We’ve been attending First Baptist Church of Satelite. Tomorrow night they are having a 200 voice choir Christmas concert with an orchestra and everything.
Wednesday they performed at a local mall, so we went to the mall, got pictures with Santa, and checked out the choir. Here’s a quick picture of what it looked like. I used the Photosynth app to take the picture.
The academic dean of the Seminary asked me to help organize an event with his youth group and another group from another church. I thought it would be fun to teach them how to play Bunko. That proved to be quite a challenge. I think they had more fun playing basketball than playing Bunko, but the purpose was for them to get to know each other better, so I think Bunko worked out well.
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Here’s a little parable we looked at in class last week. I really liked it. So, what do you make of it? How does it speak to you and your situation?
“Parable of the Fishless Fishermen”
There was a group called The Fisherman’s Fellowship. They were surrounded by streams and lakes full of hungry fish. They met regularly to discuss the call to fish, the abundance of fish, and the thrill of catching fish. They got excited about fishing!
Someone suggested that they needed a philosophy of fishing, so they carefully defined and redefined fishing, and the purpose of fishing. They developed fishing strategies and tactics. Then they realized that they had been going at it backwards. They had approached fishing from the point of view of the fisherman, and not from the point of view of the fish. How do fish view the world? How does the fisherman appear to the fish? What do fish eat, and when? These are all good things to know. So they began research studies, and attended conferences on fishing. Some traveled to far away places to study different kinds of fish, with different habits. Some got PhD’s in fishology. But no one had yet gone fishing.
So a committee was formed to send out fisherman. As prospective fishing places outnumbered fisherman, the committee needed to determine priorities. A priority list of fishing places was posted on bulletin boards in all of the fellowship halls. But still, no one was fishing. Asurvey was launched, to find out why. Most did not answer the survey, but from those that did, it was discovered that some felt called to study fish, a few, to furnish fishing equipment, and several to go around encouraging the fishermen. What with meetings, conferences, and seminars, they just simply didn’t have time to fish.
Now, Jake was a newcomer to the Fisherman’s Fellowship. After one stirring meeting of the Fellowship, he went fishing and caught a large fish. At the next meeting, he told his story, and he was honored for his catch. He was told that he had a special “gift of fishing.” He was then scheduled to speak at all the Fellowship chapters and tell how he did it.
With all the speaking invitations and his election to the board of directors of the Fisherman’s Fellowship, Jake no longer has time to go fishing. But soon he began to feel restless and empty. He longed to feel the tug on the line once again. So he cut the speaking, he resigned from the board, and he said to a friend, “Let’s go fishing.” They did, just the two of them, and they caught fish. The members of the Fisherman’s Fellowship were many, the fish were plentiful, but the fishers were few!
(Photo by: Lucas Jans on flickr)
6 Then Moses gave an order and they sent this word throughout the camp: “No man or woman is to make anything else as an offering for the sanctuary.” And so the people were restrained from bringing more, 7 because what they already had was more than enough to do all the work. – Exodus 36:6-7
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus%2036:6-7;&version=31;
Could you imagine having such commitment in your church that you have to tell people that you had enough so they don’t need to bring their offering anymore? It’s amazing that Moses had to tell the people of Israel to hold off from bringing more. They had already given more than enough to do all the work.
This article by an atheist about how Christian missions changes people in Africa really made me think.
The author of the article grew up in Africa and recently returned, saying that “Missionaries, not aid money, are the solution to Africa’s biggest problem – the crushing passivity of the people’s mindset.”
Some of his observations are:
The Christians were always different. Far from having cowed or confined its converts, their faith appeared to have liberated and relaxed them. There was a liveliness, a curiosity, an engagement with the world – a directness in their dealings with others – that seemed to be missing in traditional African life. They stood tall.
Isn’t that the way it should be? Shouldn’t Christians be different? Shouldn’t we stand out and do things differently?
He goes on to talk about some people he met while he was just there who worked for an NGO but were Christians.
It would suit me to believe that their honesty, diligence and optimism in their work was unconnected with personal faith. Their work was secular, but surely affected by what they were. What they were was, in turn, influenced by a conception of man’s place in the Universe that Christianity had taught.
Our work should be affected by who we are. The teachings of Christ are liberating to a mindset that is oppressed and held captive by sin. His influence in our lives should be noticeable. We should stand out, whether our work is secular or not.
Check out the whole article by clicking here. I’d love to hear your thoughts on it.
(Image by: Edu-tourist on flickr)
Never before have I thought of the Seminary as the body of Christ as today. With the recent scare in Mexico City, we have been out of classes for a week. Many of the students left the city.
As we returned to the campus yesterday and today, there are signs up all over telling us to be sure to wash dirty clothes, wash our hands, wear masks, etc. Why? Well, because we are one body.
If one of us gets sick, we will all get sick. We must all take care of each other, doing our part to be clean. If we don’t take care of ourselves, we will affect others. I can only imagine the chaos that would take place at the Seminary if one person came down with the flu. This many people living in close quarters and sharing everything would cause our own little epidemic.
It’s the same way with the body of Christ. If one of us fails, we all fail. If one of us has success, we all have success. Let’s take care of each other.
(image by: bemky on flickr)
