Here's a clip that Dave Miers put up on his website from the 10,000 person large Australia event. The event was called Burn Your Plastic Jesus, which as far as I can tell means to get rid of the myths you have about Jesus, and embrace the Jesus of the Bible.
In following Jesus’ command to love God with “all our mind,” the Christian life is supposed to include regular times of study and learning. The goal of such study is to have what Paul called “the mind of Christ” so that we can live the life of Christ by the power of the Spirit of Christ. Therefore, this month we will examine the contemplative spiritual discipline of study and the correlating active spiritual discipline of obedience.
In John 17:17, Jesus prayed that we would study our Bible. He said, “Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.” Therefore, to become more and more like Jesus we must have regular time in God’s Word. The Scriptures have much to say about the benefits of regular study.
“For Ezra had devoted himself to the study and observance of the Law of the LORD, and to teaching its decrees and laws in Israel.” (Ezra 7:10)
“Give me understanding to learn your commands.” (Psalm 119:73)
“Instruct a wise man and he will be wiser still; teach a righteous man and he will add to his learning.” (Proverbs 9:9)
“Wise men store up knowledge, but the mouth of a fool invites ruin.” (Proverbs 10:14)
“Apply your heart to instruction and your ears to words of knowledge.” (Proverbs 23:12)
“A woman should learn in quietness and full submission.” (1 Timothy 2:11)
“Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.” (2 Timothy 2:15)
“When you come, bring the cloak that I left with Carpus at Troas, and my scrolls [books], especially the parchments [Scriptures].” (2 Timothy 4:13)
Hear God’s Word (Luke 11:28; Romans 10:17), which means that listening to sermons, lectures, and audio Bibles is very beneficial.
Read God’s Word (e.g., Revelation 1:3) as Jesus often did.
Study God’s Word (e.g., Ezra 7:10; Acts 17:11) as Jesus often did, which caused people to be amazed at His insights (Matthew 7:28–29).
Memorize God’s Word (Psalm 119:11; Proverbs 22:17–19) as Jesus did, which enabled Him to freely quote Scripture as needed (e.g., Matthew 4:1–11).
Because Jesus humbly entered into history as a human being, He had to grow and learn just like we do (Luke 2:52). Subsequently, when we see Jesus frequently quoting Scripture from memory throughout His life, we must infer that He spent considerable amounts of time hearing Scripture, reading Scripture, studying Scripture, and memorizing Scripture.
It's almost midnight and the site is live. For those of you on feed readers, you're going to want to click on the link and visit the site. I'm so thankful that we have such great web guys.
We've put a large flash player on the front page that will contain audio and video. It's a one stop shop to see new media on the Resurgence.
The blog is a focus of our redesign. It's now on the front page and easy to get to. So now the 53% of Resurgence readers who don't use feed readers can find out what's new immediately.
A few weeks ago I was talking to @sfaxon about redesigning the Resurgence. Here's that conversation:
Seth: What is the timeline you're thinking of?
Me: I'd like the site redesigned by the second week of September.
Seth: Yeah... and I'd like a pony and a unicorn—that's a bit ambitious.
Me: I can't wait to see my unicorn.
Today I got my unicorn!
I am pumped for the Desiring God Conference in Minneapolis. If you're going facebook or @mikeyanderson me. I've added an avalanche of every YouTube video I can find. If you live within a days drive of Minneapolis, it will be worth coming out.
Here's a video interview from my time here in Sydney. Read the article from the Sydney Anglican Network.
We're in the later parts of building a new theResurgence.com. Will you help us out by letting us know how you use this site?
Work on your weakness
Once you discover whether you are more naturally a contemplative or an activist you must then work on your area of weakness. In my years as a pastor I have found that most of us lean heavily toward the contemplative or the active disciplines at the expense of the other. Furthermore, it is not uncommon for people to read about Jesus in their Bible and only see His contemplative or activist scenes at the expense of seeing the healthy tension that Jesus lived in. As a result, when a contemplative thinks of Jesus they are prone to imagine Him sitting alone in the wilderness and silently reading Scripture and praying. Conversely, when an activist thinks of Jesus they are prone to imagine Him performing miracles, preaching, and casting out demons, never sitting down or taking a day off. The truth is that Jesus practiced every contemplative discipline and every active discipline (with the exception of lovemaking). To follow in His example means we must follow in His entire example.
Immature Christians
One of the worst things I have witnessed is immature Christians who judge another Christian as immature because they do not have the same natural strength in a particular spiritual discipline. This takes many forms, such as the spiritually disciplined evangelist who looks down on people who don’t share their faith every moment of every day with everyone they encounter. Another example is the spiritually disciplined student who looks down on people who do not read enormous books written by dead guys for hours at a time and geek out learning the difference between things like transubstantiation and consubstantiation.
