It's nice to be together. Paul Golson, to his apologies,
he's away preaching somewhere. So he's not here tonight.
That's where that's where he is. Not actually, I'm not sure quite
where he is. So I was going to give a little
intro and then I thought we could work through the content
in the in the notebook. And for me, this sitting around
a table and having food together is also kind of part of this.
I'm reading this book that that Duncan's recommended called The
Other Half of Church and it's talking about how very often we
encounter God and we are transformed in our behaviour and
life, not through just absorbing some academic information, but
in through the way that we feel love and relate to each other.
And and that probably I think right side of the brain type
experience being such a key part of our transformation.
Say, you know, I think as, as we're on this journey together
as church, it's, it's something that we're doing together, isn't
it? And it's a, and it's a, it's an
exploratory journey that we're on and so great that we can do
it around a table in, in closeness and warmth.
And I think for my introduction now I wanted to say a little bit
about about the journey and how we journey this together as a
church and some thoughts that I've got.
So I've got 4 points that I wanted to share.
The first one is I was thinking just this week, how is the
problem with the whole world that for everybody, whether
they're atheist or whatever religion they are or Christian
is, is there can every problem be rooted back to a twisted or
distorted idea of an understanding of who God is?
That's my kind of thought experiment and, and just
thinking that, you know, Jesus, obviously most explicit
revelation of God that we have had, I suppose.
And and he was constantly surprising people, wasn't he
about what God was like and behaving in ways that challenged
perceptions and understandings and existing mindsets.
That was my first thought, something I've just been
pondering. And I was thinking about some
friends of mine who is not a Christian family and I see some,
a lot of pain that they're in. And I'm wondering they wouldn't
say they've got anything to do with God in their life and
they'd describe themselves as atheists.
But I wonder how much of the pain and stuff that they're
experiencing is actually a is, is linked to a reaction to how
they perceive God to be just Again, that's just my thought
experiment, really. That was my first thing.
The second one was that, yeah, I guess in terms of where I'm at
with this, with this journey with the Trinitarian faith
course, there's bits that I love and I think are brilliant.
And then I said this to Paul the other day.
There are bits of it that I don't, I don't really agree
with. I think there's, I think, I
think, I think it's particularly good for people who've had
experiences of evangelical Christianity, which is, which
has been overly heavy. And I guess, you know, that's
Baxter's experience, doesn't it? It's come from an extreme
Calvinist experience and, and Paul from a more extreme
Pentecostal. And there's a, there's A, and
there's a great, I think correction and, or, or
rebalancing of some of those, those things.
I, I, I personally think it swings too far in some ways.
So, so, and I think, and I was saying to Paul the other day,
you know, I find that deeply uncomfortable that I'm not
exactly on the same page with you on, on all of these things.
I want to be just championing you 100% and saying, I'm so for
this, I'm so for you. I really, I do really like you.
Please, can we still be friends even if we come to the end of
this, you know, and we're not like exactly on the same page.
He's like, of course, you know, but I think that's also a
challenge of our time. And, you know, the history of
the Protestant church is people get into their little niche and
they're like, oh, can't be friends with you, can't be in
furnishing with you because you don't have my same view on this.
We'll go and start a new church and you get that continuous
schism. And at the moment we're seeing
this horrible polarisation around the world, aren't we, of,
of people clinging to their tribe and, and you know, it's
just people that think the same as me or see the world the same
as me. And, and I think the beauty of
church in its design is that is that we should be able to
present a a better way, which is that we love each other first.
We love Jesus and and and and and, and, and within.
And so I don't intend, I don't want hope to have a sort of an
official hope line on this is our doctrinal basis.
You need to have to be part of hope.
Of course, there'll be a culture and there'll be sort of like the
theology that Alice and I have as leaders will obviously sort
of have a significant impact. But I don't want us to have to
say you've got to sign up to this exact world view and
mindset in order to feel like a home here.
And I think that will be a prophetic and powerful something
for the world. That was my second point.
What was my third one? Oh, my third one.
I might have shared this before, actually on a Sunday in a talk
maybe a few times. And I think again, a bit of
personal testimony of I think what this teaching has helped me
in is I used to find on Sunday mornings for me, there's always
a dynamic of the sovereignty of God versus the stewardship that
we are called to and entrusted with.
And, and where does this sort of boundary lie?
And I probably sway a bit too closely to it's all on me, the
stewardship side. That's, that's often my my kind
of wrestle. And so the dynamic often for me
on Sunday mornings was that I would actually have quite a lot
of diarrhoea on Sunday mornings. That would be my normal Sunday.
I'd feel this real pressure because I want people to come to
hope, have a powerful encounter with God.
And, and I kind of somehow felt that that was on my shoulders.
