Tonight we start a new series of talks from Daniel – an Old testament book I know is among people’s favourites.
But it is interesting how interest in the book can drop off after chapter 6-7, where the text starts getting into apocalyptic style!
The early chapters are very readable though – and maybe that’s part of the clue to it’s popularity. It’s a great story about triumph in adversity, about the little guy persevering in the battle with the big guy – and chapter one has a lot to do with food – Hmmm, sounds a bit like Masterchef writ large!?

But what I find exciting about the book is it’s overwhelmingly powerful theme of God’s sovereignty. In fact, I wish all the vocal ‘new atheists’ out there would take the trouble to understand Daniel when they look at the sad state of the world around us and cry “How can you call you God a loving god?!” While that is a very complex question, the book of Daniel helps it’s readers genuinely come to grips with that huge question of ‘Is god really in control?’ It doesn’t package up an answer nice and neat, but it does give us some powerful principles to build our understanding on.

Take chapter 1.
This speaks powerfully to every single Christian living in a culture that is not Christian – for us that is humanistic, secular, increasingly atheistic Australia. Daniel finds himself suddenly transplanted from the familiar, theocracy (no matter how flawed!) of Israel, where he was one of God’s people under God’s rule in the and God had given them. From there he suddenly found himself in Babylon: a secular, humanistic, mutli-god worshipping culture. Does the environment sound familiar?
So how does he respond?
Does he dig his heels in and refuse to engage in any way with the society and culture of Babylon?
Or does he give in and go with flow and fully giving himself over to the pleasures of his new land?

I know many of you know the answer to that – but what do Daniels decisions – especially what he decides to accept and what he rejects of his new king’s demands and expectations – say to us in Australia in 2010? Lots and lots.

Have a read through Daniel, think about what you would do in his circumstances – because at many levels we are in the same situation, and note what God does and doesn’t do… I think you will find that Daniel will rock your world!

See you at FNC…

Today (March 21st) marks the last day that Graham Crew is SWAC’s Senior Pastor.
I don’t plan to repeat much of the many words of thanks (to God and to Graham & Jane) that have been said at the numerous farewells, but I do want to encourage FNC members to pause and reflect on a couple of important things:

• Many members of FNC are too young to have known as an adult, any Senior Pastor other than Graham. But perhaps some of you have travelled enough to understand a little what an absolute blessing it is to have had a Senior Pastor as completely committed to the authority of Scripture as Graham has been.
  It is the difference between truths and lies, black and white, salvation and damnation. The leader of a church sets the agenda for that church, and if that agenda is not defined and directed by Scripture, then that church is in very serious trouble indeed.
  While it can be easy for us to take that for granted in Sydney Anglican circles, we have been extraordinarily blessed to have had Graham’s total commitment to the Word of God.
• The other feature of Graham’s ministry we need to be grateful for is his boldness. In particular, to encourage very different styles of church meetings to coexist alongside each other as part of a strategy to reach our community. Perhaps that was most clearly seen back in the days of the ‘Church in the Club’, but the principle still exists and we continue to benefit from it directly or indirectly.  There are some of you reading this who came to know Jesus because of this and the previous point!
  Sometimes in our ‘church shopping’ moments it’s easy to forget that not many churches enjoy that range of styles and expressions of the same biblical Christianity.

So as Graham and Jane move on to Gymea, we at FNC need to focus clearly on maintaining the high level of commitment to Biblical teaching (‘going deep into the Word‘), keep on seeking to grow as a gospel community, while looking for opportunities for creative service. We must never take those things for granted, and we must pray earnestly that God would be at work through our Nominators to bring a man with equal commitment to the Bible, with the same passion for reaching the lost, but with whatever set of gifts and abilities God would use to take SWAC and FNC on into the future.

Despite some of the uncertainties, it’s a privilege to be pushed into trusting God for the future!

LiVE is going gang-busters as a vehicle for promoting gospel growth amongst FNC members aged between 17-30 years.
I’m hugely grateful to God and those who drive it for the blessing it is.

But FNC is more than 17-30 year olds, and for a while I’ve been concerned about feeding/encouraging/motivating/mobilising our FNC Seniors/Elders (maybe to be known collectively as ‘Staying aLiVE).
So today we had a gathering of a number of that group of people to begin the process of talking through those issues.
I was hugely encouraged by the turn out and the quality discussion, and I’m looking forward to seeing where this goes under God.

