AAANZ Mailing 26 June
Monday, June 30th, 2008Mark & Mary Hurst
“When does the service begin?”
“When the meeting is over.” - Old Quaker joke, anonymous
Romans 6: 12-23
Do not let sin get hold of your reins and force you to respond to every selfish desire that pops up within you. Don’t give it access to any part of your body, or you will find that part of yourself being put to work in spreading corruption. Instead, as people whose lives have been saved from death, hand yourselves over wholly and solely to God, and give God unlimited rights to put every part of your body to work in promoting what is right. Sin won’t hold the reins if you don’t let it, because your agenda is no longer set by a complicated list of rules, but by the generous love and mercy of God.
So what does that mean? Should we consider ourselves free to indulge our selfish desires because our agenda is no longer set by rules, but by God’s love and mercy? Of course not! Surely you realise that the lifestyle you hand yourself over to will become an addiction, and that addiction will then determine the course of your life. You can get yourselves hooked on sin, which will destroy your life; or you can get yourselves hooked on doing what God wants you to do, which will put your life on the right track. Fortunately, though you were once addicted to sin, thanks to God you have cleaned out your system and allowed your desires and actions to come under the influence of the teaching of Christ instead. Thanks to God you have been set free from the deadly grip of sin, and are now hooked on doing what is right. I am speaking about it in these down-to-earth terms, because I want to make sure that it is not only the highly educated among you who get the picture. I hope it is clear then, that in the same way that you used to deliberately expose parts of yourself to the addictive power of corruption and deepening dishonesty, you should now do all that you can to get yourselves hooked on honesty and integrity so that you will grow into the wholeness that God intended for you.
What sort of freedom did you have when you were addicts of sin? You were free to opt out of relating rightly to anyone or anything, but what good did that do you? Looking back on it now, you feel nothing but shame. The things you were doing were draining you of life. But now that sin’s grip on you has been broken, and you are hooked on doing what God wants, the benefits are enormous: the scars are healing and you are growing into whole people. There will be no end to the richness of the life that will result from that. The kicks that people get out of sin are kicking them to death, but God will give you the ultimate high, free of charge: life without limit in union with the Messiah, Jesus our Lord.
©2002 Nathan Nettleton LaughingBird.net
Blogging toward Sunday
Sunday, June 29, Gen. 22:1-14; Rom. 6:12-23; Matt. 10:40-42
In Romans 6, Paul reminds the Romans that they participate in the entirety of Christ’s sacrifice, death, burial and resurrection. Paul believes in a future bodily resurrection (1 Cor. 15; and N. T. Wright’s Resurrection of the Son of God), but he also teaches that we live bodily resurrection now. Since we have died to sin, we are to present the “members of our bodies” as tools for God’s justice. After Moriah, the life Isaac lives in the body is a life on the far side of resurrection. Baptism is our Moriah.
http://www.theolog.org/blog/2008/06/blogging-towa-3.html#more
International Day of Prayer for Peace
On Sunday, September 21, 2008 hundreds of thousands of people from churches, synagogues, and mosques around the world will join together in the International Day of Prayer for Peace. Will you and your church be praying for peace? In the next several months, On Earth Peace will join in support of at least three hundred congregations and community groups who wish to lift their voices across the US and around the world to say: Violence will not have the final word. God has a different dream for the world. We know that a new thing is possible. The campaign goal: In 300 different communities, church members and people of faith will prepare a public prayer event to provide a positive vision of peaceful communities.
http://www.brethren.org/oepa/prayforpeace/
Second-hand Books Needed
Some of you may or may not be aware that part of my missional work here in Mooroolbark & Croydon was to establish a second-hand book store that would help fund a community centre and prayer room. Well, after much prayer and plans, the books store is starting off as an online store - the prices for the rent of a store were a little prohibitive!
So, I would ask you all to search the church libraries, your own book shelves and ask others if they have any books, preferably theological and church focused - all aspects of spirituality and prayer etc. that you could donate to the book store! This also includes kid’s books, text books, anything!
I am currently setting up and designing the site and would love to start with a great inventory! If you have copies of any books that I can pick up let me know! I will send out details about the books store once it is active. I will also be trying to set up to sell some of the newer books from around the community in Australia.
Please pass this on to your networks and teams! Any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact me. Please keep this in your prayers - it would be fantastic to see some of the ideas to serve the community and the homeless in the area come to fruition.
