Creating us to be creators ourselves

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Just as drapes or curtains draw together to form a wonderful cosy feeling on dark nights, so there is a drawing together of lovers. That union of flesh and spirit. A connection of creation …

Love.

Some come to this community to look, others to dwell, some to write, others to draw, some to sing, and others to share colours. A place where all ARE welcome, where ALL are safe – a place of nurturing. The bloggy church, this bloggy community – whatever your name – draws us together. Church. Without doors. Church. Without a congregation. Without any of the distinguishing marks we seek and love (or fight) in “church”.

Some here are escapees of “church” – refugees cast adrift and homeless. Some here are advocates of “church” and yet … find Church here as well. Each with their own reasons, each connecting as He directs. Each called. Each drawing together.

Does anyone dare to step up?

Is this just “another church” – another label – this “bloggy church”? Is this just another niche in a sea of niches? Some think not. I think not – and more and more I know it is “not just that”.

Others may be thinking it – but have not yet connected in this conversation. Others may be praying “someone” grabs the reins (and others may pray no one does!) – that this place of bloggy church continues and grows – unrefined of the “normal” we see so often.

Is anyone willing to step up? To come together – to “draw together” – this bloggy community as a resource. A church of resource. A church of love. A church of God who IS Love.

I am. Right now. Right here. Today.

And therein … a pause.

Or else “I define” and “I structure” and we lose what so many love here – no structure, no definition, no “club with rules”. Yet … I read some words of another bloggy lover yesterday:

“When we’re just maintaining the status-quo until we’re “taken home,” we defeat the entire purpose of God creating us to be creators ourselves.”
John – Christian INTP: What Could it Mean?

This bloggy church has not yet “hit” a status quo. But it will. It will.

And over the course of time – this bloggy church will replicate what so many have found elsewhere … “tepid” … “hurtful” … “clubby” … cliquey … “church”.

Are you willing to step up – to help draw together – to help “create what He created”?

Because “when we’re just maintaining the status-quo until we’re “taken home,” we defeat the entire purpose of God creating us to be creators ourselves.”

So this is an invitation to float where His currents move us …

What “resource” could this slice of Church become? Because there are teachers everywhere here. There are “outliers” roaming further into the Love of our Lord than ever I see closer to home. There are those who use images, songs, poetry. Those who write their hearts on a page, those who meander gently through a book, a verse, a passage. There are “Spiritual Gifts” in abundance here.

So float with me awhile …

Online skype bible classes, fellowship, discipling, mentoring sessions. Small groups perhaps not available locally. Topics not available locally. Blog posts already happen in sequence: a walk through a book – but there is more … maybe podcast sermons … different bible reading styles and techniques … a place of safety to ask questions knowing that the answer will be loving and gentle. A place of relationship – a place where all those relationships “of which we must not speak or breathe” … can be spoken, can be breathed, can be embraced. Where ALL relationships and labels are welcome.

Stay … float awhile longer …

Nurturing the shepherds who have been called, have studied in a seminary/college (of any denomination) – and who find a loneliness amongst their flocks. Who are presented with questions, pain, suffering, scenarios no one ever could or does prepare “the shepherd” for. And where is there to turn? Who is there to turn to? Where is that place of safety and fellowship we all seek, we all yearn for, and we all desire? Who nurtures the shepherds?

Maybe this bloggy church – maybe in the safety of this place without doors or a congregation – maybe here is fellowship in privacy – with healing and growth. A place for shepherds to find a resource for themselves as well.

A place where gifts are found, are explored, are “tested” and become part of each of us. We become creators. And we become just another slice of Church. Because there should be no “new place”, nor any new “different place”. This bloggy church is just … Church. The one our Lord and Father desires for us. Each of us.

So the invitation is for “each” – all – each one here:

WHY is He is drawing us together here? Might it be for the “purpose of God creating us to be creators ourselves”? To step up again … part of a “church” in His image – everywhere. Everywhere and anywhere that “two or three gather together” in His name. Because those “buildings” … ? Might we be “the creators” that help fill them AND each other with the Love we find here? I know we can. I know it will take us drawing together. I know that much.

Only He and you and “us” know “the how” – when we draw together.

Let the conversation continue … thank you.

28 thoughts on “Creating us to be creators ourselves”

  1. Good stuff Paul. And you are so, so, so..did I say so? Correct. What you describe will happen to any church if it just goes into, as Don said, :”survival mode.” Keep the momentum, keep moving forward brother.

    I still love my building, though…but love all the folks here too.

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    • Hiya Wally – I love your building and folks too!

      Do I detect the desire to “step up” and draw together here? To have all folks love all the buildings and all folks too? Don’t be shy! 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

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      • Sigh…LOL

        Paul, you know this is difficult for me! I am the “local church” guy through and through…and more through. You know that and I freely fess up to it. I believe with all of my heart that the local church is the prime and optimum place for God’s people to serve Him.

        But, I also get that not all parts of this world are as blessed as we are here in Bible belt USA. Sadly, some simply do not have a local assembly, where they can learn and grow in truth.

        So…I’m flexible. How’s that brother? If nothing else, blogging has, shall we say, expanded my horizons.

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        • Wally – I love you man! Thank you more than you will know for these words.

          This is not a “recruiting drive”. But it is deffo an invitation with an rsvp attached. So –

          • and this is to all passing through this post and comments

          If you are guided, prompted, sense, discern (all the different ways He tries to get through) – that He wishes you to step up … no matter how uncomfortable, how inconvenient … then I reckon His word is final. It is why I wrote this piece – He is telling me to do so – He has invited me to step up.

