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The Light of Faith

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GUEST POST BY JENNIFER RUNDLETT

Over the next couple of months this blog will be hosting a series of posts by guest bloggers as we again participate in our annual Summer Blog Tour. I hope you follow along, check out each author’s personal blog, and find ways to unshackle your faith. You can download previous blog tours here.

We all can get burned out from time to time…
and our once full throated song can become a half-hearted tune that we push through as we become absent minded about the glorious light of our faith.
How can we cope with these times of the “doldrums” in our walk with God?
How can we encourage the sweet wind of the Holy Spirit to blow through us to re-kindle our inner fire?
Our faith is a precious treasure, a gift that should be nurtured in the best of times, so we might thrive, but also so we might navigate the storms ahead without losing our way.

As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you O God. ~ Psalm 42:1


This week, as I was considering the images of our faith, I was attracted to Claude Monet’s series of paintings on the Rouen Cathedral.

Monet was the founder of the 19th century French Impressionism movement. He was controversial for his time because he became fascinated with capturing on canvas the effects of light on one subject. To do this, he left the sanctuary of his studio and went directly to the outdoors to experience the changing effects natural light would have on a particular scene.

The National Gallery of Art describes this series of paintings as Monet’s desire to capture the “effects of light and weather” and he does this by painting the facade of this church some 30 times over many months as he rented rooms across from the Cathedral in late January of 1892 and stayed until spring.

This got me thinking about how many ways we use the word light to represent our faith and how our understanding of it can change over our lifetime.

  • Light represents seeing
  • It can also symbolize hope
  • A knowledge of a great truth…something that defines us and gives us purpose.
  • Our understanding of Light, gives us an impression of God.
  • Our attention to the light can fill us up until we overflow
  • Experiencing the warmth of God’s light tells us we are loved by our creator.

What do you think of when you talk about God’s light?

When I look at these paintings, I’m impressed and inspired by the thought of his devotion to capture the beauty of the light day after day.
Like Monet, I believe, that often what it takes to thrive in our spirituality is to stop-look-and listen- every day.
I want to encourage you to commit to a regular time of devotion to our Lord. Here are just a few ideas of things I have discovered along the way that rejuvenated my devotional time:

  • Rise early: Easier said than done, but try going to bed earlier so you can set your clock an hour earlier to spend time in prayer and devotion with our Lord. If the tasks of your day keep rushing in, make a quick to do list, then set it aside. It will be there when you are done and your time in prayer will help you remain in God’s peace as you enter your day.
  • A special place: whether it is in your home or office, create a special devotional space and fill it with items that will help you look forward to your quiet time with God. Perhaps you will light a candle or maybe you will have your special mug and favorite blend of coffee, these things can heighten your senses and help you relax allowing you to become more present as you attend to God’s voice.
  • Keep a prayer journal: I have always struggled with maintaining regular prayer practice, until I started writing my prayers. Now it is more of a conversation. I allow myself to write in a free form flowing in and out of prayer and regularly making note of where I noticed God in my day. You can also jot down Bible scriptures or favorite quotes. I’m always amazed at how writing something down helps me to hardwire the passage and meditate on a personal meaning for me.
  • Amazon Wish List: Start a wish list on amazon of all the books you would like to read. Anytime you hear about a book from a friend on Facebook or Twitter you can automatically add it to your list. Goodreads and Spotify are also wonderful social networks that can help you find recommendations for books and music to keep your devotional time fresh and inspiring.
  • Silence: Resolve to ask God questions and follow it by a period of silence…you will be amazed at how God will speak to your heart and open your eyes to new insights, discoveries and people all around you.

“You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you.” ~ Isaiah 26:3

“Solitude is the practice of being absent from people and things to attend to God. Silence is the practice of quieting every inner and outer voice to attend to God.” ~ Peter Scazzero, Emotionally Healthy Spirituality p. 161

“Therefore, since through God’s mercy we have this ministry we do not lose heart…For God, who said ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” ~ 2 Corinthians 4: 1, 6

Like Monet, may we attend to the light of our faith so that we might notice all the beauty and all the little details of His divine love in our lives each day.

