the Muslim world in their own language and culture, not to build walls of fear and prejudice toward this people group. I live in a positive hope that the present situation might press us to work on our postmodern theology towards other religions. Our view and understanding has to be built on more than what the mass media has to offer covered with some attitudes we herited from modern theology.

Then again, it's another question if CHRISTIANITY needs to be DEFENDED. Jesus sent his followers to TESTIFY OF HIM to all the world, and the disciples did that by establishing living and loving Jesus-centered communities all over the known world.

The spirit of islam works by causing FEAR, making democrating governments apoligize for the freedom of speach in their country. But it says that "Perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment". I think it's a good start to watch our behaviour and not let our selves speak, pray or teach about islam fear-motivated.