neal_taylor@mac.com
Book Worth Reading: The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical by Shane Claiborne (Zondervan, 2006)
I’ve been reading books about new monastics, new conspirators, and new radicals coming out of the American church scene. Shane Claiborne’s book is the best of the bunch so far. He has some very Anabaptist things to say about being a follower of Jesus. I highly recommend his book. You can check out some excerpts at the Google site below. Here’s a quote from Chapter 8:
“When I was a youth leader, one of the high school kids who had “given his life to Jesus” got busted only a few weeks later for having acid in school. I remember asking in disappointment, “What happened, bro? What went wrong?” He just shrugged his shoulders and said, “I got bored.” Bored? God forgive us for all those we have lost because we made the gospel boring. I am convinced that if we lose kids to the culture of drugs and materialism, of violence and war, it’s because we don’t dare them, not because we don’t entertain them. It’s because we make the gospel too easy, not because we make it too difficult. Kids want to do something heroic with their lives, which is why they play video games and join the army. But what are they to do with a church that teaches them to tiptoe through life so they can arrive safely at death?” (Page 226)
Click Here
We believe in miracles, say 80% of Americans
Most Americans believe that angels and demons are active in the world, and nearly 80 per cent think miracles happen, a poll has found. Ninety-two per cent of respondents say they believe in God or a universal spirit, including one in five of those who call themselves atheists. More than half of those polled pray at least once a day…Pew found that, across the faiths, those who pray more are more politically conservative.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/we-believe-in-miracles-say-80-of-americans/2008/06/24/1214073247305.html
Peacemaker breaks the ancient grip of Albania’s blood feuds
Agim Loci works to help his countrymen observe a time-honoured code for resolving disputes – but without violence… Loci is one of the leading coordinators for the Committee for Nationwide Reconciliation (CNR), a nongovernmental organization that works to broker truces between families caught in the murderous cycles of blood feuds, a custom rooted in the tradition of an “eye for an eye” and sanctioned by a centuries-old Albanian code of conduct. Feuds and revenge killings have resurfaced significantly since this Balkan country’s transition from communism to democracy and are sometimes spark by issues as basic as property disputes. World Vision…says that more than 5,000 have been killed in blood feuds since 1992.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0625/p01s02-woeu.html
Eastern Mennonite University peacebuilders talk with military, government
For the first time in its 90-year history, EMU invited military, government and non-governmental leaders to meet and talk on campus, in concert with participants in EMU’s annual Summer Peacebuilding Institute, a 13-year-old program with thousands of alumni working for peace around the world. While peacebuilders often differ fundamentally from governmental and military leaders on what brings peace, there is reason to talk…Ali Gohar of Pakistan…said the roundtable showed the value of being willing to listen to those who are different and to learn from them. “Ignorance of outsiders concerning the history, culture, religion, traditions and economy of Afghanistan and Pakistan has led to disastrous results…Gohar nodded affirmatively when Agoglia spoke of God giving humans two ears and one mouth, which means that people should listen twice as much as they talk…
http://www.themennonite.org/public_press_releases/EMU_peacebuilders_talk_with_military_government
New Book: Fear or Freedom?: Why a Warring Church Must Change by Simon Barrow (Ed.)
With a short preface from Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, Fear or Freedom? takes a constructively critical look at the significance of ‘Anglican wars’ in the run up to (and well beyond) the much publicised 2008 Lambeth Conference, signalling some important fault lines in post-Christendom life and faith. Drawing on material from the religion and society think-tank Ekklesia, the book asks why many historic churches are in a mess and how they can change. Its message is positive. The churches can - and must - abandon their obsession with top-down control, and rediscover the Gospel as a subversive source of hope in society at large.
http://books.ekklesia.co.uk/product_info.php?products_id=2255
Being Clothed in Christ
Being a believer means being clothed in Christ. Paul says: “Every one of you that has been baptised has been clothed in Christ” (Galatians 3:26) and “Let your armour be the Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 13:14). This being “clothed in Christ” is much more than wearing a cloak that covers our misery. It refers to a total transformation that allows us to say with Paul: “I have been crucified with Christ and yet I am alive; yet it is no longer I, but Christ living in me” (Galatians 2:20). Thus, we are the living Christ in the world. Jesus, who is God-made-flesh, continues to reveal himself in our own flesh. Indeed, true salvation is becoming Christ.
http://www.henrinouwen.org/
In China’s Quake Zone, Aftershocks of the Spirit
A half-century of Communist atheism and nearly universal primary schooling have left most Chinese without the urge to seek spiritual explanations for what has befallen them. A survey of quake victims, conducted by the Horizon polling company, found that people generally “did not connect the earthquake with God or retribution,” said Fan Wen, Horizon’s public affairs research director. But some victims have reached beyond the science nevertheless, wondering about a divine hand in what happened and looking for answers in Buddhist precepts. Their interpretations suggest that, under the surface of a country devoted to material gain, some Chinese have preserved a well of traditional faith that sustains them in times of crisis.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/24/AR2008062401623.html?wpisrc=newsletter
Anabaptist Story: Headlines dwindle, stories continue
Although news of the earthquake in Sichuan [China] has largely disappeared from the news, grieving and suffering continues. The stories surfacing now focus on psychological trauma. Jeanette Hanson, a Mennonite Canada Church Witness worker serving in Nanchong through Mennonite Partners in China (MPC), met a group of Christians from Guangdong Province whose contribution to the relief effort was to spend time with people who have lost family members and/or homes. This focus on the emotional needs of those suffering indicates the shock of loss that millions are experiencing and a growing openness in Chinese society…She especially liked the story of a couple who was planning to divorce but after the earthquake, decided they still loved each other…
http://www.mennonitechurch.ca/news/releases/2008/06/Release01.htm
AAANZ 2009 Conference: Communities of the Kingdom: The New Monasticism and Anabaptism
Mark your diaries now for the 2009 AAANZ conference. (And book your flights.)
Christians from many traditions are learning from this vigorous alternative stream of church experience. This conference provides an opportunity to discover some of the ideals of the Anabaptist tradition and how they make sense in today’s church and world. We will explore the links between Anabaptism and new monastic movements in our two countries.
Dates: Friday evening 23rd January to Monday afternoon 26th January 2009
Location: Oasis Christian Camp, 66 Monbulk Road, Mt Evelyn Victoria (Melbourne area)
Mary and Mark Hurst Blog
http://greetingsfromozontheroad.blogspot.com/
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You’re blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight.
www.anabaptist.asn.au That’s when you discover who you really are, and your place in God’s family.
- Matthew 5:9 (The Message)