“To me the motif itself is an insignificant factor…What I wanted to reproduce is what exists between the motif and me. ~ Claude Monet

May God’s light and peace be with you

Jennifer Rundlett, founder of God thru the Arts ministries, maintains a presence in the community with her active lecture and concert series highlighting the spiritual connections throughout the arts. Author of My Dancing Day: Reflections of the Incarnation in Art and Music, and The Joyful Sound: Reflections on the Life of Christ in Art and Music she regularly posts devotional blogs on God thru the Arts at http://www.jrundlett.wordpress.com and has been a speaker at the Pepperdine University Bible Lectures in Malibu CA, Tulsa Workshop in Tulsa OK, David Lipscomb University Summer Celebration in Nashville TN, Rochester College Streaming in Rochester Hills Michigan and Fort Detrick Prayer Breakfast in Frederick Maryland.

Blog tour concludes, book giveaway continues

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blog tour
CIOTo promote this year’s Summer Blog Tour, we’re giving away one set of Church Inside Out, both book and workbook. Just leave a comment below then enter over HERE. The drawing will be held when all participating blogs have posted the tour’s articles.

Today’s post comes from Steven Hovater:

Missional, From the Inside Out

The word “missional” has been terribly abused in its first couple of decades of wide circulation. Theologically, the word simply describes God’s ongoing work in the world—and the church that intentionally participates in that work. There are multiple facets to that work and our participation in it, and perhaps this explains why the word has been stretched around so many different kinds of churches or styles of discipleship. We understand ourselves to be participating in God’s mission as we spread the news of Jesus’s redemptive work in our community and around the globe, as we encourage each other to follow Jesus, and as we pursue the conditions of justice, righteousness and peace. None of these are the full breadth of what God wants for this world, but in each of them we engage with values near to the heart of God!

Our churches pursue each facet collectively, working together for the purposes of evangelization, transformation, and justice—and churches can implement structural shifts to facilitate progress in each cause. We can create systems that create opportunities for faith sharing, venues in which transformation is more likely to occur, and initiatives that push against standing systems of injustice. Whether we’re the leaders fashioning the new programs or congregants supporting and participating in the moves, we can too easily begin to think that the structural changes mark us as “missional”. However, those structural shifts can only move us so far! Church programming and structure may create the conditions in which we move towards mission, and poor structures can get in the way of such practices or implicitly devalue them. Structure has its place, and should be approached with intentionality. However, creating the structures should not be understood as the heart of the work itself—the work itself is a matter of flesh, blood and spirit.

Flesh, Blood, and Spirit

The missional work of evangelization occurs when flesh and blood humans filled with the spirit of God reach out to their known and loved neighbors with the good news of Jesus. The missional work of discipleship takes place when people of flesh and blood, acting by the power of God’s Spirit, encourage and teach each other about the way of Jesus, giving testimony of Jesus’s work. Justice progresses as Spirit-driven people stand in solidarity with the oppressed, whom they have come to see and love because of their transformation in Christ. The heart of missional christianity isn’t a matter of organization, but of embodiment. While the church’s programming might provide the sort of vehicle or venue in which these things happen, the structure itself won’t succeed until it is filled by the right kind of transformed people—the new humanity, formed from the inside out for the purposes of God’s mission in the world. That formation takes places when we, both as communities and as individuals, nurture the sorts of mentalities and habits that encourage people to align with the mission of God and to engage in it.

The inventory of those mentalities and habits is surely diverse and contains some familiar things, like the virtues of faith, hope, and love that the church has long sought to nurture, and the habits of prayer and listening to the word that have been a part of both the gatherings of God’s people and the classical understandings of their individual devotional practices. These are well and good, and contribute to our transformation into people aligned with the mission of God, but I want to suggest a further practice, one that I see both in the life of the early church and in the missional movement of our own time: the nurture of a particular obsession.

Obsessed with the Missio Dei

The Missio Dei is a fancy Latin phrase meaning “the mission of God”. It’s a bit of shorthand meant to point us towards what God is doing in the world—something we train ourselves to discover by drinking deeply of God’s story in the scriptures, and which we prayerfully seek by the spirit of God in our own time. Becoming obsessed with the Missio Dei means that at every turn in our lives, we are always asking, “What might God want to happen here?” or “How can I join in what God might be working towards by what I say and do in this moment?”.

These are the sorts of questions the early church obsessed over. Missional churches have these questions embedded in their culture, whether or not they ever use the fancy Latin phrase or have super-sophisticated “missional” structures. Missional people can’t help but ask what God wants in the world, and how they can bear witness to God’s desires and God’s work towards fulfilling those intentions. Each encounter with the word, each gathering with the church, and every moment in the neighborhood is an opportunity to deepen our understanding of God’s mission in the world. That obsession is planted deep within our hearts, and keeps gnawing at our souls. Like a deep mystery, it holds us in vigilant tension, so that every moment we are ready to perceive the clues that might shed light on what God is really at work doing. The seed of that obsession grows from the inside out, until its fruit becomes apparent in the world. It is an internal drive that fuels every external step we take.

