Hey

What's happenin' everyone,
By now we have settled back into a daily routine. The Forge is for me a memory of great fellowship with amazing people. And it is also much more than that: not just an isolated personal experience, but a firmly set foundation on which I can ask God to continue building. It is my firm belief that my American peers need to be exposed to the kind of people I was fortunate enough to spend a month with this summer. Because the summer fellowship expressed not an isolated, distant faith, but life together that developed within the immediate and renewing presence of an eternal kingdom--something that can be hard to see in America. And as God continues to build and refine our lives into precious stones, we can (for those interested in writing or would like to practice their writing) use this forum as a point of connection. Whether it be to reflect on topics discussed during the Forge, tell a story, share a challenging thought, or make a cultural observation, your input here can continue to sharpen our lives. There are some particular questions that I'm interested in working through, as noted in the "read more" section below and in the "Church" entry at the bottom, but this forum is open and any input is welcome.

"And Jesus said to them, "Therefore every scribe who has become a disciple of the kingdom of the heavens is like a head of a household, who brings out of his treasure things new and old." Matthew 13:52

As an initial thought, reading Henri Nouwen has encouraged me to view my culture with a critical eye--to discern the influences my surroundings (which are highly material and secular) have on me. So, I'd like to offer a Nouwen quote that struck me and a brief observation. Nouwen characterizes the confusion of a friend of his named Peter:

"In the absence of clear boundaries between himself and his milieu (surroundings), between fantasy and reality, between what to do and what to avoid, it seems that Peter has become a prisoner of the now, caught in the present without meaningful connections with his past or future...When he looks into his future everything becomes one big blur, an impenetrable cloud. He finds no answers to questions about why he lives and where he is heading...He looks into empty space and is sure of only one thing: If there is anything worthwhile in life it must be here and now." (The Wounded Healer, p. 4).

Nouwen says our "here and now" has been disconnected from any greater purpose. I think I would agree that I do not often connect my daily flesh and blood experiences with God's eternal purpose. That is when I feel some confusion about life. So, I'd like to look into this connection with you. As stated in Matthew 13:52, let's bring out of our heavenly treasure things new and old in order to bring light to the "here and now" of our lives. I hope to further explore with you the issues we deal with today in their relation to this kingdom. Whether it is books, music, television or our relationships with one another, our experiences may be similar or very different; either way I am eager to hear about them, either in brief or longer comments.

Read More......

join the conversation.

Take an acorn in your hand, and you hold a source of life; a container for a completely designed yet hidden purpose. Once planted, the life within the seed is slowly revealed, and it becomes a great tree bearing many acorns of its own. This tree--simply grown according to the acorn's design--provides us a hint of our purpose as Christians. At the Forge, we seek to render our lives as nothing more than fertile ground from which the life and purpose of Jesus Christ will grow.

While the acorn offers a simple picture, our minds give rise to great questions concerning this Christian life—foundational ones concerning our identity as the body of Christ and our purpose within His Church, as well as existential concerns of what to do with our lives. This forum is meant to host a dialogue on these questions. Many different cultures, backgrounds and church experiences were represented at the Forge, and hopefully will also be represented within this forum. Through this exchange of thoughts and experiences, we seek to increase the vitality of our lives in Jesus Christ and allow this life to spread to the local communities impacted by Forge participants as they return to different corners of the world.

We hope there will be challenging opinions and encouraging words so that we may grow and mature, and Christ may continue to unite us as one, just as He and His Father are one.

Read More......

Church

During a recent discussion, a close friend of mine cited a compelling observation from the German Lutheran martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer:

…there is a word that to Protestants has the sound of something infinitely commonplace, more or less indifferent and superfluous, that does not make their heart beat faster; something with which a sense of boredom is so often associated. . . . And yet our fate is sealed, if we are unable again to attach a new, or perhaps a very old, meaning to it. Woe to us if that word does not become important to us soon again...

Yes, the word to which I am referring is Church.

Reading through Acts or Paul’s letters, we get an incredible glimpse of what Christ had just begun on earth—believers living and fellowshipping together in community, sharing their lives and excitedly discussing what it meant to have actually become citizens of another realm. The first fruits of the Spirit, seeking to fulfill Christ’s prayer that they be united as one just as Jesus and His father were one (Jn 17:11). And all this amidst such a hostile world that Christ would need to be with His Church and to lead it at all times, a continual interaction between Christ and those that love Him. Quite a dynamic setting for the start of the Church. How do we relate to this reality? We can take heart that we continue to be built together into a dwelling of God (Eph 2:21), but, considering Bonhoeffer’s somber observation of a commonplace Church, how do we see Christ’s headship today?

Bonhoeffer’s quote feels almost normal, and perhaps it’s less clear today that Christ is with his Church at all times (rather than once a week). We spend a lot of our time living by priorities that we consider unrelated to the Church, and consequently confine our fellowship with other believers to perhaps a couple time commitments a week. We erect life goals and pursue personal ‘callings’ or our individual ‘purpose’, but how often do we think of these pursuits in relation to the community of believers, the Body of Christ? Often I have thought of my own priorities simply as personal ambitions; perhaps they embodied what I thought to be my skills, or even as a specific plan God has ordained for my life. I have rarely thought about being built as one with other believers. Perhaps because the congregations I’ve attended have been so well managed I have considered it a few people’s calling to run local churches and everyone else’s role is outside of it. Hence, pastors fulfill the work of focusing on the fellowship of believers, while most believers focus instead on their more pressing individual responsibilities—getting back to their own work Monday morning. Church becomes a career for a few and commonplace for most.

While my past experience has indeed reflected the Bonhoeffer quote, scripturally there is no reason to doubt that the reality of Christ’s headship is just as living and dynamic today as it was at the beginning. No matter our impression of Sunday mornings, Christ’s ongoing work in His Church is no commonplace plan. And however this interaction between Jesus Christ and His Church is taking place, we can recognize—just as the early believers did—that this truly must be the most important thing that is going on in this world. “For I am accomplishing a work in your days, a work which you will never believe, though someone should describe it to you” (Acts 13:41). Let us be believers in the work Christ is accomplishing in our days and seek to explore God’s heart for life in His Church.

We open up this discussion with the topic of how Christ interacts with and leads His Church, for this is at the very center of God’s eternal plan. We hope there will be challenging opinions and encouraging words and verses so that we may grow and mature and Christ may continue to unite us, just as He and His father are one.

Read More......