Grey Matter
Hi and welcome to Grey Matter. My name is Adam Bradley and I’m married to Lorna and we have three delightful daughters. We live in Peterborough (Cambs, UK) where I lead Life Church (www.life-church.eu); which is probably the best job ever! My blog is about anything and everything theologically reformed and charismatic.
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Here is an article I wrote for this weeks Life News:
Romans 15:7 is a remarkable verse. It says ‘Therefore, accept one another, just as Christ also accepted us to the glory of God.’ (NASB)
Here we have the recipe for healthy and vibrant church community!
The first thing we can learn from this amazing verse is that Christ’s acceptance of us was marked by great pain and cost to himself. At the hands of brutal men Jesus willingly laid aside his rights, so that in his death he could pay the price that would bring an at-one-ment - which is where we get the wordatonement from. Two parties who have been separated and alienated brought back together - and here the means was the self-giving death of Jesus. So what does it mean for us to accept one another just as Christ accepted us? It means choosing to accept people in a way that actively reaches out and across barriers of fear and difference, and here the biggest challenge of all: sometimes in a way that will cost us something!
This is even more important in a community that is growing because you can’t rely on the bonds of shared history. Instead you have to actively seek to reach out and make those Christ-like connections, risking the possibility of being hurt.
What does this look like in practice? Well, it means inviting newcomers over for dinner or perhaps a coffee. You may be thinking to yourself ‘I’m not very good at talking to new people - what will I say? What if the conversation dries up?’ Let me encourage you look at the accepting work of Jesus in your life, and let that be fuel for your community-building enterprise! On the other hand, you may be thinking to yourself ‘I’m too busy.’ Again, let me encourage you to look to the accepting work of Jesus in your life, and thank him that he wasn’t too busy!
However, notice how all of this self-denying acceptance of one another leads to an end: the glory of God. Dream with me, for a moment, of a community of people made up of every age, ethnic, and social group in Peterborough, Stamford, Oakham and the villages between, living in vibrant, spontaneous community together. That type of community will grab people’s attention and their eyes will be turned towards the source of this community - which is Jesus himself!
So at the start of this new year, can I encourage you to make investing your time in welcoming one another, and especially newcomers to the Life Church community, a real priority?. Let’s be known as the church with a great welcome, great food and great friendship, as all of these are our building blocks for a great community!
‘Therefore, accept one another, just as Christ also accepted us to the glory of God.’
Here we have the recipe for healthy and vibrant church community!
The first thing we can learn from this amazing verse is that Christ’s acceptance of us was marked by great pain and cost to himself. At the hands of brutal men Jesus willingly laid aside his rights, so that in his death he could pay the price that would bring an at-one-ment - which is where we get the wordatonement from. Two parties who have been separated and alienated brought back together - and here the means was the self-giving death of Jesus. So what does it mean for us to accept one another just as Christ accepted us? It means choosing to accept people in a way that actively reaches out and across barriers of fear and difference, and here the biggest challenge of all: sometimes in a way that will cost us something!
This is even more important in a community that is growing because you can’t rely on the bonds of shared history. Instead you have to actively seek to reach out and make those Christ-like connections, risking the possibility of being hurt.
What does this look like in practice? Well, it means inviting newcomers over for dinner or perhaps a coffee. You may be thinking to yourself ‘I’m not very good at talking to new people - what will I say? What if the conversation dries up?’ Let me encourage you look at the accepting work of Jesus in your life, and let that be fuel for your community-building enterprise! On the other hand, you may be thinking to yourself ‘I’m too busy.’ Again, let me encourage you to look to the accepting work of Jesus in your life, and thank him that he wasn’t too busy!
However, notice how all of this self-denying acceptance of one another leads to an end: the glory of God. Dream with me, for a moment, of a community of people made up of every age, ethnic, and social group in Peterborough, Stamford, Oakham and the villages between, living in vibrant, spontaneous community together. That type of community will grab people’s attention and their eyes will be turned towards the source of this community - which is Jesus himself!
So at the start of this new year, can I encourage you to make investing your time in welcoming one another, and especially newcomers to the Life Church community, a real priority?. Let’s be known as the church with a great welcome, great food and great friendship, as all of these are our building blocks for a great community!
‘Therefore, accept one another, just as Christ also accepted us to the glory of God.’
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Yesterday at our wider team meeting [yep I know that’s not the most flattering title!], I recommended Eugene H. Peterson’s book ‘A long obedience in the same direction. This is wonderful book reflecting upon the Psalms of Assent. Here is what the back of the book has to say:
As a society, we are no less obsessed with the immediate than when Eugene Peterson first wrote this Christian classic. If anything, email and the Internet may have intensified our quest for the quick fix. But Peterson’s time-tested prescription for discipleship remains the same—a long obedience in the same direction. Tucked away in the Hebrew Psalter, Peterson discovered “an old dog-eared songbook,” the Songs of Ascents that were sung by pilgrims on their way up to worship in Jerusalem. In these songs (Psalms 120-134) Peterson finds encouragement for modern pilgrims as we learn to grow in worship, service, joy, work, happiness, humility, community and blessing. This 20th anniversary edition of A Long Obedience in the Same Direction features these Psalms in Peterson’s widely acclaimed paraphrase, The Message. He also includes an epilogue in which he reflects on the themes of this book and his ministry during the twenty years since its original publication.
If I discover within myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world
C.S. Lewis
If worship is right because God is worthy of it, it is also the best of all antidotes to our own self-centredness, the most effective way to “disinfect us of egotism,” as one writer put it long ago. In true worship we turn the searchlight of our mind and heart upon God and temporarily forget about our troublesome and usually intrusive selves. We marvel at the beauties and intricacies of God’s creation. We “survey the wondrous cross on which the Prince of glory died.” We are taken up with God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit…Because we are normally so turned in on ourselves, we will not find this easy. But we have to persevere, since nothing is more right or more important.
John R. W. Stott
The Christian life is not just our own private affair. If we have been born again into God’s family, not only has he become our Father but every other Christian believer in the world, whatever his nation or denomination, has become our brother or sister in Christ. But it is no good supposing that membership of the universal Church of Christ is enough; we must belong to some local branch of it. Every Christian’s place is in a local church, sharing in its worship, its fellowship, and its witness.
John R. W. Stott
The Christian community is a community of the cross, for it has been brought into being by the cross, and the focus of its worship is the Lamb once slain, now glorified. So the community of the cross is a community of celebration, a eucharistic community, ceaselessly offering to God through Christ the sacrifice of our praise and thanksgiving. The Christian life is an unending festival. And the festival we keep, now that our Passover Lamb has been sacrificed for us, is a joyful celebration of his sacrifice, together with a spiritual feasting upon it.
John R. W. Stott
‘No sooner are people together than they begin to observe, judge, and classify each other. Thus, even as Christian community is in the process of being formed, an invisible, often unknown, yet terrible life-and-death struggle commences.’ (93)
Bonhoeffer, Life Together
The modern world detests authority but worships relevance. Our Christian conviction is that the Bible has both authority and relevance, and that the secret of both is Jesus Christ.
John R. W. Stott
‘Whoever cannot be alone should beware of community … But the reverse is also true. Whoever cannot stand being in community should beware of being alone.’
Bonhoeffer, Life Together, pg. 82
