The Inhabit conference which the entire MSA team attended this last weekend was one of the best conferences I have been at for a long time. So many creative and committed Christians gathered in one place inspiring each other with how they have seen their neighbourhoods transformed. Many of us are being stretched in our faith and life practices as we grapple with what it means to be the shalom of God in our communities.
I have been following with great interest the continuing conversations and story sharing that is occurring on the Inhabit Connect facebook group too. To encouraging to hear about the ways that God is planting mustard seeds that are growing and producing fruit.
I particularly enjoyed this video by Paul Sparks this morning. Do listen to the whole video – the end of the interview is particularly inspiring.
salvation-in-the-neighborhood-2
And this is a great article by Craig Goodwin over in Spokane – hope to have him over for a conversation at the Mustard Seed House some time
Wendell-Berry-the-inhabit-conference-community-gardens-and-the-kingdom-of-god
This one is very close to my heart as I strongly believe that we need to encourage our urban centres to become more self sustaining. it is an inspiring and imaginative way to use an old warehouse in Chicago
A-former-chicago-meatpacking-plant-becomes-a-self-sustaining-vertical-farm
A great website worth exploring – the work of Candy Chang an artist, designer, and urban planner who explores making cities more comfortable and contemplative places.
And finally a story about a church helping to develop a grocery co-op in an impoverished community.
Learning to be the presence of God is part of what salvation is all about. God desires wholeness not just for us as individuals but for the entire human race as a community. And people like those who attended the Inhabit conference are busy planting seeds and light beacons that are quietly transforming our world.
Its almost time for the spirituality of Gardening Seminar May 5th at the Mustard Seed House and with the beautiful weather we have had in Seattle the garden is thriving – Register Now
This year’s Spirituality of Gardening seminar at the Mustard Seed House will be held May 5th. This year we have special discounts for students and alumni wanting to gain new spiritual insights and share gardening advice. It would be a great opportunity to check out the Mustard Seed garden, interact with our growing garden community and hear about the developments at the Mustard Seed Village.
Join in discussions about connections between community, spirituality and gardening. Explore the wonderful ways that God and God’s story are revealed through the rhythms of planting, growing and harvesting. Spiritual insights, practical advice for organic backyard gardeners and time for reflection will all enrich and deepen our faith. Come prepared to get your hands dirty as we will spend some time in the garden or in the greenhouse if the weather is inclement.
Register HERE today before all the spots are filled!
Archbishop Tutu at the COP17 “We Have Faith: Act Now for Climate Justice” Rally on 27 Nov 2011 in Durban, South Africa. (Photo by Kristen Opalinski/LUCSA)
I posted this prayer from Desmond Tutu’s An African Prayer Book on the Light for the Journey Facebook page . It was so popular that I thought I would post it here too.
Victory is Ours
Goodness is stronger than evil;
Love is stronger than hate;
Light is stronger than darkness;
Life is stronger than death;
Victory is ours through Him who loves us.
Jane Hessdorfer informed us that John Bell wrote music to create a song from the words I first found this version with music only. The MP3 can be purchased at GIA Publications
The words for the song are:
Goodness is stronger than evil, Love is stronger than hate;
Light is stronger than darkness, life is stronger than death;
Victory is ours, Victory is ours
through God who loves us.
Victory is ours, Victory is ours
through God who loves us.
Music by John Bell
GIA (c) 1996 Iona Community
And much to my delight later found this delightful rendition of the song.
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Today is World Malaria Day, a celebration that really resonates with me and I suspect also resonates with the heart of God. I still remember the horror of watching children die of malaria in the refugee camps in Cambodia in the mid 1980s. It happened so quickly. If we waited to get an accurate diagnosis they would be dead before we responded. And in Africa we lived on antimalarials and soon adapted the African physician preoperative practice of routinely treated children as though they had malaria. Complications postoperatively were much higher in infected children.The spectre of this terrible disease hung over all the communities and families we worked with.
