Two for One and Outsourcing Significance

When something stops changing, it stops living. I’ve asked our Director of Spiritual Formation, Bob Osborne to add a voice to this email devotional. He is one of the best leaders, thinkers and conversationalists I know and I’m really excited about the richness and depth he’ll add. Let me give you a few thoughts about it before you plunge into what he’s put together for this week.

When it comes to almost anything, there is a part that ‘hits you’ off the top and comes for free. You could call that ‘understanding at the surface’. The decision to move past that level of understanding when it comes to the way of Jesus is one of the great adventures of your life.

I chose the word ‘adventure’ carefully, because that’s exactly what it’s meant to be. The absence of true adventure is at the heart of almost every distraction or destructive appetite. Every high-stakes thrill we ever see in a movie is an echo of the real adventure we were made for. Not so much hanging by a partly severed rope out the back of a train taken over by terrorists while bullets fly… But the soul-rocking thrill of playing some small part in another person’s ‘shift in destiny’.

I hope this isn’t trite, but let me take it further. Indiana Jones gives us a wide-screen hint at ‘overseas adventure’. You can step into the real-world version by joining one of our missions teams. Hear me on this, the adventure is not the same – only related. I’d also argue that the challenge of ‘meaning making’ and ‘purpose building’ is a much greater thrill than chasing bad guys in a run away jeep in some foreign destination.

Do you like political thrillers and edge-of-your seat leadership challenges? There are several groups of leaders at Westside or your local church that are pushing themselves to come up with some ‘unanticipated way’ of combining passion and resources and innovation to shift history (or at least shift the history of the organization or the department they are leading – or the personal history they find themselves moving through).

Has the idea of battle always drawn you? There are great opportunities to apply strategy and tactic to the ongoing struggle for attention span and the opportunity for influence. I often challenge our production team that our Sunday presentations are not a matter of ‘filling in the blanks’ each week. Instead, it’s a wide open opportunity to do anything short of committing sin or breaking laws as part of an attempt to surprise people with the life of Christ. For those 75 minutes every Sunday and at other times through the week, we battle against ‘every other thing’ Canadians could be doing and attempt to create a point of consideration about the way of Jesus in some unexpected way.
There are times when friends or acquaintances talk about my career as though it is a ‘sacrifice’ I move through daily. It isn’t. It really isn’t. It’s a daily opportunity to lean into the adventure of creating impact and surprising myself. Deep in the winter of 1991 while at University one Thursday night, I made a choice to follow the thrill of trying to ‘make meaning’ and ‘pursue purpose’. That choice has led to a photo album full of unexpected relationships and opportunities. Trust me – I traded up when I made that choice.

All of that lies behind the decision to ‘go deeper’ when it comes to the ‘way of Jesus’. It’s never about knowledge for the sake of knowledge or just ‘great ideas’. The thoughts and ideas presented here are intended to be the very deep framework onto which you can bolt the beginnings of your own adventure. We may not use the word ‘adventure’ often and we may not be describing ‘scenario’s’ and ‘steps’ that are only 1 or 2 steps removed. This is about an invitation to the deepest parts of where that process begins – with who Jesus is, and how He views the world and what He has to say to us. The adventure is something you must uncover as you ‘think with His mind’. Bob and I are going to work together to make this journal a digital companion to the Sunday teaching and an opportunity to do just that.

As always, we are open to your thoughts and feedback.

Have a great weekend,

Chris




Outsourcing Significance

Last Sunday we were introduced to our new series “The Rumour” (spelled the Canadian way), a retelling of the gospel through Paul’s letter to the Ephesians. This brief devotion will help you follow up on what was said. We invite you to read Ephesians 1, the Scripture text upon which the talk was based, and to do so in a translation that is comfortable for you.

Consider this thought: while Paul usually begins his letters with a point of thanksgiving (see Philippians 1:3 for example), in this letter Paul doesn’t give thanks until v. 15. Instead, right out of the gate, Paul seems to explode with the most exuberant language about what God has done and is doing for us. It is the language of praise and blessing, the language of worship, focusing on what God has purposed quite apart from any of us.

Which perhaps means this: that our truest identity is something we receive and not something we create for ourselves. Paul begins his letter where the most important things about us are really sourced – in God’s purpose for us. We had no hand in this reality. We simply wake up to this reality, to the God-blessed world that we are born into, to the goodness of God that comes before us and remains long after us, to the blessing that we are immersed in and surrounded with. And we realize that there is not one thing we have done to make this so. We could say it another way: before the mass of human troubles, before our own troubles, there was original blessing, and this creates the great hope of return.

Sunday’s talk was about the concept of significance, a vital aspect of Ephesians 1. The scriptures affirm our significance because of God’s choice of us; significance is not ours to achieve but ours to receive. As you read the text for yourself, look for statements of meaning and purpose. Then ask yourself the biggest question there can be: what does all of this mean?

This Sunday brings the second installment in our series, a talk we are calling “Glimpse”, our take on Ephesians 2.

Join us for coffee at 9:29 or 11:11 if you can; or tune into the podcast through the week.

Bob