Vineyard Christian Fellowship, Bozeman

Vineyard Christian Fellowship, Bozeman We are a community of disciples who want to learn to love God more, love people with God's love, and change the world - starting in our local community.

08/16/2024

"May the peace of the Lord Christ go with you,
Wherever He may send you,
My He guide you through the wilderness,
Protect you through the storm.
May he bring you home rejoicing
at the wonders He has shown you.
May he bring you home rejoicing
once again into our doors."

-Northumbria Community Blessing

I have been thinking about this a little bit today - God showing us wonders. The protect and guidance bit in the above blessing, I think we all get that, but it is the wonders He has shown you bit that has me thinking today.
Do we regularly ask God to show us wonders in the world around us - show us His hand moving, people caring, love being shown to the world, etc.? How often do we look at the world around us and fail to see the wonders that are happening right before our eyes? And, if we are missing the wonders, why are we?
This brief, not very organized, pondering reminds me of another short poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning:
"Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God,
But only he who sees takes off his shoes;
The rest sit round and pluck blackberries."

Father, help me be one who sees that the earth is "crammed with heaven." Help me see the wonders of your work in the world around us. And, while blackberries are good, help me be one who does not focus on them.

08/05/2024

"Today, the majority of Christians live in the countries of Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The majority of these Christians are economically poor, socially marginal. The global church , then, doesn't only stand with the poor or even for the poor. It is the poor. As Christians, our primary loyalty is to each other in the global family of Christ. It is this family who defines who we are."

-Peskett & Ramachandra

08/05/2024

"... mission is not primarily about going. Nor is mission primarily about doing anything. Mission is about being. It about being a distinctive kind of people, a counter-cultural . . .community among the nations."
Peskett & Ramachandra

10/18/2023

It would be a mistake . . . to conclude from Jesus' compassion toward those who transgressed social boundaries that his mission was merely to demask the mechanisms that created "sinners" by falsely ascribing sinfulness to those who were considered socially unacceptable. He was no prophet of "inclusion," for whom the chief virtue was acceptance and the cardinal vice intolerance. Instead, he was the bringer of "grace" who not only scandalously included "anyone" in the fellowship of "open commensality" but also made the "intolerant" demand of repentance and the "condescending" offer of forgiveness.

-Miroslav Volf

Thanks Sam Jeffries
08/18/2023

Thanks Sam Jeffries

08/07/2023

Intriguing thought:

"Many years ago a Hindu friend of mine, a very learned man, said to me something I have never forgotten: 'I can't understand why you missionaries present the Bible to us in India as a book of religion. It is not a book of religion - and anyway we have plenty of books of religion in India. We don't need any more! I find in your Bible a unique interpretation of universal history, the history of the whole of creation and the history of the human race. And therefore a unique interpretation of the human person as a responsible actor in history. That is unique. There is nothing in the whole religious literature of the world to put alongside it.'"
He was right. And when he said it is not a book of religion, what he meant was it is not a book that encourages us to turn away from the down-to-earth business of ordinary life, from our responsibilities as actors in history. It is rather an interpretation of the whole of history from the creation to its end, and of the human story within that creation.

- Lesslie Newbigin

07/06/2023

God cannot be “caught” or “comprehended” in any specific idea, concept, opinion, or conviction. God cannot be defined by any specific emotion or spiritual sensation. God cannot be identified with good feelings, right intentions, spiritual fervor, generosity of spirit, or unconditional love. All these experiences may remind us of God’s presence, but their absence does not prove God’s absence. God is greater than our minds and greater than our hearts, and just as we have to avoid the temptation of adapting God to our finite small concepts, we have to avoid adapting God to our limited small feelings.

- Nouwen

06/14/2023

At the close of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus speaks of a group of people who will appear before him on the day of judgment. They will say, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?” (Mt 7:22 RSV). And Jesus does not contradict them. He does not say, “No! You did not!” Instead, Jesus says to them, “Depart from me, you evildoers, I never knew you” (Mt 7:23). These are obviously people who believed in Jesus, and their lives had been shaped by that “belief.” They had spent their lives doing things “in Jesus’ name.” Their lives, apparently, had been marked by rigorous religiosity and filled with religious activities. But Jesus reveals that their activities did not spring from a vital relationship with him. They were in control of the relationship they had with Jesus. These “believers” were operating out of their own agendas, not in response to a relationship in which Jesus was truly Lord.

- Mulholland

06/13/2023

[P]rivate religions are invariably non-prophetic. They do not disturb the economic and political order and so they fit easily and comfortably into the culture of capitalism. The god they offer is a private god, a wholly inward god. In the context of public enterprise and private religion, spirituality can quickly degenerate into a search for better, perhaps more thrilling and unusual, experiences.

- Kenneth Leech

05/11/2023

Theologically speaking, the meaning and purpose of human beings is to be found in God himself, like the meaning and purpose of all things. . . The meaning of the individual is not to be found in the collective of the species and the meaning of the species is not to be found in the existence of the individual. The meaning of them both is to be found in God.
- Moltman

10/06/2022

"Christ is not an add-on to an existing identity; he seeks to remake your identity. . . . [He] is not an accessory to your identity, as if you were choosing an option for a car; he takes over your identity so that everything else becomes an accessory, which is precisely what 'Jesus is Lord' means."
- Klyne Snodgrass

09/12/2022

Thought for today:
People often focus on salvation as the central concern of Christianity. Salvation is obviously important, but I am convinced that, in focusing on salvation, we have often missed the more foundational focus on identity. Everything else flows from identity. In fact, rightly understood, salvation is about identity, for salvation belongs to those who through God's Spirit have adopted a Christian identity. Atonement is much less about theories of satisfaction and much more about being one with Christ and taking our identity from him. If life and faith are to have meaning, it will be because we understand and live in our identity. The gospel is about identity, not going to heaven, and is way more than believing certain ideas, as important as the ideas may be. Who is the gospel trying to make you? If you are not going to be who you really are and were intended to be, of what value are you? If salt has lost its saltiness, it is good for nothing (MT 5:13).

- Klyne R. Snodgrass, Who God Says You Are: An Understanding of Identity

Address

511 Staudaher St
Bozeman, MT
59715

Telephone

(406) 599-0945

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