Showing posts with label friendship. Show all posts
Showing posts with label friendship. Show all posts

Monday 9 March 2020

Offering words of hope

Today lots of people clinch to social media to find a virtual world which seems better than the world they encounter in real life.

Lots of people create themselves their own virtual world, with their virtual friends, but are missing the real-life contacts which build real friendships.

Churches have become empty and people disinterested in God and the Church.

The Church has to come to find new energisers and spiritual leaders who are full of energy to magnetise others and to attract people, curious for finding out what might inspire those people so much that they are so energetic and full of those words they can proclaim with so much fire.

The church also needs people who are willing to have an eye and an ear for what is going on and to be encouragers. They need to be willing to listen to those around them.

It is out of the abundance of God’s presence in their life that there must be 'disciples of Christ' who want to follow in the footsteps of the siciples of Christ, going out in the world, spreading the Good News and caring for the needs of others then becomes a natural outgrowth of faith.

The contemporary church leader has to give the priceless gift of understanding when he or she hears and responds. It’s not that we need to solve someone’s problem. With courage and optimism, however, we can offer words of hope. Recognizing this good, creative, valuable aspect in someone’s life, offers huge encouragement.

As a follower of Jesus, we are called to love one another. One expression of this love is through encouraging words. Many scripture passages tell us to voice words of comfort and strength.
 “Therefore encourage one another and build each other up” (1 Thessalonians 5:11).  
We are siblings in Christ with believers all over the globe. Each of us has a role. Gifted with talents and abilities, we serve to care for those in need. Together we can (and do!) make a difference. 

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Preceding

Church indeed critical in faith development

Wednesday 2 December 2009

Reflection for today: hating your brother


1 John 4:20 (32 kb)
If anyone says, "I love God," yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.



Thoughts
    "O how I love Jesus!" we sing. Jesus responds by asking how well we are doing with loving our brothers and sisters! We can't love Jesus nor God if we can't love those around us.
Prayer
    Forgive me, dear Father, for the times I have harbored pettiness in my heart or been unforgiving to those who needed me to be gracious and merciful.
I recognize that when I am unloving to my brothers and sisters in Christ, I am unloving to you.
Please bless me as I work to reconcile some Christian relationships that have not gone well recently. Help these mended friendships to bring glory to you and vitality to your church. In Jesus' name I pray. Amen.

After Phil Ware.

Dutch translation / Nederlandse vertaling > Christelijke Overdenking: Zijn broeder haten
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2013 update:
 
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Thursday 16 April 2009

The Ecclesia

The Ecclesia

"Christadelphians adopt these principles by common consent in seeking to preserve their faith and way of life in each of their congregations (often called ecclesias ­ a word carried through from the Greek of the New Testament and meaning an assembly).

The community is held together by the common consent of each congregation to the agreed fundamentals of belief and practice as found in the Scriptures. The Christadelphian community has no superintending body, no hierarchy or supra-authority other than the Word of God and the overlordship of Christ. By these means Christadelphians order their affairs in submission to God and His Son. Christadelphians believe that their arrangements are as nearly in accord with first century Christianity as they can achieve.
The community has its own blemishes and has not been able to avoid schism over the years. Happily considerable healing of this has occurred in recent times.

Scripture teaches that preservation of unity is to be striven for and the tendency to fragmentation to be deplored. But unity must be upon sound principles. For this reason, ecumenism as a means of bringing together fundamentally different groups does not find favour with Christadelphians. In any case, our points of difference often make us unacceptable to others.

The weekly breaking of bread service in Christadelphian meetings is the centre of their expression of fellowship in Christ.
Members regularly assemble in this way and meet in other Christadelphian ecclesias when they are on holiday or visiting in other places or other lands. The fellowship thus expressed is
remarkably alive and there is a real family bond among Christadelphians wherever they go.

It is possible for the exclusiveness of the breaking of bread service to be regarded as unfriendly by non-Christadelphians, particularly those who like to have an open fellowship. As the reader will have gathered from what has gone before, Christadelphians base their fellowship on a common faith and a common way of life. We are heartily glad to welcome new members by belief and baptism, but we do not extend our breaking of bread service to any one who might care to come along irrespective of his belief or behaviour. We regard this as fundamental to our existence. Fellowship is not simply friendship.
It is sharing all that is precious in the truest sense. We believe that to be worth preserving."

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Brother Harry Tennant
Fellowship
The Christadelphians - What they Believe and Preach