OK folks - Buddy called for it so here it is. Dream dreams and leave them here for others to see and read and respond to!
When Quoting Scripture Inflicts Harm
6 years ago
Thursday, November 08, 2007
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- Ray McDonald
- I am willing to do what no one else is doing, that I might reach those no one is reaching for Jesus.
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6 comments:
I wrote this in my Myspace Blog on Nov 26 2006. Thought you might be interested.
Will you dream with me?
Imagine you are sitting with your favorite friends. Friends from school, friends from church maybe. You look at the smooth polished wooden table that you are all sitting around - you can almost see your reflection in the glossy finish. You look at the deep red coloured fabric on the high backed cushions that encapsulate the small booth you are all squeezed into.
You reach for the steaming cup of glorious hot chocolate before you and slurp your way through mini marshmallows and the heavenly taste of chocolate. To your left your best friend sips their mocha latte. You laugh as you recall story after story. The tears flow as you laugh so hard that chocolate comes down your nose.
On the wall opposite your booth is a large screen with a music video playing on it. The surround sound system pumps out the tunes as everyone taps their feet to the music.
Life is good.
Your friends are oddly open about their beliefs tonight. You have never seen this level of honesty in them, or the level of questioning as they ask you about your faith. They are actually interested. They ask question after question as you tell them about Jesus.
Life is good. God is good.
You realise that 2 hours have passed and its time to go home. As you sit in the car driving out of the parking lot, you thank God for the new coffee house room upstairs in Mt Oak.
Can you dream with me?
Time for a new dream. Can you dream this with me?
On a warm Sunday morning you approach a large set of glass double doors. A young family with two small children walk beside you. You open the door for them and greet them. You don’t recognize them and are struck by that “I wonder if they are visitors? Should I introduce myself?” feeling when Suzy Clark appears, smile beaming broadly, hand extended in greeting as she welcomes this new family to Mt Oak. As you look around you notice the laughter and rumble of conversation that fills the foyer. Your sense of smell is aroused by the aroma of brewing coffee and you pour yourself a cup and begin to greet your closest friends.
The conversation flows freely and you notice the TV screens hanging on the walls slowly scrolling through the exciting activities that seem to all be crammed into the incoming week. You wonder how the facilities can cope with this much action every day. You make mental notes of those evenings when you will return to this place, your second home, and join with friends and other church family members to study the Word, to shoot some hoops or to just hang out and relax.
As you look around the room your mind drifts back a few years to a similar scene. You remember December 2007 and the almost distant memory of another location where you stood drinking coffee, reading announcements and preparing for Sunday morning worship. “The Upper Room” they called it when it opened. The memory of the opening of the Upper Room seems distant only because you have so many memories from that particular venue, even though it was only a couple of years ago. You remember the times you laughed with your friends, you remember the times when your best friends sat in the Upper Room and gave their lives to the Lord, you remember the blessing that room was.
You come back to the present day and notice the countdown on the TV screen beside you announcing 60 seconds until the beginning of worship. You don’t want to miss any part of the service, so you pull open the large oak doors and look across the brand new, purpose built 1,000 seat worship center, at the smiling faces of your church family and decide which section of the church you will sit in today. But then you realize it doesn’t really matter – God can touch your heart wherever you sit and you will be loved by the people in your row, even if you don’t know them.
Welcome to Mt Oak.
Can you dream with me?
Dione Bowlding says...
The dream continues..... It is Sunday Night now. You pull up to the freshly paved parking lot and there is a sea of youth waiting to get in to the new build. You ask your youth “What is all the buzz about”? They say “It’s like this every Sunday Night.” You have to see it for yourself, so you get out of the car.
Your youth isn’t too happy that you are coming in but that soon fades as their peers and the youth leader team greets them. You creep by them and head to the front doors of the new Youth Center. You have noticed it before and have always said, “I am going to go in there one day”. Well today is the day. As you enter, you are greeted by a bright face young lady that tells you she is glad you are here and that parents are welcome to stay and there is coffee for parents up the Parent’s Corner. You head there and can't help but remember when all there was a few years ago was a gym for youth actives. To you it just felt like yesterday that the Upper Room was opened and the youth couldn't get enough of that café-style room on Sunday nights. But now, it’s 4 years later and the youth not only have the Upper Room, they have their own building. It’s not huge but it is just right.
There is an area for hanging out, with couches and tables, and “Wow! a mini- indoor skate park”. You think to yourself that someone should tell the young man on the ramps to put a helmet on...wait someone is already doing it. That is good to see. “I wonder what is down here?” you ask yourself as you walk around the corner.
There is a group of students signing up for something. You reach with your eyes to see what the big deal is. Oh, they are signing up for time in the recording studio. That is cool. Across from that, there are youth at computers checking their new web page they built from the AMPED youth website. You think to yourself that you are so glad they are using that site instead of Myspace.
You continue down the hall where you see 4 classrooms. “Oh, so this must be where that study group for math is and bible study that my kids go to”, you mumble to yourself. Now you are at the end of the hall and there is a long line formed at the Snack Shack. You over hear some youth say that they have to get their snack first, then go play video games before the service starts. “Where are the video games?” you ask. They say “On the other side of the skate park.”