And I mean, there is a measure in which it is in terms of I'm
involved in leading this church. And so I do have an influence,
but at the same time, I can't make that happen.
And, and what was wonderful and changed my metabolism, I suppose
my bodily functions was sitting in that image of the Trinity and
sitting in that relationship with Father, Son and Holy Spirit
and, and, and, and just a kind of like a minute or so of sort
of meditating on that is my position and my posture and
changed my bodily functions to be more graphic than I'm
comfortable with being gnarly. But I think it shows, it shows
an it shows an example of, you know, the, the health and life
that can come from a healthy, more healthy adaptation than
understanding of what God's like.
So that was my Third Point. And I think my 4th 1, I think my
4th, my fourth example was I was at AI was at an event, church
leaders event. It was a talk from a kind of big
cheese speaker maybe a month or six weeks ago.
And it was an all day thing. And I was really inspired by
what this guy was saying in the morning.
I thought it was brilliant, really loved it.
And one of the things he was saying was that he could see
he's talking about understanding the timers that we're in.
He was saying that various things are being shaken and
changed and, and sort of fresh perspectives coming and sort of
new wineskins coming. And, and I and he was, he was,
he was, he was, he was being explicit on a few things.
But then I said to him at the lunch break in terms of these
things that are being shaken and sort of reassessed, you know, is
penal substitution one of those things that you, that, that you
see, because I, you know, I've, I've found a sort of, that's one
of the things that I found very helpful.
It's been this sort of questioning of that, of that,
the nature of that penal substitution thing.
And I've come to find that quite liberating and exciting.
And he was like, Oh, no, no, I'm totally fine with penal
substitution. And that's not one of the areas
I'm thinking of. And then I've watched in my
heart my attitude after lunch in the afternoon.
I just basically didn't really have much interest in what he
had to say. He'd like totally gone down in
my estimation. And I thought, ah, just spotting
it in myself, this sort of tribalism.
And it's like, oh, I see that, that thing in my heart, I'm
like, oh, you're not, you're not, you haven't got the
revelation, you know? And so I was like, oh, and, and
I guess that was my, my kind of 4th point was this was this, it
kind of ties in with the second point about tribalism.
I, I don't want, I don't want to be, I don't want us to be a
church. That's, that's tribal, that it
has some people that are in this camp, some that are in that
camp, you know, and we and I, you know, so I just want to
encourage you, if you see that, if you smell that in yourself,
I'm, I'm not convinced that's the, the way of Jesus and I
certainly don't want it in myself.
So they're, they're my 4 little for just reflections on the
journey so far or aspects of it for me.
And I do think it's a privilege that we're doing this and that
we're asking these questions. And I think there's a they say,
as we've said, you know, it's for some people, it's an
unnerving thing to be asking these questions and it's a bit
and it's a bit destabilising. I certainly find it makes me,
you know, question lots of stuff and parts of that are a bit
scary. I'm like, you know what, how can
I, I don't know, I don't think I understand this anymore.
And you know, but, but, but I think this is the right thing to
be doing. And I do feel they, my
perspective is I think there's bits of it that are an overswing
and aren't quite right. I do think there's been some, it
feels like there's a, it's a prophetic thing happening within
the church. I feel there's part that within
part of this. It's partly the maturing of the
bride. It's it's of Christ as the
church there. So it's a, we're privileged in
being part of understanding and sharing God, sharing the world
God in a better and more healthy way.
I feel. So I feel like we're in a
privileged place to be on this journey.
And yeah, can I pray? Can I pray for this evening?
Lord, thank you that we get to be here.
Thank you for the privilege of being part of your church.
And we, we, we come to you in, in humility as much as we can.
And we say, will you lead us Jesus into, into all truth?
Will you reveal Christ to us? Will you take away, make us
aware of and strip away from us lies that we've believed, ways
that we're misunderstanding and not saying clearly and, and and
we're wounding has has distorted our understanding of you and the
world and life and lead us into joy, freedom, fullness overflow
so that we can serve you, love you and live life to the full.
Live life in all its fullness, as you said Jesus, and share
that goodness with the world. Cool.
So the first part of the so we're on Chapter 8.
Help me. It's week 8 and the reflection
and exercise at the beginning was to look at this.
How many points is an 18 point list here of the Trinitarian
vision? And, and then the exercise is,
is choose four or five of the points above and consider which
scriptures speak most directly to them.
So it might be that you want to pick out one or two reading
through that What, what which something there that stands out
to you. Oh, yeah, thanks Olivia.
I would, I would recommend you read through that list of of 18
points and just ask God to highlight one of them to you and
then and then to go into that. So that's the exercise at the
beginning. And so we'll do that for about
15 minutes. Yeah, I think do it individually
to start with and then talk about it as a group.
So maybe just share one, choose one each.