Great discussion last month!
Ken
Third Mondays! The next one is August 18.
Food for thought, I just posted a message I gave to our church a couple weeks ago. You can listen to it on my blog. The premise? How do I love God? By loving people. It was fairly challenging for our community to hear. But maybe a little tame for this group??
http://blog.emergingworshiper.org/2008/07/how-do-i-love-god.html
Let me know what you think and we can talk more about it and other things on the 18th.
Have your own discussion topics you'd like to share? Let us know!
In the way,
Jon Hunnell
Great question Ken.
At times I feel like we limit great discussion because we don’t think the question is edgy enough. It may not be as cool to talk about how one pursues loving God but it probably is the motivating factor behind why we do much of what we do. I have wrestled with this question as of late. I was in a discussion group with some pastors in India, and we were talking about how one loves and honors God. A few of the men kept using phrases like, "We live to honor God with our whole lives." The phrase sounds good, but when I asked them what it means, they kept talking about only loving God and keeping Him first in your life. Now I understand that these are cliché phrases that exist to describe things that we can't understand or explain, but I wonder if the cliché phrases just exist to help us feel good. I kept pressing this question and the responses kept coming back that we should live for God. Every time I asked what that looked like they did not want to narrow it down because that would make an action more important than God. Now, I am obviously over simplifying the discussion and the issue, but this discussion comes up a lot with the people in my church. I don’t believe there is a way to love God that does not involve an action that could already be used for other means. In other words I don’t think loving God has its own set of actions, thoughts, intensions, and feelings that are unique to God worship. Maybe another way of saying it is, I don’t think we can be doing something and it could only be described as a loving God pursuit. We love God when we enjoy life, but we also love ourselves when we enjoy life. We love God when we love other people, but that love also benefits other people. We love God when we worship through song and dance and other forms, but that also heals and helps our soul. At times I feel pressured to talk about this God pursuit that is in no way self serving, but I don’t know what that looks like. I don’t know what loving God looks like absent of loving his creation (nature, animal and human). I want to live a life devoted to loving God but I really don’t make a separation between the two commandments; loving God means loving people and vice versa. I feel like a lot of the talk about being: fully committed to God, only keeping God number one, living only for God can reduce our service and love for God by being well intentioned but unidentified nonsense. The phrases sound so good to say but no one really has a meaning or rather everyone has their own meaning. These phrases then become a way we judge someone's spirituality or sensitivity to loving God which in its cruelest forms can become like Monty Python's witch testing. For myself, loving people is one of the greatest ways I connect to God. Through loving people, God's love, mercy, and plan are revealed to me.
Thanks for the discussion.
Jon Hunnell
Ken
Great words, Jon!
From: Jon Hunnell <Jon.H...@crossroadsportland.com>
Date: Wed, 6 Aug 2008 10:58:25 -0700
To: Emerg...@googlegroups.com<Emerg...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: {EmergentPDX} Re: Great discussion last month!
Jon Hunnell
I agree that our love for God and our worship is not tainted if we or others benefit from it. I believe that God is not so self involved that he would be hurt that we may have multiple reasons and benefits for worshipping him. I believe God is so self-less that he intends our worship to benefit us. It seems to me that everything God has asked us to do is intended to bless us. God does not want us to sin because it hurts us not because he is bothered that we did not listen to his rules. He does not punish or reward our actions based on how much he is pleased, he instead keeps us from some things and pushes us towards others because he wants what is best for us. It seems hard to talk about since I am such a self-involved person who can't imagine a self-less being. Thanks for the conversation.
Jon
John Paul Bierly
1. After Jesus answered the Pharisee in Mark 12:29 with the great commandment (love God, love your neighbor) someone in the crowd summarized what Jesus said. He interpreted what Jesus said to mean that we should love God with all our heart, understanding and strength AND to love your neighbor as yourself. Then he stated that this was more important that all burnt offerings and sacrifices (the common currency of worship in Jesus’ time). Jesus answered that he was very close and did not see fit to correct him.
