5 Minutes with George - Episode 3

Are you crazy?




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbftTKGzprU

http://georgelittlejourney.blogspot.com/

5 Minutes with George - Episode 2

or click on this link

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yau62_D3sGE

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Video Ministry

I must admit I am not a fan of TV as an effective medium for the story of Jesus. That's just my opinion because it doesn't really speak to me. I know it does speak to many. Not that it has really been issue with my ministry because no one has ever wanted me to do TV work. As the old wise crack goes, I have a good face for radio. HD and closeups are just too honest. Check out this week's 30 Rock episode for some fun about HD

Anyhow I say all that to say that I am going to have a go at video ministry via the internet. My reasons.

1. I can. For an investment of one hour a week i can share Jesus with a lot of people. Almost no dollar cost. 
2. Many people watch internet video. I want to minister to them if I can. 
3. It may actually help someone on their journey which for a lot of people today is a digital journey. Do you know that Facebook now has 350 million users. That's bigger than most countries, even the big ones. 
4. I think I have a message from Jesus that actually helps people in finding God. 

My parameters

1. Get out of "preaching" mode. That's tough for an old preacher. 
2. Keep message to around five minutes. You talk about tough!
3. Speak to real people in real situations with the real Jesus
4. Don't get overly caught in production values. This obviously isn't a professional production, so why try to make it look like it. 
5. Do it for 2 months and see how it goes. 

Well, here's the first attempt. Don't worry. It will get better.

http://georgelittlejourney.blogspot.com/

Church = What?

Church is not what most people think it is. Given that church is one of the key representative words for faith in Christ, this is a disaster. No wonder so many outside the family of God misunderstand what being in the family is about.

In modern English the word church refers to a building devoted to Christian worship. That is the primary meaning in dictionaries and in common usage. As such it is a terrible translation of the word that Jesus and Paul used. Just over 110 times in most New Testaments you will find the word church. Not one of those times is it referring to a building.

The original language of the New Testament was Koine Greek. The word translated church is ekklesia. It was a common word in the first century and had no religious significance. There were Greek words that did describe religious groups (agora, panegyris, synagoge etc.) Warning: Word studies can be a little dry (euphemism for boring) but hang in there, there is an incredible truth here that you and I need to be aware of.

So, the Holy Spirit took a secular word, ekklesia, and used it to refer to groups of Christians. It’s meaning had its origins in the combination of ek which means out of and kaleo  which means to call. It referred to any group of people called out for a special purpose. It was also commonly used of a group of people (usual mature) who served as a caring influence on a community.

This is the word the Holy Spirit chose to use when He spoke of God’s people.

And what have we done with it? We translated it into a word that mainly refers to “holy” buildings or to massive Christian bureaucracies (OK I know “we” didn’t do it, but you know what I mean). No wonder there is so much confusion about God’s people.

Because of this I have decided to stop using the word, church, when referring to God’s people. Instead I will use body, family, ekklesia. Anything but church.

The Christians we read about in Acts were not an institution, nor a location. They were the people of God. They were disciples of Jesus. They were the ones who God had called out of the world. Called out for a purpose. A special purpose. God’s purpose.

“But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you should proclaim the praises of Him, who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; who once were not a people but are now the people of God”.  I Peter 2:9.

As you can see there is a lot more to being Christ’s ekklesia than being a called out people. However the ekklesia is a group of people. A group Jesus promised to build. A group that He bought with His own blood. A group who are described as HIS body and HIS bride.

This not just a semantic point, a mere detail concerning word meaning. Next time you read all those verses which have the word church in them, substitute it with family of God, or body of Christ, or ekklesia or called out by God people. You will be shocked at how it changes what you hear from those verses.

Think about it for a bit. When has an army been mistaken for a barracks? When has the congress been mistaken for the building it meets in? Hardly ever. When has God's people been mistaken for a building? All the time. No wonder so many are confused before we even begin talking to them about Jesus. 

But, what can we do? Actually it is something we should stop doing. Stop assuming people know what you mean when you use the word church. Tell them about the wonder that is God's family with the risen Jesus at its center. 

http://georgelittlejourney.blogspot.com/

Sydney Bound

While my wife, Julie, is in Sydney with out family and I am in LA with my cat and my church family I find my heart wondering to Sydney.

We will be returning there in April 2010. I do not like traveling. It has just lost its appeal. I really enjoy living in Burbank and I love the church I am working with. But after considering all of what God is saying to me in my circumstances I can hear even more clearly now His voice and in it His desire for Julie and I to return to Sydney.