10 Steven Hovater - picSteven Hovater is the preaching and outreach minister at the Church of Christ at Cedar Lane in Tullahoma, Tennessee. He loves walking slow with his wife Kelly and running fast with their four kids. Occasionally, he blogs at stevenhovater.com., and loves interacting with people on twitter (@stevenhovater).

Inside Out Blog Tour by Peter Horne

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13639689_10100670053310301_590207559_oOver the next couple of months Peter Horne has coordinated with a great group of church leaders and writers to explore some of the practical applications for individuals and churches of living Inside Out. We believe you’ll be blessed and challenged by their thoughts, so please make an effort to check back to this blog throughout July and August to join this Summer Blog Tour. Peter writes this first post:

We live in a consumeristic world. The engine of our capitalist economy is founded in the thought that more is better. Newer is better. Faster is better. And to the extent that you accept this thought and participate in this market, you are better. You are cooler. You are smarter. Your life is easier. And you will be happier.

Our culture repeatedly encourages us to “try this, taste that, buy these, go there, experience this, watch that, try these.” Whether we realize it or not, this worldview is oriented from the Outside to the Inside.

This philosophy of life begins with the perspective that goodness, joy, completeness, and purpose are “out there”, outside of ourselves. They exist for us to grasp, or at least to pursue with the hope to grasp.

As I write this, the Cleveland Cavaliers have just won the NBA Championship. It represents the team’s first ever championship and the city’s first professional sports championship in 52 years. I wonder how many fans longed and dreamed of this day. They pour into the streets to greet the players. They throw the team a parade. They feel on top of the world. Then in a few days, a week, perhaps a month they begin to wonder… “When will the Browns win the NFL championship?” or “When will the Indians bring home the MLB championship?” The euphoria subsides and life goes on.

Jesus taught us a different way of viewing the world. He introduced us to the worldview “Inside Out.”

In Mark 7 Jesus addresses a crowd of people who concerned themselves with ritual purity. In this particular instance the discussion revolved around washing hands before a meal. While our mother’s told us this for health reasons, these people believed it would help them maintain purity before God. God himself had earlier given Israel detailed instructions about clean and unclean foods and lifestyle practices. For the people accusing Jesus however, rather than pointing them to God, these instructions had become a goal of their own.

Jesus then makes this astonishing statement to this crowd, “Nothing outside a person can defile them by going into them. Rather it is what comes out of a person that defiles them.” (7:15) At the end of this conversation Jesus provides a list of sinful behaviours and concludes “All these evils come from inside and defile a person.”

Jesus knew that the state of our hearts determines our outlook on life and our standing before God. Joy or grief. Hatred or love. Generosity or envy. These attitudes may be influenced by events outside of us, but ultimately the state of our hearts, our character, determines how we live our lives and how we respond to our circumstances. With this worldview in mind, as Jesus prepared for his death he comforted his followers with this promise,

I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever – the Spirit of truth… You know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. (John 14:16-17)

Jesus promises that the Holy Spirit will be IN his followers. From that point on we consciously live Inside Out. We can find all the peace we need in the Spirit within us. We can find all the joy we need in the Spirit within us. We can find all the courage and all the purpose we need in the Spirit within us. When we find ourselves seeking fulfillment in food, books, pornography, relationships, busyness, or the pursuit of wealth or security, we should recognise that we’re no longer living in the Spirit.

It’s great to have life goals that we pursue, but they don’t define us. Our identity and self-worth has been gifted to us by the presence of the Holy Spirit, and we now travel through life from the Inside Out.

CIOTo promote the Summer Blog Tour, we’re also giving away one set of Church Inside Out, both book and workbook. Just leave a comment below then enter over HERE.

peterPeter Horne moved to the United States from Australia in 1999 to pursue training for ministry. Having filled the roles of children’s minister, youth minister, and college minister in various locations around the US and Australia, he now happily serves as the minister for the Lawson Rd Church of Christ in Rochester NY. You can find more of his writing on his blog: www.aussiepete.wordpress.com.