Some things that emerged:

• A fair number of those present are in a Growth Group and really happy there.
• A fair number of those present are NOT in a Growth Group – some would like to be, some feel they are too busy, some want to explore other options.
• Our Growth Groups are poorly promoted and advertised.
• There is real interest in building mentoring style relationships with young FNC people – reading the Bible, praying with them.
• We have a plan to establish a ‘Care and Communication Team’ of 12+ FNC people of mixed ages to help with pastoral care of members and visitors.
• People really enjoyed doing the meeting today on a Sunday morning over coffee and croissants (and tea, fruit, muffins, etc). Future versions could also be Sunday Arvo Tea
• Need to do welcoming better at FNC. -[Edit:VB] Current welcoming teams do a fine job, but would be good to have a better spread of FNC ages in the teams, and perhaps work on ways to ‘value add’ to our current welcoming strategy
• There was a mixed response to doing church around tables – what are some acceptable alternatives to further relationship building at church?
• [edit: DT] Men’s Ministry – we have some men’s events at a SWAC-wide level, but a strategic, consistent men’s ministry is totally absent. This can be seen as a major missing link in encouraging/mentoring of younger men. What ministry there is for men has a strong focus on ‘blokiness’ (sport/car/beer/meat) – what about men with different tastes/pastimes? Katoomba Men’s Convention poorly promoted and attended from SWAC/FNC
• We really valued the serving of Brad, Sam and Sam this morning!

There was a lot more than that we was discussed, and more will be added to this post in due course.
Likewise, as some suggested solutions and ways forward are developed, they will be posted here too…

Stay tuned…

Quick post to ask you to pray for Beth, Ana and Steph on their road trip.

While they are OK, last week, their car was broken into and most of their stuff stolen or smashed.
They say: “please thank God for our safety, and for the loving church that came to our rescue with heaps of food, etc.”
They are also thankful for all they are learning and experiencing , and ask for prayer for continued safety and God’s provision for them…

Let’s do it.

Building Gospel Community

Last Sunday we paused for reflection on the year ahead, particularly how our lasting purpose in Christ shapes the here and now for us. As believers, we can come to similar conclusions to that of the Preacher in Ecclesiastes 1 – all is meaningless, all is vanity and a striving after the wind. But as people under the new covenant, following Christ, being redeemed by Him, His death and resurrection, we have been transformed into a new people.

1 Peter 2:9-10

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

So the challenge remains: as new creations, a new community of people following Jesus, what we will look like?

How will gospel community play out at Factory Night Church?

What are we doing well?

What could we be doing better?

Please comment below and share your thoughts. What use is it if we merely have a catchy vision statement and do nothing about living it out?

May God work his Spirit through the Word to transform us into a close-knit, mission-centred community, intent on being holy, and declaring the praises of him who called us out of darkness into his wonderful light.

Terje Haakonsen stands on the tiny, pinhead summit of peak 7601 (it’s height in feet) to do something no one has ever done before – snowboard down the near vertical face of the peak in Alaska.
Avalanches are a major risk.
Broken limbs a real possibility.
Becoming stuck and unable to be rescued highly likely.

How do think he was feeling in this photo?
Does ‘fear’ sum it up well?

In Luke 8:22-40 Luke relates two incidents that show how fear can keep us from living out the kind of relationship we should have with God. In the calming of the storm event, the disciples are first afraid of the storm (logical and sensible – like Terje’s fear of 7601), but then, after Jesus calms the storm, they are still afraid, but now they’re afraid of Jesus – the man who can control nature itself!
Luke then tells us of the healing of the Geresene demoniac. A remarkable event in itself. This man was a very scary person indeed and all the people round that area lived in fear of him. Now he’s healed, they are still afraid, but of Jesus, the man who controls the spirit world.

What are you afraid of?
Is there anything in this world that holds you in it’s grip and stops you responding to Jesus and living the kind of life he wants you to? What would it take for you to trust Jesus and trust your life into his hands?

Psalm 16 is one of those powerful parts of the Old Testament that speak directly and with impact to Christians today.
It very simple.
Psalm 16:10 says: “you will not abandon me to the grave, nor will you let your Holy One see decay.” (NIV). Initially, that would appear to apply to the author, King David. Of of course, that doesn’t make sense, because David did ’see decay’ (ie: he died), so who else could ‘your Holy One’ refer to?
Move forward in time to Acts 2, and Peter is very clear who ‘the Holy One’ is – Jesus!

