Beyond traditional perspectives to explore radical discipleship for ordinary people.

Archive for May, 2008

Where is your courage?

Published by
Tim
at 30 May, 2008 in Belief-Practices. 1 Comment

What’s the most courageous thing you’ve done?

I’d love to be able to say that the most courageous thing I’ve done is rescue a young child from a burning building or swimming out in a rough sea to rescue someone who was drowning. Alas, I have no such stories to tell.

On reflection, probably the most courageous thing I’ve done is tell a girl I love her when I’m not sure whether she loves me. Now, I’m sure for some of you its second nature, but for me it’s one of the most cripplingly scary things I have ever done.

What does this tell me about courage? Well, I guess I associate it with fear. We all get scared. Courage, then, is the ability not to be crippled by fear, but to conquer it by acting as if it has no hold on you. That’s what the heroes of war films do.

We find fear at every turn of life. Our society tells us what the good life is that we should be living, from how we should look to what we should buy and what we need for true life. Behind the parameters of this ‘true living’ lies fear by those who participate and those who cannot  - fear that we may not quite look right, or live right, or speak right, or have the right financial security we’re told we need, or hang out with the right people. The need to be contactable 24/7 for fear that we may not be important or may be alone. And this fear of not fitting in keeps us toeing the line.

 What are you scared of? Where is your courage?

These are two questions I feel God has been asking me recently. Jesus offers an alternative way of living not defined by the things of this world, but on the intentions of God for what true humanity should really be. As we begin to think about different belief-practices that we can live that help to shape us more around God’s intentions rather than those of the world, our fear will be uncovered. Our proximity to the world will be revealed.

Attempting to live differently, therefore, requires courage. The courage to put our faith and trust in the person of Jesus. The courage to re-imagine how life should be lived in light of who He is. The courage to acknowledge that the world’s definition of true living is a lie and trusting that going against the flow leads to a way of being more truly human.

This really scares me. So I need community: people around me committed to re-imagining this other way of living, who can help and encourage me on the journey and to let me know when I’m falling short.

God’s asking me, “Tim, what are you scared of when considering taking Jesus at his word? How are you going to practice courage in face of this fear?”

What about you?

ACTION POINTS:

1. Take a moment today to consider what fear is in your life (you’ll know by the reasons for the decisions that you make - this only works if you are really honest with yourself)

2. Re-imagine how things could be, if you took Jesus at his word.

3. How can you practice courage, with others, to get from action point 1 to 2.

Shane Claiborne and Beyond

Published by
Tim
at 19 May, 2008 in Belief-Practices. 0 Comments

So a few weeks ago about 450 of us crammed into church.co.uk to listen to Shane Claiborne tell the story about re-imagining how life could be lived if we took Jesus at his word. I don’t think anyone went away from that gathering not having been inspired, troubled, challenged or simply encouraged to carry on.

I want to share two things, of the many, that challenged me. The first was Shane saying dream big, but live small. How relevant is that in our generation where everyone wants the fast track to making it big without the effort of fostering the virtues that should go with it - ‘Everyone wants to change the world but no one wants to do the dishes.’ 

The second thing was the reminder, as he quoted from someone else, that ‘It’s fashionable now days to talk about poverty. But it isn’t fashionable to talk to the poor… We need to make poverty personal before we can make it history.’

 All is not lost if you couldn’t join us that night. I’d highly recommend, even if you were there, listening to the talk that Shane did at Tearfund HQ on the same day, as it follows similar lines and gives us chance to refresh. Listen to it at www.tearfund.org/shaneclaibornetalk

 Shane’s gathering wasn’t meant to be just another meeting that I enjoy but ultimately forget about, yet almost three weeks on and I haven’t taken time to sit down and think about what I felt convicted to change. My guess is, you’re in the same boat - felt inspired, but life moves so quickly that returning to normal was the easier option.

So where do we go from here? Most of us resonate with the desire to go somewhere new, a little more edgy, a little bit more in line with what we want to believe but haven’t quite found the courage to live out just yet.

Over the next few months we’ll be exploring through Journey Beyond some belief-practices that seem to be fundamental in moving forward. Things like practicing generosity, practicing community and living simply - things that seem building blocks as we seek community orientated around Jesus that offers another way to live. The plan is to explore and then commit to fostering these belief-practices with a group of people local to where we live.

Over these weeks we’d love for you to journey with us, take some risks, try a few things, and share your ideas and stories. Hopefully, together we can start the journey of re-imagining a discipleship that is more faithful to what Jesus calls us to. Next week we’ll start with the belief-practice of courage and community.

ACTION POINTS:

1. listen to the Shane recording to refresh your memory, at www.tearfund.org/shaneclaibornetalk

2. List some of the main challenges / issues / thoughts you’ve had from listening to the talk and meet up with some friends to chat them through.

3. Be evangelistic about journeying forward - recommend the Shane talk to friends and encourage them to listen to it and then journey with us as we explore belief-practices.

4. Share a story with us to encourage others, and email it to hello@journeybeyond.org so we can post it on the Journey Beyond site.