Talking about body life in Church Inside Out

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CIOChurch body life is a main focus of my new book, Church Inside Out. To give you a flavor, here are a few quotes on the topic

When Christians stay cooped up inside a church building, they grow frustrated. They complain. They argue. They “bite and devour each other,” as Paul told Christians in Galatia (Galatians 5:15).
When churches turn inward, infighting is the natural result. People begin to talk in terms of “us” and “them,” discussing how to get their own way so that “they” don’t take over the church. (pp.24-25)

Inward-focused churches miss out on today’s victories as they reminisce about yesterday’s successes. They fail to prepare for the future because they are too busy replaying yesterday’s mistakes. (p.26)

There’s a certain feeling of entitlement in the inward-focused church, especially among long-time members and affluent members. They feel that they’ve earned the right to have things their way, either through longevity or giving ability. That feeling isn’t bad in and of itself, but when people begin trying to leverage their position to get their way, the church suffers. (p.29)

I’m a member of the churches of Christ. We seek to honor Christ by referring to him when speaking of our church. But we fight a constant battle with the urge to put more emphasis on the church itself than on the owner of the church. We are truly Christ’s church when the world hears us talk about Christ more than we talk about the church. (p.32)

Like the inward-focused church, the members-only church pays little attention to the needs of those that come to visit. It’s assumed that these people should be in church, so the church is already providing a service. Why should it go out of its way to do more? (p.43)

We have made the Lord’s Supper about “me and God,” but the New Testament portrays it as a corporate time. What was the problem in Corinth, according to 1 Corinthians 11? The Christians were not being aware of one another. They were not waiting for one another. Their communion time was a reflection of the divisions within the church.
Christians break bread together. We wait for one another. We do it with an awareness of the gathered body, or we do it wrong. (p.44)

What we need are assemblies that please God, build members up, and attract outsiders. We don’t expect non-believers to perfectly understand everything that goes on; we do hope that what they see will convey a message of love and mutual edification. (p.45)

Tearing down is so much easier than building.
Paul writes the following to the Ephesian church:
Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen. (Ephesians 4:29)
You can’t build by tearing down. Negative teaching won’t edify a church. Negative teaching won’t attract outsiders. Negative teaching doesn’t glorify God. (pp.61-62)

As people come out of the world and into the church, they will be a little rough around the edges. Just as we don’t expect non-Christians to behave like Christians, we can’t expect new Christians to know all of the things they should and shouldn’t do. We have to leave time for them to grow in faith and understanding. (p.100)

The church needs to develop an atmosphere where members can try new things; that’s the best way for people to discover their gifts. Service efforts are assumed to be spiritual endeavors until proven otherwise. Leadership should expect to be helping members carry out the things God has led them to do. (p.117)

People need to know that there is no shame in moving on from a ministry that is no longer fruitful or no longer needed.
People need to have the opportunity to try something and honestly evaluate the results. If what is tried doesn’t work, the church members must have the freedom to let it go. (p.118)

The process of acculturation in the kingdom of God is typically called discipling. In most churches, we do this through Bible classes and sermons. There’s an emphasis on information and knowledge. Although those things are important, they are rarely enough. People learn by hearing; they also learn by seeing and doing.
The best discipling approaches will offer information, but they will also allow the new disciple to work by the side of a mentor, a discipler. He will see what is done and have a chance to try to practice what he’s seen. (pp.170-71)

We should do our very best with the ministries that we do for the church, be it leading worship or cleaning communion trays. We should be as concerned about justice and truth and love inside the church as we are outside. Just as we seek to improve the lives of non-believers, we should try to make every encounter with other Christians an edifying one. We should make prayer a constant part of our church life, from Bible classes to ministry meetings, from youth activities to congregational work days. And we should be aware of each other’s spiritual needs, just as we watch the progress of non-believers. (p.189)

Remember that the power of God is at work in His church. This power can do much more than we can begin to dream of… so dream big dreams! Dream about glorifying God through your ministry. Dream about building the church through your ministry. Dream about impacting your community and your world through your ministry. (p.194)

You can start reading Church Inside Out now

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It’s too soon to get a physical copy of Church Inside Out, but you can already start reading. 21st Century Christian has posted sample pages of both the book and the workbook.

Workbook Cover
You can find the book sample here: https://www.21stcc.com/pdfs/samplepages/9780890989159.pdf

Workbook Cover
You can find the workbook sample here: https://www.21stcc.com/pdfs/samplepages/9780890989166.pdf