In Africa, malaria deaths have been cut by one third within the last decade; outside of Africa, 35 out of the 53 countries, affected by malaria, have reduced cases by 50% in the same time period. In countries where access to malaria control interventions has improved most significantly, overall child mortality rates have fallen by approximately 20%. In spite of this malaria still kills 2,000 children daily worldwide, mainly in Africa and in some countries the situation is very fragile. Today–World Malaria Day–recognizes global efforts to combat malaria.
Eradicating malaria is possible. We just have to want it very much.
I am sorry that this list is a little late for us to get involved in this year, but consider how you can make a difference not just on World Malaria Day but throughout the rest of the year too. Here, from World Vision, are five things you can do to fight malaria:
1. Host a Night of Nets event in your community
Help your community understand and advocate for a simple, yet effective, malaria prevention method that can save millions of children: bed nets. Your event could be a concert, a coffee house, an art show, a sleep-out —any event to unite your community around this urgent global health crisis.
2. Send a message to your members of Congress
Ask Congress to increase our contribution toward the fight against malaria. Government officials respond when they hear from their constituents — constituents like you. Our easy-to-use online tool makes it simple to do!
3. Download World Malaria Day resources to raise awareness
Visit our resource center on endmalaria.org for downloadable posters and other resources that you can use to raise awareness about this threat to children. The more people know about malaria, the more likely we are to defeat it.
4. Pray with your community (PDF)
Download our prayer guide and pray with your small group, family, or by yourself. The prayer guide provides short stories about children impacted by malaria, facts about malaria, and prayer points to guide your intercession.
5. Make a donation to provide bed nets for children and families at risk
In sub-Saharan Africa, the use of insecticide-treated bed nets could potentially prevent 1 million child deaths. Every $6 you give will provide a long-lasting insecticide-treated bed net that will protect the life of two or more children from this deadly disease. Or make a monthly pledge to contribute to the fight against malaria.
good samaritan - african from Jesusmafa.com
This morning I am not feeling well. Since my bout with the flue 3 weeks ago I have been spiking the occasional evening temperature, and like most doctors I am reluctant to see a physician for myself. But today I have decided to bite the bullet and go.
Well that doesn’t sound like a blessing you might say. And your right it doesn’t. But in the midst of this I have been thanking God for the blessings of health and healing. Thank God for the immune system that normally does heal and restore us. Thank God for healing herbs that form the basis for many of our medicines. Thank God even for the symptoms that really are part of God’s healing process – runny noses that dispel the viruses from our bodies, inflamed cuts that draw the germ fighting cells to a diseased area, sloughing skin that protects us from most of the germs that surround us.
Of course healing doesn’t always come in the forms we want it too. After all who of us likes to spend days in bed because we are too weak and tired to get up. But that is all part of the healing process. Once again God never seems to work in the ways I expect.
So take some time to thank God for the miracle of healing today. Read through this article that talks about the healing mechanisms of the body. Also read this article that talks about the even more amazing ability of the brain to change itself through meditation and if you have time get hold of Norman Doidge’s book The Brain that Changes Itself
Our bodies are miracles – so intricate, so complex, so well thought out by God. When I think about it I am truly amazed.
What is prayer?
As many of you know I am working on a new book on prayer Return to Your Senses: Reimagining How We Pray. I talked about this in a recent post entitled Let God’s Love Soak Into Your Soul. Part of what I am grappling with in the book is the question what is prayer?. For some of us prayer is confined to intercession. For others it focuses on meditation. For some it is always spoken in the mind, for others it must be shouted out loud to be effective. Usually our concepts of prayer revolve around words and responses which I think is part of the challenge we face.
There are probably more books written on prayer than any other Christian topic, yet we still come to Jesus regularly asking: teach us to pray. The problem is that prayer is not about words but about relationship and relationships are constantly growing, changing and requiring new ways of interacting. The speaking of words can become rote and repetitive, even boring at times, the developing of relationship requires flexibility, creativity and constant willingness to change and to grow.