          And in exactly the same way – if no such guidance happens – if He is drawing you to another part of His kingdom – then His word is also final. And I have also had that happen – and responded to that particular invitation without any fear of “saying the wrong thing” – for how can it be wrong if that is His guidance?

          So please know that whichever direction He guides – all of us should be able to talk openly and freely – and accept in love and fellowship how He guides each of us.

          Because each of us is a part of this community, this church – and in any community worth that name – in any church worth that name – we should all (always) be free to be what He created each to be: unique but yet the same.

          (and your comment allowed me to say that – thank you!)

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          • Hey Paul

            Funny…this. I am actually involved with a collaborative effort with James and some over at the Isaiah 53:5 project, and have found myself doing some passing back and forth with others elsewhere as well.

            I am rather dense sometimes. What are you actually trying to do with all of this? How can I contribute? What does the invitation consist of?

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            • Wally, thank you – and “dense”? Might just be that what is obvious to me is just that – “obvious to me” only!! Expect an email sometime soon (the reply boxes at my end are getting thinner and thinner!! 🙂

              Liked by 1 person

  2. One of the hardest things in the world seems to be finding that community that is accepting while also challenging us to grow. Often, it gets turned into a methodology of who is right and wrong, those that are “in” and those others. There’s always that contention to know where we’re going and being content to let God lead us. If we know where we’re going, often it usurps God’s leading. If we don’t know where we’re going, often we’re seen by others as “lost.” I love the phrase from Tolkien—“not all those who wander are lost.”

    I think what we are trying to see is the results of the Spirit’s leading—a beautiful fractal—different views of the same walk with Jesus in a beautiful, ever-expanding panorama of the Church. Throughout history there have been attempts to polarize, conform, manage, and lead—but it all seems to fall apart eventually and we see, as our vision adjusts, the beautiful ekklesia that has always been and always will be.

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    • What a gorgeous phrase – “the beautiful assembly that has always been and always will” (I had to google that! 🙂 )

      What do you think – is it possible to create such a flow, a movement, a tide – without all that “falling apart stuff” built in by default?

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  3. Paul, no question when 2 or more are gathered in His name He is in our midst. This medium is part of God’s universal church that meet, and in love, and without pretense build each other up as the local church is suppose to. Aren’t we fortunate to live at this time and have this wonderful opportunity???

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  4. Ok…I read your post early this morning and I wrote a little poem and thought I’d share… (inspired by your post :))
    Can we sing a song
    That hasn’t been sung?
    Can we raise our voices
    In unison?
    Can we further add
    Some harmony?
    A little from you, and you
    And me?
    how much louder together
    Could we sing?
    Let our voices ring
    To praise our King 🙂

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    • Let the strings vibrate
      Each one resonate
      Guided by the One so fine
      His music we all combine
      Where it will soar, where take flight?
      We KNOW the where – we PLAY in the Light!
      I know not your notes, nor you know mine.
      But together in Love …
      We sound just fine!

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  5. Pingback: Are you willing … | Just me being curious

  6. Paul, what a wonderful invitation. And it makes me nervous, scared, excited and exalted all in one.
    The nervous/scared part of me fears time constraints, limitations, “what will it look like?”
    The excited, exalted part welcomes spreading GSHJ’s light and love in a more glorious way, fully empowered and equipped by the Spirit, going beyond what I have ever known or done before.

    I think that means I’m in. 🙂

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  7. Hey Paul – I’m so far behind (the beach called me and it won) – but home again – back to……… something.
    I’m like Wally – your first commenter – what exactly are you asking of this here group? Sometimes I miss what you’re saying – sometimes I get all excited and then I loose the thought…….
    cate 😀

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    • Hiya Cate – the beach should always win! 🙂

      What exactly …? To become a place – with people in place – that provides a resource churches makes use of. A “global”, cross-denominational, non-hierarchical, very loosely structured, very focused and always Spirit lead “place” – a resource offered to the church not familiar with “bloggy church”:

      • A provider a fellowship for ministers and pastors starved of that “locally”
      • A provider of “Skype” housegroups, classes, bible study, specific topics and questions – where none are available locally
      • A provider of the gifts, talents, gifts, available her in this bloggy church not available “locally”.

      Example 1: ministers locally are often starved of the fellowship we have found here together. This place where our personal relationship with our Lord blossoms. To make available small groups (using Skype) for ministers to have the freedom to grow that same relationship we have seen grow here – and to allow them the same freedom we have here: to find a place away from their own “flock” where the minister becomes a sheep again. Free to browse and feed and find what we have found.

      Example 2: a blogger is drawn to learning and developing “Spiritual Gifts” in their own church – but cannot find others who think the same (or are even interested). This “provider” runs a post drawing together others who wish to learn, and those who wish to teach. Brings them together, and allows the (newly formed) group to then make that happen.

      Example 3: locally there are few options for a housegroup offering specific needs of personal growth (in any area of relationship with the Lord). This “provider” does the same as in example 2.

      Locally each church is a small pool of people with a small team making church happen. Increasingly that congregation hungers for a diversity such a pool and team is unable to offer on a “one-ton” basis. We become a “provider” and draw together other “ones” and “two’s”. Using this blog/posts/comments/community format – and adding Skype and group Skype sessions – we add to “church” in the diversity and love freely available here already.

      A thirty congregation church? Each of those thirty has access to all that we see here – but one at a time – as each desires – at whatever speed each desires – as diverse a if there were thousands in the congregation.

      We do not become an alternative to “church”. We become missionaries within church.

      (and that requires a “provider team” and some structure – still using the diversity we are all “allowed” and own already)

      Yesterday’s post might help: I am you and you are me

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