“Wow, that’s cool”. As the boys walk away they ask each other if they heard that the youth band was back from tour and they will be leading worship tonight? “Now where is that taking place?” And just then you hear a 60 second count down start over the loud speaker system throughout the complex. All the kids get up and make their way to the back of the building. So you follow the students. You see leaders, the youth, and even some parents in the sea of people walking to the three sets of double doors. When the count down gets to ten the youth start to count down.
10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1! The doors swing open and there is a mad dash to the front of the room where the band is rocking out and the lights are going crazy. “This is so cool you say”. And at the front of the stage there is a sign that says it is all for Christ.
You see your youth flooding in and you tell them you will pick them up at 9 and give them a hug as you head for the doors where the same smiling girl that greeted earlier you asks, “Leaving so soon?” You say “I have seen enough.” She smiles as you walk to your car and says “Nope, the best is yet to come.”
Can you dream with me?
Imagine a little girl, sitting outside the door of her house. She's helping her mom prepare the evening meal, one of rice and some roots that her brothers have dug in the fields nearby. The little girl is happy, because she doesn't have to make the long and dangerous trek of several miles to the well, only to wait in line to draw a bucket of tepid water. Thanks to the donations of a church she will never visit, made by people she will never meet, she and her family have clean well water in her village.
Imagine a little boy, working on his family farm. He has no shoes, his clothes are worn threadbare but they are clean. His life is one of pulling his weight on the farm with his father, tending the small flock of chickens that provide eggs for his family, and a source of income for his parents. Chickens purchased with donations from a church he will never visit, made by people he will never meet, but which means the difference between starvation and survival for him and his family.
Does Bowie really need another McMegachurch building?
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Disturb us, Lord, when
We are too well pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true
Because we have dreamed too little,
When we arrived safely
Because we sailed too close to the shore.
Disturb us, Lord, when
With the abundance of things we possess
We have lost our thirst
For the waters of life;
Having fallen in love with life,
We have ceased to dream of eternity
And in our efforts to build a new earth,
We have allowed our vision
Of the new Heaven to dim.
Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,
To venture on wider seas
Where storms will show your mastery;
Where losing sight of land,
We shall find the stars.
We ask You to push back
The horizons of our hopes;
And to push into the future
In strength, courage, hope, and love.
attributed - sir francis drake -1577
Y.E.
Can you dream with me?
Can you dream of a time where people rally around a cause, and not entertainment?
Can you dream of a time when God sends his rain again?
From Joel 2:
23 Rejoice, you people of Jerusalem! Rejoice in the LORD your God! For the rains he sends are an expression of his grace. Once more the autumn rains will come, as well as the rains of spring.
24 The threshing floors will again be piled high with grain, and the presses will overflow with wine and olive oil.
25 The LORD says, "I will give you back what you lost to the stripping locusts, the cutting locusts, the swarming locusts, and the hopping locusts. F5 It was I who sent this great destroying army against you.
26 Once again you will have all the food you want, and you will praise the LORD your God, who does these miracles for you. Never again will my people be disgraced like this.
27 Then you will know that I am here among my people of Israel and that I alone am the LORD your God. My people will never again be disgraced like this.
28 "Then after I have poured out my rains again, I will pour out my Spirit upon all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your old men will dream dreams. Your young men will see visions.
29 In those days, I will pour out my Spirit even on servants, men and women alike.
30 "I will cause wonders in the heavens and on the earth – blood and fire and pillars of smoke.
31 The sun will be turned into darkness, and the moon will turn bloodred before that great and terrible day of the LORD arrives.
32 And anyone who calls on the name of the LORD will be saved. There will be people on Mount Zion in Jerusalem who escape, just as the LORD has said. These will be among the survivors whom the LORD has called.
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Can you dream of a time when your sons and your daughters speak out the words from the Lord into people's lives?
Can you dream of a time when your young men see visions of what the Lord can do, and then answer the call to be a part of the vision?
Can you dream of a time when your old men hear from the Lord in their dreams, and then light the fire in others?
Can you dream of a time after the Lord's rain comes, when His Spirit is poured out?
Can you dream of a people who can't stay within the safety of a Christian compound, but rather take the fire burning in them to the pubs, the grocery stores, the Starbucks, the soccer camps, to the places where people are hurting, lost and lonely?
Can you dream of a people who aren't content to settle in the artificial safety of "churchland", but choose to be salt and light from within the community?
Can you dream of a people who choose to fight poverty, hunger, and social injustice, who take Jesus at his word in Matthew 25 to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, welcome the stranger, visit the prisoner, give refreshment to the thirsty?
Y.E.
Can anyone dream with me?
Of a place where people are loved, no matter who they are, what their income, what color their skin, what gifts they bring to the table or what they cost the church.
Can you dream with me?
Of a place where people really care about each other. They don't simply say "hi, how are you" and then walk away. They stop and seek to know who you are inside and build relationships that last a life time not simply while you are an advantage to them or serve as their pastor.
Can you dream with me?
Of a place where the Word of God is essential and primary and basic and the foundation for all that happens? A place where the children are taught from birth to the grave that God's Word is absolute.
Dream with me of a place
A place where people learn to put into practice what they have learned by - loving people, building relationships and teaching others the truths they know to be true.
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