Win a Wii - name a church

Today I did one of those things that I do when I'm working hard all day and I miss lunch, I took a few minutes out mid afternoon and very naughtily sunk across to the fish & chips place across the road. i ordered a small bag of chips then sat on the bench and waited. As I sat there I noticed a pile of magazines (I love these trashy things always entertaining). So as I was flicking through the pages to see if there was anything interesting and this half page ad caught my eye with an intriguing title, "We want help naming a church..."

Yes I did double take on that one. And here's the punch line, offer a good name for a church and they give you a Nintendo Wii, no strings attached. Hey it got my attention! I'm interested in what people think about this one.

I must admit, it's a clever marketing campaign. Nowhere in the add is there mention of who this nameless group is or where they meet, just a couple of punchy statements about what they believe, which by the way, I was impressed by. No creeds or ancient churchy statements, just the facts. First up, they follow Jesus. Then there's a few statements about Jesus. He was radical, outrageous, hung out with trashy people, a non-conformist and a revolutionary, to sum it up. They then left a website at the bottom www.nameachurch.com.

I was curious enough to look up the website which is very simple and invites you to enter the competition. Thee are some subtle options like, 'would you like to know where we meet', so if you check the box they will contact you. But hey, the add go me in, not because I want a new game console but because I thought it was a daring way of coming up with a name for your church for one. It actually takes the ownership of the church's name away from the church (no member of the church is allowed to enter, the name is purely up to others). So I'm tempted to offer my suggestion and see how far this goes.

So is there an ethical dilemma here? Does Jesus need a marketing campaign? Or is it just us who need that? I wonder if our church needs a new name?

Mark

Dismiss or discern?

Just recently I heard a message from a speaker who visited Adelaide. While I couldn’t tell you everything he said, there was a profound challenge that stuck with me. He shared some stories in his message which were a bit beyond my scope of experience or understanding. They were stories that talked about the work of the Holy Spirit in some peoples lives, including his own. They were stories that for a reasonably conservative Churches of christ boy like me were difficult to take on board, process and reason with. Does God really work like that? Can that really happen? Can the Holy Spirit really give people visions and cause people to do things out of the ordinary?

The challenge he issued at end of his message was this. Try not to be so dismissive of everything thing you see or hear but be discerning of what might possibly be the work of the Holy Spirit. Once upon a time I would have given very little time to a thought or experience that was outside my accepted theological understanding or logical thinking. As I have matured I have learnt to listen and as I listened I heard this message, ‘be discerning rather than dismissive.’

This certainly doesn’t mean I have to believe everything that is thrown my way, but what is God is trying to break through to me in a new kind of way. Will I be open to meet God on God’s terms or will it always have to be on my terms? The classic default mode of approach for many young adults (from my experience of myself and my friends) is that of cynicism, sarcasm and ridicule. Maybe that is a protective defensive mechanism so as to not draw attention to one self so you don’t look like a fool (this behavior is not limited to young people). Yet sometimes as followers of Jesus, we are called to foolish behavior such as hope, love of the unlovable and faith. In fact it shouldn’t really surprise us that God would could be revealed to us in ways we do not expect.

Scripture is full of stories of people who when faced with evidence of the living God we serve, defaulted to dismissing the event or experience. Moses came up with a number of excuses not to respond to the experience he had of God in the burning bush. Thomas had a hard time believing that Jesus could live after being crucified and buried. And then there was the day the Spirit of God resided among the disciples on the day of Pentecost and everyone thought they were nuts.

Imagine just how much we would be missing out on regarding what God is doing among us and what God wants to do among us if we just dismissed everything that seemed abnormal or unexplainable. In my experience of the work of the Spirit of God, the revelation of the Spirit is always challenging, sometimes not welcome or expected, usually disturbing to our comfort zones and always moves us in love towards a concern for furthering the work of the kingdom of God.

So I rest this challenge with you. When the Spirit of God attempts to speak to you next will you dismiss it as something you don’t understand, or will to take time to discern just where God might want to take you.

Shalom Mark