Archives For kingdom of God

I recently saw an exhibition showing the work of some Auckland University of Technology Communication Design students: what happens when you swap the elements of one product’s label with those of another? I’ll tell you what happens: it messes with your head. Thinking about the future church is a bit like this.

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Imagine expecting one thing but getting all the messages of something completely different. Imagine years, perhaps decades of familiarity being turned upside-down before your eyes. It was one of those exhibitions that played with my mind at every step. Continue Reading…

This is a guest post from Mark Pierson, author of The Art of Curating Worship: Reshaping the Role of Worship Leader. He has been a Baptist pastor for decades and is currently the Christian Commitments and Church Relations Manager at World Vision New ZealandLast month I critiqued singing in church services (Church music: a wicked sin? & Majority resort: church singing). In this post Mark introduces his definition of worship:

I’ve decided that the Christian Church is responsible for most of what is going wrong in our world. I’ve been thinking about it for a long time and it’s the only conclusion the evidence (admittedly all anecdotal) will let me arrive at.

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In particular it’s the public corporate worship events that the Church offers week after week that are to blame. Church services. These are the events that we depend on for the spiritual formation of the Christians in every church community.

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The “kingdom of God” is a phrase translated into English from something that was central to the teaching of Jesus. This phrase has become church jargon. What does it actually mean? Is the intended original significance lost in the way it gets used today?

How do you describe the kingdom of God?

Are you able to simply define the kingdom of God to someone not part of the church who has never been Christianised?
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