Acts 2:29-31 “²⁹ “Brothers, I can tell you confidently that the patriarch David died and was buried, and his tomb is here to this day. ³⁰ But he was a prophet and knew that God had promised him on oath that he would place one of his descendants on his throne. ³¹ Seeing what was ahead, he spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to the grave, nor did his body see decay.” (NIV)

David’s words point forward. to the real Christ who was coming. Who when he came, would not be abandoned to the grave. Which in a way, if you were looking for the Christ, if you wanted to recognise him when he came, then this is the sure fire method. See what happens when he dies. See if he’s abandoned to the grave, see if he sees decay. Because if he does… he’s no Messiah.

So Peter says listen for a minute to what we’re saying about this Jesus of Nazareth. Listen for a minute to what we’re saying about this crucified rebel leader from galilee. Because the fact is, we’ve seen him back from the dead.

Acts 2:32.  “God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact. Exalted to the right hand of God, He has received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit and has poured out what you now see and hear.”

See, Peter and James and John and those guys, they’re not excited by the resurrection so much by the fact that it’s a really odd thing that they’ve witnessed some dead guy coming back again.
And they’re not even saying, “Isn’t it nice, that’s a really comforting psalm and it’s good to have hope after we die.”

I mean, that’s true and it is. But ultimately Peter is saying that Psalm 16 and the resurrection of Jesus are not talking so much about how you face your death but about how you live your life. And who the boss is.
And Psalm 16 isn’t so much a Psalm of comfort about you as it is a Psalm that gets you ready to understand how great Jesus is!

Psalm 16 is a time honoured Psalm of full of personal comfort. And we prefer it if everything is about us don’t we? Look at a group photo, it’s never about everyone else. It’s about me. And if I happened to have my eyes half closed or I’m sneezing or my tie is crooked, the whole group photo is ruined.
Don’t worry. Nobody else cares. They’re all looking at themselves!
Which is how we like to think, isn’t it? That we’re at the centre of the universe and at the centre of the meaning of the comforting words of a psalm.

Except Peter says, it was first of all about King David. But more importantly, it’s a psalm about Jesus of Nazareth, and the credentials that mark him out as king. That alone, among every King or Queen or President or Prime Minister… this one has risen from the grave. And did not see decay… which means he’s the one we’ve got to bow down to. And the thing to do is to repent.

Which in Acts chapter 2 is exactly what he goes on to say. And what a crowd of 3000 Jews goes on to do. Because this Jesus rose from the dead. Which means this Jesus really is the Holy One of God. Who now rules at God’s right hand.
It’s time to bow down. It’s time to stop living like you’re the centre of the universe… and bow down to Jesus. It’s time to stop living like your ambitions and your goals and your comfort are the purpose of all creation and that everybody exists to serve you. And instead realise that everything exists to serve Jesus.
And that it’s only in serving Jesus that the universe and your body is ever going to be set free from the bondage to decay.

The big question is: how does that work out for us at FNC?

Well, on Sunday January 17th, FNC will give over a fair amount of our time together to go a bit deeper into the Word (Psalm 16 and Acts 2) to try and nut that question out.
The result will be reported here!

One of the biggest challenges facing Jesus when he arrived on earth was helping people understand exactly who is was.

It sounds really simple for us (with the benefit of hindsight), but right from the start as a baby in a manger, Jesus had his work cut out for him.
Convincing people that you are the Son of God, in a helpful way, was vital for people to have their life with God restored and the problem of sin dealt with once and for all.

So how did Jesus do it?
We’ve been seeing how it is handled from Luke’s perspective in our ‘Is Your Jesus Plastic?’ series. But in Mark we see a different approach that also teaches us a great deal about Psalm 23, and he does it by ‘playing’ charades with the crowd in Mark 6:30-44
‘The Lord is my shepherd…‘ are some of the best known words in the English-speaking world, and most people know they are the opening words of Psalm 23. But few people understand that Jesus took those words (and the rest of the Psalm) and applied them to himself, saying ‘that was me that the Psalmist was referring to’!
Remarkable!

In the light of that, the Psalm might now read something like this:

The Lord Jesus is my shepherd,
so I will lack nothing;
He makes me lie down in green pastures;
He leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul.
The Lord Jesus guides me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake;
and even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil;
for the Lord Jesus is with me,
His rod and staff are there to comfort me.
The Lord Jesus prepares a table for me in the presence of my enemies;
He anoints my head with the oil of the spirit;
and my cup overflows.
Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord Jesus forever.

But, as always, we have to ask: what does this mean for us? How does it change our lives, our relationship with God?
Comments are open…

A new resource to better inform and educate us about world mission, CMS is publishing an online journal called ‘Landscape‘.

It’s here: http://www.landscape.cms.org.au/ and well worth a read…