// BLOG
Everything you know about God is wrong.
July 17, 2010
The book of Job is one of the earliest ‘epic’ poems.
Over four weeks we will be looking at the story of Job- how trauma found him and how he responded.
19th September, 2010 “The Devil’s Cards?”
26th September, 2010 “Suffering with Others”
3rd October, 2010 “Everything you know about God is wrong!”
10th October, 2010 “Restoration”
Alastair McIntosh on The Temptations of Christ
June 18, 2009
Last year, Alastair McIntosh took part in a number of discussions concerning, among other things, climate change. In this short speech he encourages us as individuals and small communities to search for the shadows within ourselves and shine light upon them. It’s very easy, he says, to point fingers at multinational companies and ‘evil, oppressive’ governments, but the changes they must undertake will only come about when we change first. Soil and Soul: People Versus Corporate Power
Richard Dawkins
May 16, 2009
Richard Dawkins was recently interviewed for the BBC website series of 5 minutes interviews. Just thought it was worth a mention.
Seven New Deadly Sins… Intro
October 1, 2008
In a letter to a group of people in Rome (a community attempting to align themselves with the life, words and teachings of Christ) Paul writes:
“Everyone is under the power of sin”
He quotes the Jewish prophet Isaiah
“No-one is righteous, not one…
they have no idea where to find peace.
They have no idea how big God is at all”
He continues:
“The Jewish law isn’t an exhaustive list of right and wrongs we can keep. Its purpose is to show us how screwed up we are.”
What is sin?
There are only a handful of sins. They rear their heads in different forms.
They mix together like colours so even though there’s nothing new under the sun we are still capable of finding new ways of sinning.
Red and yellow mix to make orange… a touch of blue and we have brown.
As time moves forwards the shades of sin remain constant. I’m pretty sure I haven’t met someone who has not sinned- and even more sure I haven’t met someone who hasn’t seen and felt the effects of sin. It’s all around us. Even within periods of great religious fervour it crouches at our door, sneaking up on us when we least expect it.
Why we do what we do…
September 23, 2008
At vintage we often ask the questions “Why do we do this?” and “why don’t we do that?”. Our goal is to follow Jesus and his teachings so that they affect our every day lives. After 2000 years there are many things we have learnt, but there are also many things we have to unlearn. Indeed- most reasoning for not taking up the Christian life has more to do with the spoilt 2000 years than Jesus’ original words.
Our desire is to strip away all that is unnecessary.
Our desire is to throw off the things that hinder.
So for a moment I will ask you to dream with me of a gathering of people centered around the teachings of Jesus. Good news that has not been overtaken by aspirational ideas, but aligned with serving our neighbours and the poor.
I ask that you dream of a spirituality which is not dependent upon one weekly meeting, but upon the people of the church meeting together in clusters throughout the city. Where it’s okay to admit you’ve had a crappy day. Where we stop relying on a weekly meeting for top-me-up, but instead seek Christ to build and disciple us through each other- where the priesthood of all believers is practised and not just preached.
… Imagine a faith where we are able to call the homeless our friends. Instead of soup we give them dignity and identity. Instead of gold… hope.
So this is what we do:
We look at the Bible and we look at our lives, and we look at the way we ‘do church’ and we ask “does this add up?” Does my life relate to the teachings of Jesus. A way of life that was so dangerous he had to be put to death?
We call ourselves ‘a community’ instead of ‘a church’, primarily because there is only one church. In fact- if we’re feeling super-spiritual we might even get up early on a Sunday morning and visit another congregation. Secondly, because not all who come to our gatherings are believers.
We ask questions when we do not understand/disagree, because we learn together. Although there is often one main speaker/discussion leader we believe the Holy Spirit is in all believers, and to paraphrase C.S.Lewis we all have our own little piece of God that nobody else has. When those who are not yet believers talk we are still able to listen in to the quiet voice of God, because we do not know it all. Doesn’t it get tiresome when someone is trying to answer your question before you’ve even finished.
We don’t always sing songs, because singing isn’t the only way humans express themselves. Our gatherings can contain poetry, art, spoken word, scripture reading.
We rarely take an offering, because we try and have minimal costs. We encourage all members to give to local charities or grab a tea with someone who is homeless.