2. This passage leads me to think that love for God is love for others AND love for others is love for God.
3. I think God also knows our limitations and is willing to meet us where we are in loving Him (or Her). Sometimes, even if we can only love God a little, if we are loving God as much as we possibly can at the moment, that is enough. On the other hand, how much bigger should our love for God be when things are going very well for us.
JP Bierly
On 8/6/08 12:21 PM, "Jon Hunnell" <Jon.H...@crossroadsportland.com> wrote:
I agree that our love for God and our worship is not tainted if we or others benefit from it. I believe that God is not so self involved that he would be hurt that we may have multiple reasons and benefits for worshipping him. I believe God is so self-less that he intends our worship to benefit us. It seems to me that everything God has asked us to do is intended to bless us. God does not want us to sin because it hurts us not because he is bothered that we did not listen to his rules. He does not punish or reward our actions based on how much he is pleased, he instead keeps us from some things and pushes us towards others because he wants what is best for us. It seems hard to talk about since I am such a self-involved person who can't imagine a self-less being. Thanks for the conversation.
Jon
From: Emerg...@googlegroups.com [mailto:Emerg...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Ken
Sent: Wednesday, August 06, 2008 12:06 PM
To: EmergentPDX GoogleGroups
Subject: {EmergentPDX} Re: Great discussion last month!
Wow That's awesome Jon. You really nailed it for me in a way that I haven't expressed it before. I absolutely understand what you mean about the pressure to describe our pursuit of God in terms that are absent of all other pursuits. It doesn't happen for me that way, so I don't want to describe it that way. I don't think our love for God or our worship of God is tainted by the fact that we and others benefit from it. God designed it that way, because he loves us, right?!
Great words, Jon!
Ken
blog.emergingworshiper.org
From: Jon Hunnell <Jon.H...@crossroadsportland.com>
Date: Wed, 6 Aug 2008 10:58:25 -0700
To: Emerg...@googlegroups.com<EmergentPDX@googlegroups.com>
Subject: {EmergentPDX} Re: Great discussion last month!
Great question Ken.
At times I feel like we limit great discussion because we don’t think the question is edgy enough. It may not be as cool to talk about how one pursues loving God but it probably is the motivating factor behind why we do much of what we do. I have wrestled with this question as of late I was in a discussion group with some pastors in India, and we were talking about how one loves and honors God. A few of the men kept using phrases like, "We live to honor God with our whole lives." The phrase sounds good, but when I asked them what it means, they kept talking about only loving God and keeping Him first in your life. Now I understand that these are cliché phrases that exist to describe things that we can't understand or explain, but I wonder if the cliché phrases just exist to help us feel good. I kept pressing this question and the responses kept coming back that we should live for God. Every time I asked what that looked like they did not want to narrow it down because that would make an action more important than God. Now, I am obviously over simplifying the discussion and the issue, but this discussion comes up a lot with the people in my church. I don’t believe there is a way to love God that does not involve an action that could already be used for other means. In other words I don’t think loving God has its own set of actions, thoughts, intensions, and feelings that are unique to God worship. Maybe another way of saying it is, I don’t think we can be doing something and it could only be described as a loving God pursuit. We love God when we enjoy life, but we also love ourselves when we enjoy life. We love God when we love other people, but that love also benefits other people. We love God when we worship through song and dance and other forms, but that also heals and helps our soul. At times I feel pressured to talk about this God pursuit that is in no way self serving, but I don’t know what that looks like. I don’t know what loving God looks like absent of loving his creation (nature, animal and human). I want to live a life devoted to loving God but I really don’t make a separation between the two commandments; loving God means loving people and vice versa. I feel like a lot of the talk about being: fully committed to God, only keeping God number one, living only for God can reduce our service and love for God by being well intentioned but unidentified nonsense. The phrases sound so good to say but no one really has a meaning or rather everyone has their own meaning. These phrases then become a way we judge someone's spirituality or sensitivity to loving God which in its cruelest forms can become like Monty Python's witch testing. For myself, loving people is one of the greatest ways I connect to God. Through loving people, God's love, mercy, and plan are revealed to me.