What the disciples saw in Jesus’ prayer life that they craved because it was so different from what they had grown up with, was the deep and personal intimacy with God that was at its heart. I think they also craved a prayer life that did not depend on rituals performed at certain times of the day but rather was based on a whole new way of looking at the world. The disciples longed for a relationship with God that wove through every part of their lives. They wanted to develop the same dynamic, living relationship with God that Jesus had and realized that to acquire it they needed to learn not just new techniques for prayer but a whole new understanding of prayer.
In my previous post I commented on Madame Guyon’s definition of prayer as “an exercise in love”. I am also very drawn to Richard Foster’s concept of prayer as “finding the heart’s true home”. I imagine prayer as any process that draws us back into the garden of God where we walk, and talk and commune with God in a place of abundance and peace and harmony for all. I imagine prayer as a new way of looking and listening and interacting with the world so that we are constantly uncovering the presence of God which shines through every moment and enlivens every creature.
This kind of understanding of prayer is a constant journey of discovery which demands we give God our full attention in each moment. It is not easy. We are so easily distracted by busyness and worry and work. We are so easily waylaid by the needs of the world and our desire to find solutions. We definitely need to come back to Jesus for a new understanding of prayer.
A good place to start is with this quote from Elaine Heath in her helpful book The Mystic Way of Evangelism,: When we come home to the love of God everything changes, beginning with how we pray. Prayer is now at its foundation a contemplative soaking in the infinite love of God. All our intercessions and thanksgivings and wordless cries now issue from the molten core of contemplative prayer. Prayer has become the vital breath, the heartbeat of divine energy without which we cannot live.
So what are your thoughts? What is Prayer
Today’s post in the series on Christian environmental organizations comes from Renewal – students caring for creation. Tom and I had the privilege of speaking at their Renewal Summit last year. It was a great occasion.
God’s creation is groaning.
We are answering God’s call for renewal.
Our Creator took chaos and transformed it into indescribable beauty, form and creative order. What’s more, God breathed life into humankind and commanded us to “tend and keep” His blessed creation.
In the past, humans have neglected this charge, instead participating in environmental harm that degrades ecosystems, as well as human lives. We have made a mess of God’s creation. But with His strength and grace, Christian students across North America are uniting to work for its renewal.
For the students of Renewal, caring for God’s creation isn’t just a burden and a responsibility- it’s a blessing and an invitation to live in right relationship with our Creator. This means taking care of everything that God so lovingly creates and sustains – the earth and each other.
We aim to expand this vision across North American campuses by inspiring, connecting, and equipping Christian students.
- Inspiring. We are communicating awareness around the biblical call to care for creation, current environmental concerns, success stories and testimonies of renewal, and other stirring dispatches to keep the movement vibrant and growing.
- Connecting. We organize regional retreats, campus visits, student conferences and other accessible opportunities for you and others to build community and network around creation care concerns.
- Equipping. We provide hands-on training, personal mentoring, leadership opportunities, project toolkits, and other vital resources to empower emerging Christian leaders.
With a heart for the poor and a commitment to following Jesus’ call to ‘love your neighbor as yourself,’ we seek practical ways to care for the earth so that all God’s creatures, as well as future generations, can have a healthy environment in which to live.
We seek to live this calling out through joining together in prayer, service, and action.
- Prayer. Renewal believes that prayer is central for all of us who seek to reclaim our Biblical calling to care for God’s creation. We invite all Christians to join with us in expressing gratitude to God for the beauty, wonder, and provisions of His creation- and to pray for wisdom and guidance as we work to be better stewards of our imperiled planet.
- Service. God’s first commandment to Adam is to care for all that God has created. In Genesis 2:15 God instructs Adam to abad and shamar – literally translated ‘to serve and to care.’ We are called to be careful servants in God’s garden- His creation.
- Advocacy. The origin of the word “advocate” is quite meaningful for those of us engaged in caring for God’s creation. At its root is “voc” which comes from the Latin word for voice (vox). The Latin “advocare’ means “to call to one’s aid.” As Christians, we are called to the aid of those most in need and to add our voices in the call for justice. Renewal seeks to fulfill our Christian calling- of being doers and seekers of justice- by advocating on behalf of God’s people and God’s creation.
Photo by Benjamin Combs on Unsplash
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