The Bible is not the Destination

Found this interesting quote while reading a blog post by Alan Hirsch.It is from "A Jesus Manifesto for the 21st Century Church" by Leonard Sweet and Frank Viola.

"Christians don’t follow a book. Christians follow a person, and this library of divinely inspired books we call “The Holy Bible” best help us follow that person. The Written Word is a map that leads us to The Living Word. Or as Jesus himself put it, “All Scripture testifies of me.” The Bible is not the destination; it’s a compass that points to Christ, heaven’s North Star.
The Bible does not offer a plan or a blueprint for living. The “good news” was not a new set of laws, or a new set of ethical injunctions, or a new and better PLAN. The “good news” was the story of a person’s life, as reflected in The Apostle’s Creed. The Mystery of Faith proclaims this narrative: “Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again.” The meaning of Christianity does not come from allegiance to complex theological doctrines, but a passionate love for a way of living in the world that revolves around following Jesus, who taught that love is what makes life a success . . . not wealth or health or anything else: but love. And God is love."

Reflection/Action Bible Reading

I've recently been involved in the production of a simple Bible engagement tool for secondary school students called "The Ripple Effect". There are several ideas behind the tool, but the one I want to mention here is the concept of Reflection/Action Bible Reading. Part of this program involves small groups of students gathering weekly to read the Scriptures, using the cyclic model represented in the diagram on the left. It is a model that encourages students to read from the Gospels, wrestle with some questions focused on Jesus and his mission, and then prayerfully form a plan of community action based on what they have read.

There is nothing particularly new or sexy about this approach, but it is built on several key principles that I believe are quite profound:-

1. It encourages students to read large chunks of Scripture (several chapters at a time) rather than snippets (a couple of verses). This way they begin to get the flow of the story of God and its ideas and themes begin to become evident to them.

2. It trusts that students can read the Bible and discover the messages from it for themselves. It helps them own the process.

3. It emphasizes the response of practical action to what they have read. This lifts Bible reading out of the purely abstract and devotional realms and into daily reality.

4. It seeks to link Bible reading with genuine community (in this case - the school) transformation.

The Church and Contemporary Communication

Thought provoking article here from Mark Brown (Bible Society NZ) on the church and communication. Well worth a read - also, check out the links in the article.

Family Bible Reading - Update

As I mentioned earlier this year, I have been attempting to read the Bible with my young children. It has been a great journey and my children continue to amaze me with the level of insight/curiosity they have concerning God's word. At times it has all felt a bit hard, but inevitably it is the kids who have kept us disciplined and continuing on our path! The approach that we have been taking has been very heavy on narrative/story, and we have sort of come to the end of our abbreviated voyage through the Bible (ending in the book of Acts).

It seems that we are now ready to try a different approach. I am really keen for my kids to see that these are not just stories that we read for their own sake - they are not just myths, fables or nice stories about the past. I want my kids to see that this grand story calls for response/action. I want them to find their part in the story.

So, this is what we are going to attempt now (I'll let you know how it goes). We are going to spend some months just reading the Gospels. As we read some big chunks of the Jesus story, we will ask ourselves these questions:-
'What is Jesus thinking/saying/doing?'
'What are the implications of this for today?'
'What are we going to do about it?'
We will brainstorm practical responses that we as a family can have to what we have read about Jesus - then we will seek to go and do it! Together we will celebrate our success/failure in this.

Hopefully we all will grow closer to the heart of Jesus through this action/reflection approach to family Bible reading!

Plan Be : be the change you want to see

Bible Society QLD and Dave Andrews of TEAR Australia have teamed up to produce a great resource entitled 'Plan Be'. Plan Be is a Bible study series that focuses on the Beatitudes and involves group work, personal reflection (journaling) and community action. It encompasses many of the Bible engagement principles that I'm often raving on about and I highly recommend it to you.

The Bible Story Summarised

Stephen Opie from Bible Society NZ has written a 5 page/part summary of the entire sweep of the Bible story. This is great for someone who is new to the Bible, or struggling to make sense of the whole thing. Read it here...

Free, Downloadable Bible Reading Startup Guide

Whitney T. Kuniholm is the president of Scripture Union USA and is the author of "The Essential 100" and "The Essential Jesus". These publications are essentially Bible reading programmes that lead the reader through key Biblical texts in order to get the big ideas of the Bible. They are particularly good for people who are new to the Bible.

In addition to these, he has just written The Bible Reading Startup Guide which he is making available for FREE online. This is a great tool that introduces the reader to the Bible and suggests basic approaches to the study of it.

Guest Blogger - Mark Payne

I've asked a couple of my mates to contribute a guest blog article on their personal journey engaging the Bible. Here is the first one - its from a young guy called Mark Payne. Mark is in his early twenties and is currently studying theology with the Australian College of Ministries.

"Marty has asked me to write up my ideas or thoughts on Bible Engagement. I wont be writing from experience gained as a youth pastor or any other kind of leader. I would more focus on the personal experience that I have had when it comes to engaging with the Gods word.

Throughout my life I can think of a few examples that really connected me with the Bible. I won't focus on the actual situations, but rather on the commonalities of each experience. The common theme was connecting the word of God with action. It’s that simple. The only problem for me is that I can't think of that many experiences in my life that happen regularly where I read the word of God, regardless of the context (whether personally, corporately) and go out and act upon it immediately. There is power in immediate action. There also should be discernment and lots of prayer whacked in there, but how often do we just need to get out and do it after reading the Bible.

The whole idea of reading and action is that simple. I'm sure we all know it. But how often do we practice it as individuals, as families and as faith communities?"

Happy Easter!!

Missional-Incarnational Impulse

I am currently re-reading Alan Hirsch's "The Forgotten Ways". I read this book some years ago and was impacted by it, but this time it is blowing me away. Hirsch has made a study of the two great periods of growth in the Christian Church (the Early Church, and the Chinese Underground Church) and taken a series of principles from those times which he calls 'Apostolic Genius' and 'mDNA' (m=missional). He argues that the western Church needs to revisit these principles if it to once again become a growing, spreading and multiplying movement.

I have been particularly challenged by the principle he identifies as the 'missional-incarnational impulse'. All church efforts/projects/groups etc., need to have a missional motivation at their core. 'Ministry' (the building up of the church) only exists to resource 'Mission'. Hirsch argues that once the church reaches a state of equilibrium (stability, security, comfort, status quo) and loses the missional impulse, it is prone to stagnation - like a fish tank left to sit without its water being changed.

I wonder if a loss of the missional impulse has caused our relationship with the Bible to stagnate? Do we read the Bible for missional inspiration, or do we read for ministry purposes. The western church is fat on 'ministry' (which it consumes by the bucket load) and missionaly-incarnationaly anorexic. Is it any wonder that we find the Scriptures boring, unengaging and somehow irrelevant?