Foundations: “To be”
Join us as we take a closer look at each building block of FHC’s Mission Statement using the book of Colossians as our lens:
“To be a relationally driven community that seeks to encounter God, empower Christ-centred lives, and faithfully serve others"
Scripture: Colossians 1:1-20
Jesus + Reading your Bible
Jesus + Watching Veggietales
Jesus + Not Swearing
Jesus + Dress the right way
We’ve all come across the “Jesus +” movement in some form or another. Some of us may have even been burned by it. Some of us maybe haven’t come to grips with how it has influenced our view of the church. This is not dissimilar to the threat that the young church of Colossae was facing as Paul felt compelled to write to them from his prison cell. While they were thriving and doing a lot of the right things, it was becoming more clear that the culture around them was beginning to seep in and make it’s way into the faith. More specifically, the looming threat knocking on their doors was Gnosticism, a religion that relied upon salvation being a “mystery” that can only be accessed through a special knowledge. Some parts of the religion also depended on strict adherence to traditions and the observance of rituals. Paul summed up these rules as “Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch” (Colossians 2:21). Sound familiar? In considering the question of what and who we are “To be” as a church, we need to take to heart the emphasis that Paul places on the centrality and sufficiency of Jesus and Jesus alone. He sums up this message in his poem found in verses 15-20 and makes it clear with the repetition of the word “all”. Therefore, no matter what we feel we are called to do whether individually or communally, as long as we retain that very same emphases and realize that Jesus is “all” we need, we are destined to be okay.
"Much of [Gnosticism] is in tune with today’s American attitudes. It seems to offer greater openness and flexibility to those who experience Christian orthodoxy as rigid … it is thought to be more welcoming to women, artists, freethinkers, and free spirits … It definitely seems more “spiritual,” and offers a selection of paths to follow, techniques to master, knowledge to gain - yet without restrictive dogma. For example, gnostic devaluation of the material world offers two views of our sexual nature, both of them conducive to a libertine way of life. Either the sexual act is thought to be immensely spiritual, offering access to the divine, or it is a matter of no importance one way of the other, since the flesh is unspiritual. Either way, the gnostic is free of sexual restrictions.”
- Fleming Rutledge, The Crucifixion
Study Questions:
1.) In what ways have you encountered the “Jesus +” movement?
2.) What does it mean for you to keep Jesus first in your life?
3.) In what ways do we try in vain to add to what Jesus has already done?
4.) Paul says in verse 17 that “in [Jesus] all things hold together”. What does that mean for when we feel like we are falling apart?
5.) What are your views on the church being too restrictive? Perhaps too liberal? How is Jesus reshaping those views?