If the distinction between contemplatives and activists is not understood in marriage, the result can be very painful; conflict ensues when spouses try to impose how they do their spiritual disciplines upon one another. Perhaps the worst case I am personally aware of was a well-intentioned young husband who had his wife sit on their couch while he gave her theology lectures complete with a white board and then expected to quiz her. He was shocked to realize that she did not find this romantic. She would have preferred that he put the white board away and got a job to feed their family; they could not eat all his theology books and they were getting hungry.
You must begin with humility
In short, when it comes to the spiritual disciplines we must each begin with humility. Every Christian is spiritually disciplined in some areas of their life and spiritually undisciplined in others. Therefore, each Christian we meet is a potential teacher of sorts, able to help us grow as disciples more like Jesus. We must be willing to inquire of their strengths and learn from them.
As a final word of preface, two items are important to note before we study spiritual disciplines here together in the coming months. One, the spiritual disciplines are not something we have to do to make God love us. Rather, because God already does love us, the spiritual disciplines are something that we get to do as we love Him back and enjoy growing in our loving relationship with Him. Two, the spiritual disciplines are not intended to enslave us. Rather, they are intended to lead us into growing freedom in the same way that a trained athlete or musician is free to enjoy the task more than a novice.
Which Are You?
The key is to discover whether you are more naturally a contemplative or an activist and then work on your area of weakness. In my years as a pastor I have found that most of us lean heavily toward the contemplative or the active disciplines at the expense of the other. Furthermore, it is not uncommon for people to read about Jesus in their Bible and only see His contemplative or activist scenes at the expense of seeing the healthy tension that Jesus lived in. As a result, when a contemplative thinks of Jesus they are prone to imagine Him sitting alone in the wilderness and silently reading Scripture and praying. Conversely, when an activist thinks of Jesus they are prone to imagine Him performing miracles, preaching, and casting out demons, never sitting down or taking a day off. The truth is that Jesus practiced every contemplative discipline and every active discipline (with the exception of lovemaking). To follow in His example means we must follow in His entire example.
Active Disciplines
Study
Fellowship
Speaking
Teaching
Activism
Work
Lovemaking
Evangelism
Service
Feasting
Contemplative Disciplines
Solitude
Silence
Meditation
Prayer
Sabbath
Chastity
Worship
Journaling
Fasting
How come no one has been as forward thinking as Francis Schaeffer in the last couple decades... This guy's amazing. Below is a video from "How Should We Then Live?
Here are the final 3 proposals that won the Vintage Jesus DVD giveaway. I hope you take this as an encouragement that you can get involved and tell people about Jesus.
1. When I was in Iraq, we would watch the "Vintage Jesus" series as our Sunday services. It was awesome to see guys watch Pastor Mark interview folks at Hemp Fest to introduce the sermon. When you are around guys who watch porn the way you may watch 24 or Lost, the need to see who Jesus is cannot be any clearer. The ranks of the military are filled with men who need a clear picture of who Christ is. This video curriculum would be used by guys currently serving in Iraq leading small groups. Guys are rising up to serve as deacons in their units, and this curriculum would equip them to present Jesus Christ as a King calling us as men to rise up and follow Him into battle, and not just wear a tie on Sundays and be “nice” guys.
Alfred Lobaina
2.I've been a leader in Young Life and in the church for almost 15 years now. I work for Young Life and have the opportunity to shape the discipleship at almost 15 schools we are involved with. The chapters of the DVD fit perfectly with our outreach message (roughly chapters 1-7) and then some of our content for our new believers (8-12). I have a two key small groups I lead. One is a group of freshman in college. We meet every week for about three hours to study the word and leadership. My proposal is to pilot a 12 week series in the Fall with them and train them how to use it, and then for them to turn and use it over Spring in 4 local high school discipleship programs we have. The DVD format will make it easy for them to lead and my guess is the DVDs will not bore our kids (one of our mottos is it is a sin to bore a kid with the gospel).
Sean McGever
3.I'm part of a small inner-city church in NYC, planted beside one of the hardest housing projects in the city. We have a very low income demographic (many on public assistance), a very run-down building, and can only afford one paid staff member (our pastor). We have zero money available from the church budget for buying resources, so our small groups usually borrow resources from other churches or the leaders buy the materials and people chip in to help cover costs, or we rely on ministries that make some resources available for free. One of the biggest dangers in our community is the infiltration of the prosperity "gospel" among the demographic we serve, even though our pastor preaches truth. It's vital for our small groups to be digging in to good theology, and they respond particularly well to DVD's. We would be so grateful to receive this resource from you! P.S. See you at the DG conference in September!!
Christy Tennant
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We've been given a bunch of books and other swag that we're going to be giving away in the next few weeks. If you have any ideas for contests—hit me up on facebook.
The Resurgence is a movement that resources multiple generations to live for Jesus so that they can effectively reach their cities with the Gospel by staying culturally accessible and Biblically faithful.