The Mustard Seed

Bryn Jones - Radical to Ragged

'I see subtle changes in many churches as I travel around. What was once a radical commitment has become a ragged one. What was a group of Christians with dedication to Christ, a sharp edge to their gospel and a determination to fill their city with it, has now become simply "the best church in town". The songs are brighter than anybody else's, the music is well-orchestrated, they have a rousing song-leader and better preaching than most other churches.

"Tremendous!" you say? No, it stinks. For all too often it has blunted the edge of their commitment. There is no room in the darkness of today's world for complacency. 

Bryn Jones, God's Kingdom - Here and Now. 

Kierkegaard On Being Christlike

Present-day Christendom really lives as if the situation were as follows: Christ is the great hero and benefactor who has once and for all secured salvation for us; now we must merely be happy and delighted with the innocent goods of earthly life and leave the rest to Him. But Christ is essentially the exemplar, that is we are to resemble Him, not mere profit from Him.

Read more at http://www.relevantmagazine.com/god/15-soren-kierkegaards-most-challenging-quotes#CZVicfSLoUU4lsBC.99

Andrew Murray on Worship

The man who would truly worship God, would find and know and possess and enjoy God, must be in harmony with Him, must have the capacity for receiving Him. Because God is Spirit, we must worship in spirit. As God is, so His worshipper.

From With Christ in the School of Prayer

How To Study Unto God

'The most holy men are the most excellent students of God's works, and none but the holy can rightly study them or know them. His works are great, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein, but not for themselves, but for him that made them. Your study of physics and other sciences is not worth a rush, if it be not God that you seek after in them. To see and admire, to reverence and adore, to love and delight in God, as exhibited in his works - this is the true and only philosophy; the contrary is mere foolery, and is so called again and again by God himself. This is the sanctification of your studies, when they are devoted to God, and when He is the end, the object, and the life of them all.'

Richard Baxter

'A society which believes in a worthwhile future saves in the present so as to invest in the future.'

'It is difficult to find Europeans who have any belief in a significant future which is worth working for and investing in. A society which believes in a worthwhile future saves in the present so as to invest in the future. Contemporary Western society spends in the present and piles up debts for the future, ravages the environment, and leaves its grandchildren to cope with the results as best they can. On searches for contemporary European literature in vain for evidence of hope for the future; rather, in Jurgen Moltmann's words, it is characterised by cold despair, loss of vision,resignation, and cynicism.' Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, 90-91.

 

Bryn Jones on Theology

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I have been enjoying the resources of Bryn Jones' ministry made available at The Radical Church and The Restorer websites. Listening to one of Bryn's sermons available on The Radical Church site, I heard this fantastic quote about theology, a word and topic sadly much maligned:

'It's your concept of God that shapes everything else about you. Theology is not dry; people make it dry to try and discredit it. But theology is the seeking of the knowledge of God. It's not studying God in a textbook fashion; it's studying the Word of God to know God. And theology is also our effort to express our faith in meaningful terms, in ways that speak to people today.'

 

How To Think About Evangelism

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'With right thinking I will fulfil my covenant obligation, expecting not frustration but success. Somewhere a life is going to change for the better because of their encounter with me.' Andrew Owen, Go and Evangelise

 

Dostoevsky on Jesus

'I believe there is no one lovelier, deeper, more sympathetic and more perfect than Jesus. I say to myself, with jealous love, that not only is there no one else like him but there could never be anyone like him.'

Tomorrow's People Today

I recently came across this short article by Bryn Jones. I found it so challenging and profound that I thought I'd post it here. It's in no way a criticism of others; in reading and rereading it, I look only within to ensure I change and grow.

Why some people who think that they are tomorrow's people today are not:

- They have vision, but it is only second hand.

- They fear anything that could expose them to failure.

- They are controllers rather than fathers.

- They are owners of the vision instead of servants of the vision.

- They look for glory, recognition and status.

- They are locked up by the people instead of leading the people into liberty.

- They are perfectionists rather than purpose motivated.

- They spend time trying to perfect the present rather than pressing forward to the future.

- They use people instead of making them useful.

- They are threatened by people with gift and purpose because they fear they will lose their position. 

- They seek to submerge people rather than seeking that people emerge. 

- Always seeking to highlight weaknesses in men, but never learning from their own mistakes because they never own up to them.

- They talk of tomorrow but live for today.

- Instead of vision taking them on a journey, ego takes them on a downward spiral.

- They are figureheads and not fathers.

- They confuse performance with purpose.

Bryn Jones on Work

 

'In becoming a carpenter, Christ sanctified the workplace, illustrating to us by his own labours that work is the place for the holy as much as for the skilled. We need to be filled with the Spirit to do our daily work as much as we need to be filled with the Spirit to preach the gospel of Christ.'