“Conversion is not the smooth, easy-going process some people seem to think….it is wounding work …. this breaking of hearts - but without wounding there is no saving” And without saving there is no Kingdom Growth!
The Church’s reason for existence is to shine the light of God in the deepening spiritual darkness, to exude the fragrance of heaven that will drive away the stench of hell on the nostrils, which permeates the lives of those stumbling in that darkness. It cannot do this however when it hides behind its walls, whether bespoke building or house, it is the same
'If your God is the all-powerful, all-loving being you claim him to be, why didn’t he intervene to stop this happening? The fact that he didn't means that he is either not all-powerful or all-loving'.
This booklet, seeks to provide some conversation starters that we might be able to use in informal situations with individuals or groups. All the examples included have been and are being used by DiscipleMakers in such informal situations.
‘The LORD said to Satan, “Where have you come from?” Satan answered the LORD, “From roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it.’
Today there is a widespread embarrassment about confronting the role of the Christian church in the formation of the Western world… Yet there is a strong case to be made that our conception of society and of a just legal system cannot be fully understood apart from that debt. When we ignore it, we fail to understand ourselves’
Early Christianity was a Movement that took on and conquered the all-powerful Roman Empire. Roman society was Pagan, largely amoral and pluralistic, everything the Christian world view was not, as well as being actively hostile to Christianity and Christians who were seen as ‘weird and depraved killjoys’. This hostility resulted in persecution, sometimes severe particularly in the reigns of Emperors Nero and Diocletian Nevertheless, by the early 4th century AD, Rome was, at least officially, a Christian Empire. So how did the Roman Empire go from being thoroughly pagan to Christianity becoming the state religion?
As kids growing up, one of the games we used to play was blowing Dandelion seeds from the Dandelion stalk and seeing how the wind took them. Great fun we thought but not Dad who had just dug half a dozen Dandelion weed plants out of his treasured lawn. However, that blowing in the wind game, where we do not know where the wind will take the seed or which will take root and grow, can I think act as a metaphor for how God transmits the gospel.
The cultural principle needed for our 21st century mission to local communities can be summed up with this slogan – ‘Their place, Their style, Their language, Their time’
Easter is a certainly is a time to laugh and dance with joy in what Jesus did for us, but it is also a time to weep Jesus’ tears for people like Jack, our family, friends, colleagues who have rejected Him.
