Discipleship Bootcamp - Worship Workout

A night of thinking about why we come to worship each week and learning from Josh and Kirby some of the songs that have meaning for them.

Worship sensitizes us to the reality of the vastness of the universe, the immensity of God, the complexity of the world, the intricacy of self and the sacredness of our souls. - Kenda Cresy Dean

A night where we were challenged to think about the health warning that should come with worship -

Worship by its very nature invades our personal space. Coming into God’s presence has a way of stripping away the false veneers of self we hide behind and helping us see ourselves more honestly and truly. Christian ethicist Stanley Hauweras is fond of saying that the church’s job is not just to make us feel good. In face, quite the opposite; the church, through its liturgy and teaching, is to help us feel bad about the right things. Our God is a confronting God.

And led in very special prayers for others - thanks Teen Plus.

Discipleship Bootcamp - Week 2

Core Strength - Communion

Core strength is that which holds our whole body together – for us it’s not our abs – it’s communion – with God and with each other – without this core strength the body falls apart and we fall over in our discipleship.

Communion has always has been at the core of the Christian church - right from the night that Jesus started it all with his friends people have been celebrating the meal together. We’re part of something so much bigger than just ourselves – there are more muscles in our core than we can ever really imagine. The core strength of the church is communion – it’s what allows the body to do everything else it’s supposed to do - but the church being made up of fallible people means that it hasn’t always been a strength or even at the core.

Read 1 Corinthians 11:14-29 - these are words you might have heard before about communion but it seems Paul is not pleased with how the faith community at Corinth are celebrating communion. When you read the passage what do you think Paul was concerned about?

Communion was being shared in a way that isn’t respectful, rather uniting them it was highlighting the differences in social and economic status in their community. It was supposed to be a fellowship meal – we say “communion” a latin word for a greek word – koinonia. Koinonia implies sharing at its very heart so if they were behaving like that then they were breaking the sharing that was supposed to be the marker of koinonia. And when others saw them they would see it too.

When was the last time you really shared a meal? For a deeper degree of difficulty – what about with anyone other than your family or friends in a private space? Paul questioned the Corinthian’s core strength – I wonder what he’d say about ours?

Core strength doesn’t just happen – you have to work at it. Communion doesn't just come from being in the same building. It comes from daring to develop spiritual friendship with each other which will grow our core strength from community into communion. What do I mean by spiritual friendships? Well borrowing from Kenda Cresy Dean there two things we need as we walk together following Jesus – hand holders – people who will be with us in our lives and listen and finger pointers – people who will give us guidance and help when we’re searching for direction. To be comfortable we may think we just need hand holders but this is discipleship bootcamp – we’re here for growth and not for comfort! We need to take on the finger point challenge too.

Questions for this week

What are you going to do this week? (Community building question)

What are you going to do this week that is important? (Communion building question)

Who in your life is a hand holder and who is a finger pointer?

Whose hands are you holding and for whom are you prepared to point?

How might you make time to include these people in your life?

Sabbath and sunsets

Today at Monday Afternoon Girlies we thought about Sabbath - exploring the sense of ceasing doing things - hard for us with so many activities - sport and music and ballet and zoo and leading KUCA. We thought about how coming to church isn't really Sabbath but more activity.

We thought about whether or not setting aside time is relevant anymore - we liked being able to shop on Sunday's and it is the only day we're often all home as a family to get all those jobs done.

So when you're 14 or 16 or 40-something what does it mean to have Sabbath rest in your life?

Has it got something to do with the holidays?

And then one of us was awake up to a Sabbath moment in the afternoon and we got to share this - from the road and sadly not the rooftop ...

right in the middle of our talking and thinking. A reminder of why we need Sabbath - to cease some things; to embrace our Christian calling with integrity; to rest even our very busy minds and to feast on the beauty of God.