Our Mission
There is an amazing story similarity that draws us all together. Yes it is Jesus but many who thirst for Him are not here nor would they be comfortable in this gathering. So what is this common ingredient?
“We all believe that we can effect change, through the gospel, in ways that are different to days gone by.”
We are not Catholic, Lutheran, Wesleyan, Pentecostal... or any other grouping. Somehow, we believe God is on about new ways the old gospel can be displayed to a skeptical world.
Our conversation today is about “The Mission”
It does for some fascinating study - from Luther to Calvin, from Chris Wright to NT Wright, from John Piper to Alan Hirsch, from Alister McGrath to Tim Keller, from David Bosch to Ed Clowney... the quest to revisit the ‘mission dei’ [the mission of God] and see how it overlaps with the mission of the church, is a fun adventure in its own right. Just when that mist becomes clearer, then we have to fine tune ourselves further to ask, ‘within that conversation, what is our mission?’. That is what this paper seeks to discover.
Read Revelation 1:1 - 11
Revelation was written as:
- a letter - John to the seven churches that are in Asia... vs 4
- a prophecy - Blessed is the one who who reads aloud the words of this prophecy... vs 3
- a revelation / apocalypse - The revelation / apocalypse of Jesus... vs 1
This is incredibly helpful as it is not written to one church but to seven, so we get some idea of what is important to more than one church.
It is also most helpful as we see a third apostle writing through the lenses of his apostolicity. So often, we tend to define the 'apostolic' through the story of Paul. What has been so educating is to have the conversations, not just through one man [Paul] or two men [Paul and Peter], rather by a remarkable man who brings a new set of lenses that Paul and Peter do not. John’s story has been so eye opening for me. It has helped me to see in ways I had not done before.
The ship is safest when it is in port. But that’s not what ships were made for. Paulo Coelo
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