The next three months will be extremely difficult. Organizing the move. Raising funds for the new work that we will be partnering with in Sydney. Saying good bye to people I love dearly. It is a challenging transition.

I pray the Lord gives me wisdom and strength to navigate this difficult path. I know He will.

While my heart is full of anticipation for the Glendale Church and their renewal my heart is also full of anticipation for the new work in Sydney. My heart's desire is that God will help me fulfill the dream I have of leading an effective ministry in my home country. I can't help but think that He has been preparing me for this very thing in the last 33 years. God's kingdom is the greatest ever and it needs to get the glory deserving of it's king. God has many people in the city of Sydney. I pray He uses me (and that I let Him) to reach those precious ones with Jesus.

Looking forward to seeing what God will do.

http://georgelittlejourney.blogspot.com/

Why the names?

At my connect group last night we looked at the many instances in the New Testament that people's names are mentioned. They aren't the main characters in the letters. They aren't teachers, preachers, missionaries, pastors or protagonists. Just names. Most are only mentioned once, with very little (if any) background on their life. Romans 16. Philippians 4.

The question I asked was, "Why did God bother to have these names as a part of His Word to the world of the love He has for that world. Someone suggested jokingly that it was to give us a list of names we could give our children and claim them to be "Christian" until we noticed that very few of them are used even by the most devoted parents.

Why did God take up precious space in scripture for names when these people didn't appear to be significant? Maybe that's the answer. In our worldliness we may be looking at these lists with the values of our world and not the values of God. We started to think about whether the fact that God did include these names was to tell us that those individuals, along with everyone else God has created, are significant to Him.

We get caught up with idea that we are just one among millions. Faceless people in a crowd with no great story or significance. God whispers to us that He knows our name. He even knows the number of hairs on our head. God uses my name. Wow. God speaks to His angels and one day (maybe many days) He uses my name. Scientists would speak of DNA as the source of our uniqueness. God simply looks at us and calls our name. Wow. No double helix. He uses my name as a shepherd calls to the sheep he knows individually. I hear His voice and it sounds familiar. I know that voice. Tell me, why is He using my name?

Have you every Googled your name? Okay, you don't have to confess it but I know you did. Did absolutely no reference to you show up. There were lots of people with your name but they weren't you. Was that a little disappointing?

Well, know this. If you were able to search the conversations of God, you would find many references to you. Not someone with the same name as you, but you. God knows your name. He's keeping a follicle count. He uses your name. He speaks about you.

God gets personal with us when He uses our name. He wants to get personal with us. We often speak of us having a personal relationship with God and we focus on our side of the relationship. We speak of our need (and rightly so) to reach out to God personally. Not religiously, institutionally or mechanically. But, personally. But we also need to focus on the fact that God almighty, the Lord God, the creator of all, wants to relate to us on a personal level. He doesn't just want you to join a church or do good. He wants you to relate to Him personally as your Father.

Father is not just God's title to be used only at the beginning of prayers. It is who He really is and it is how He wants you and I to relate to Him. Father. Abba, Father.

How do we know that? Because our Father sent us Son to live among us, not as a tourist, but as one of us. To live as a servant. And to die for us. Words don't seem to convey the significance of that. Is there anyone for whom you would send a child of yours to a foreign land in the full knowledge that they would die for that person. And no glorious death but a shameful, disgraceful death. Is there anyone? My answer is no. There are some people in my life I would die for but there is no one I would ask my sons to die for. Yet, that is what exactly God did. He has that much interest in you. He has that much love. Crazy love.

And all this from a list of names. Yes. Isn't God amazing? He reveals so much to us about Himself in such an unsuspecting way. How much more is there in His word that I have been missing? I expect a lot. Now, this is going to be interesting.

http://georgelittlejourney.blogspot.com/

Incomprehensible, Crazy

When we love ….

We picked the cutest, healthiest puppy

We pick the good looking person

We pick the talented one

We pick the perfect

We pick the comfortable least painful path. We often pass by.

We avoid the tainted, the imperfect, and the ordinary

We pass on the unhealthy and the flawed

When God loves ….

He invites “… the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind,” (Luke 14:13) to His party

He hangs out with the embezzlers, prostitutes, and blowhards (Matthew 9:11, 16:21-23, 21:31) and tells us to do the same (1 Corinthians 5:9-10)

He deliberately allows Himself to be hurt (Romans 5:8-9)

He fills His church with “the sexually immoral … idolaters … adulterers … male prostitutes … homosexual offenders” (1 Corinthians 6:9-10)

Crazy love. Yes, crazy love. Love that surpasses knowledge. Love that you and I need to have and do. 

Amazing love. Sing it church. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dooif2-yAoI

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