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Christine Sine on Plurality 2.0

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Apr 2 4

This piece is part of an on-going blog series called Plurality 2.0 (watch video here). Full schedule of guest authors throughout April and May is available here.

Christine Sine is executive director of Mustard Seed Associates. She has written several books including Godspace: Finding Peace in the Rhythms of Life. She is passionate about helping followers of Christ connect their faith to their everyday life.  She blogs at http://godspace.wordpress.com.

Living into the Kingdom of God

christine-sineNext week is Holy week and most of us are already preparing for our celebration of Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Some of us have journeyed through Lent and participated in Jesus ordeals in the wilderness as part of our preparation for this great celebration that is at the very center of our faith. But what are we really celebrating?

It amazes me how much information there is on the web about how to celebrate the Stations of the Cross. There is less about Easter Sunday and our celebration of the resurrection. And what is meant to be the culmination of our celebration our joyous entering into the life of the kingdom which Jesus resurrection ushered into being, hardly receives a mention.

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Natalie Stadnick on the Kingdom of God

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Feb 21 1

Kingdom of God

This post is part of an ongoing guest blogger series on the kingdom of God.

Natalie Stadnick

Today, we will hear from Natalie Stadnick:

The Kingdom of God.

I didn’t grow up hearing that phrase bandied about. Ask about prevenient or sanctifying grace and I’ll give you a textbook answer – good little Methodist that I am. Sure, I’ve prayed the Lord’s Prayer thousands of times, saying “…thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.” But, the concept of ‘The Kingdom of God’ was not overtly discussed in my childhood Sunday School classes. And that’s pretty significant when Sunday School encompasses the full extent of your formal(ish) theological education.

Then again, a textbook answer is hardly ever as interesting as a practical one. Nor is a textbook answer necessarily truer. So, what I can tell you about the Kingdom of God? I can tell you what I believe to be true about the Kingdom of God right now, however, that’s not to say that I won’t change my mind tomorrow.

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C. Scott Andreas on the Kingdom of God

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Feb 18 4

Kingdom of God

This post is part of an ongoing guest blogger series on the kingdom of God.

Scott Andreas

Today, we will hear from C. Scott Andreas:

Like Adam, I work in web design and development, looking for ways to wield (subvert?) the black arts of marketing and IT for the Kingdom. I’m one of those guys pounding away on a Mac, sipping hair bender, and mouthing curses at Internet Explorer while listening to Moby at the coffee shop.

But most of the work’s not sexy, and I rarely see the fruits of my labor. Between design reviews, coding, creative impasses, and bugs, I often wonder where the Kingdom is in all of it.

I don’t have a concrete answer, but I do have some questions.

What if our web sites were as imbued with a missional ethos as our blogs and podcasts? What if “church management software” did more than keep people in line? What if a thousand conversations spawned a thousand clicks, and then somehow a well got built in a community without access to clean water?

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A.K.M. Adam on the Kingdom of God

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Feb 15 3

Kingdom of God

This post is part of an ongoing guest blogger series on the kingdom of God.

AKMA

Today, we will hear from A.K.M. Adam:

It’s become a fad to distinguish a bad, imperialistic understanding of “the Kingdom of God” from a hip, open, “relational” understanding of “God’s Reign” — sometimes people even advance bogus arguments from the morphology of the Greek word basileia. While God no doubt frowns on imperialism, and is assuredly more open-minded than we can understand (“Many will come from east and west. . .”), an ordinary Greek-speaker would understand God’s basileia on the model of basileias they had experienced or heard about: monarchies wherein the will of the ruler determined the conditions within which inhabitants negotiated their daily lives.

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