Beauty of the Kingdom


I have been turned on to concepts of the Kingdom and Kingdom language recently. I think it all started with a seminal book I read about 3 years ago for a class at Regent. I'm betting most of oyu have never heard of it - your loss. Mortimer Arias' book "Announcing the Reign of God" was a pivotal book in my journey.

Arias spells out how we should be viewing the kingdom. The Kingdom is the good news of Jesus. Somehow we have reduced the gospel to individual redemption. The gospel includes individual redemption but is far greater then that. Having a kingdom mind-set means looking at the current social systems, and saying there is another way to live. Mercy trumps justice.

I am saying this stuff because tonight 4 churches: the Pentecostals, Christian Reformed, Mennonites and Baptists came together for a special service to celebrate Christmas. The offering collected went to support Covenant House. It was an excellent time. Special thanks to Adam Wiggins of Pacific Church, who really brought us all together.

After the service we had all the first@night community over for dinner and a Christmas party. It was a great time - although a bit cramped in our tiny apartment. What was amazing was that this afternoon I had called a couple of people who filled out "care cards" at First Baptist last week. I contacted them because they live near us. One couple just moved here from Ontario. He is the sous chef at Glowball - the trendiest restauranti n Yaletown, I forgot what his wife does. Anyways - super nice couple. I often go to Glowball because the food is good and the prices reasonable (for yaletown). The other person I called just moved here from Singapore - and she lives across the street from us!

I was so amazed that they all showed up! Things are starting to shape into the semblence of a missional community here!

Fly to Regina tomorrow for a week. Our cab comes at 7 AM - It is almost 2 AM right now - what's wrong with me?

Comments

Stu said…
Santosh - thanks for the excerpts from Houston. After reading your posts about Joy Ex I rushed over to amazon uk, but sadly it isn't published in the UK until Jan! Enjoy the queen city...
5:51 AM
Inihtar said…
So much of the time, we Christians focus so much on saving the soul, that we forget that sometimes, people's bodies and minds are in such bad shape that they can't look beyond them to their souls. And that we need to help them with their worldly troubles to free them up to think about their souls.
10:09 AM
oldman said…
Well i did as you asked and used my real name...so why then will you not allow me to pose questions here...are you only interested in comments that support and compliment you...Michael
1:02 PM
Nancy Jean said…
hope the QC is well with you - J and M Capp. were thoroughly excited to have baby A coming!
enjoy christmas with the fam.
nancy b
12:35 AM
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