Everyone is Awesome in God's eyes
WHAT GIVES STUDENTSOUL IT'S CHARACTER?
It's summed up in the VISION statement: Helping students find wholeness
It's not easy to achieve this stuff.
It's like a whole package.
You have to keep coming to student.soul and get involved to really get this wholeness stuff. But we try to do this by being:
*God centred and God honouring
*Valuing the Visual/arts and creativity
*The diversity with which we learn.
*Interactive/kinaesthetic… response
*Thinking
*Relational
*Emphasizing mental and emotional health,functional and practical people
*gentle and non abusive
*wholesome and having fun
*Bridging into the scarfie culture with a relevant message
Here's some tension spots in student.soul:
1. RIGHT AND LEFT BRAINS
We are trying to balance the heart and head, male and female ways of looking at stuff. Sometimes guys wonder what we're doing when we start drawing…
2. PREACHING v PARTICIPATION/ THINKING v BEING TOLD
Who likes to participate in a one way conversation?
*yet isn't that the dynamic of preaching
What was the predominant method by which you were taught at school and varsity?
*Being told; and this is the predominant mode in most churches also.
But at student.soul, our thinking is that it's not how to become a better preacher - but help the people become better participants
SO student.soul is basing itself on a model of participation and interactivity on all levels and this is uncomfortable, frustrating for some, scary, not what you're used to.
1 Cor 14:26 When you meet for worship, each of you contribute
'Homiletics' - the art of preaching, is based on the Greek verb meaning 'to converse' - to have a conversation together.
Here's a few reasons why we're passionate about this
* It respects our sovereignty - dignity; our right to our own thinking, not just someone else's.
It puts the onus back on me to need to think for myself and take responsibility for my life, my values, my actions, my beliefs.
*It helps me learn how to think and not be prey to false teaching or spiritual abuse because I can't tell the difference
Give yourself a set of thinking principles and you'll be able to discern and evaluate truth or error from that. Toxic religion is not ever very far away from church life and this generation can and must learn to discern it
*Don't give the person up the front more power that they deserve. They must earn the right to be heard and respected. Don't give away your mind too easily. You loan the power to a 'big' person to speak to you, it's not theirs by right of their position.
*It also values and honours our diversity. Everyone has something to contribute on some scale. It is not the sole role of any minister. In fact, it's a lot better when everyone takes their place.
3. ROLES OF MEN AND WOMEN
How we do relationships is a key issue in student.soul: getting on socially, sexually etc
In 2005 we are hoping to try and understand 'maleness' a bit better
*Development of men's ministry, guy's camp; bloke stuff
*Continue with working on girls' issues.
4. WHO ARE WE HERE FOR?
Do we meet for Christians or for others?
Mission is the least developed emphasis of student.soul.
But it is why we meet in the heart of Uni.
In 2005 we will have an emphasis on: upskilling to share the Gospel and what that means, relevance, being culture conscious and appropriate - not culture cringe.
VALUE 1: EVERYONE IS AWESOME IN GOD'S EYES
DIGNITY by Bob Dylan
What's it gonna take to find dignity?
Seems like this is one key ingredient that so much of this world finds missing.
The sense of being valued by others and by God.
Being treated as having intrinsic value just because you are.
You don't have to go far to find how devalued and
dehumanized so much of the world is.
Look at the news; murder, rape, atrocities, starvation
Look at your own relationships, how you treat others and how they treat you.
YOU guys are awesome.
You are made in God's image
You re-present to me images of God.
You are God with skin on to me
You are amazing works of art.
I hope I will always treat you with
Dignity, honour, respect, sacredness, sovereignty,
as different crazy beings who God gave me to love
and I'll do this because firstly
I've discovered that God treats me like this.
That I am awesome and significant to God
NO crap about needing to be good
Just because I am
Can you say that?
That's the message that Christians have
EVERYONE IS AWESOME IN GOD'S EYES
Intrinsically awesome
I met a guy who wanted to know whether I believed in a complete God. As a Muslim his god was complete, perfect. But our God expressed to us in Jesus Christ is both complete and incomplete, because God has chosen to make Godself vulnerable and incomplete without human beings.
*God needs us
*God is both powerful and vulnerable , another tension
*and God made us -
*but in doing so He also made Himself vulnerable to us,
*incomplete without us
But we are also incomplete without God
We don't experience true dignity, don't know personally that sense of value deep down, until we have been reconnected to God through Jesus Christ.
*And the trouble is God won't force us to love him. That would be rape. He gives us the freedom to make our own choice about God, about how we run our lives, about who we are. The right to say no. He stands back until invited to be Saviour, Lord, Friend, Guide, King. What does this mean?
Discussion
What does it feel like to be treated with such respect
by an awesome and powerful God?
What does it feel like/look like to be treated
with respect/dignity by one another?
To be without dignity is:
Invasion
Rape
Abuse
Control
Powerlessness/power over
Dehumanized
A puppet/object
Mind control
Witchcraft
Advice giving
To be dignified is:
to feel person - ified
to feel clean/whole on the inside.
To be listened to.
The I part of me is affirmed, not just the doing
to feel like a million dollars
to feel like giving life everything I've got.
It brings out the sparkle, the real me, the best on a deep level of intimacy I am known and still OK.
To be LOVED not guilty, not in need of punishing
To be empowered
to be trusted
To be boundaried
There are so many ways that respect and dignity can be expressed.
1. It's a lifestyle
Start with the basic belief in the equality and awesomeness of everyone
Each called sacred by God
And therefore I should treat them like that
2. It's a process, growing to love and honour particular individuals God puts in our lives
Give each other dignity by listening deeply this year
By letting others make their own choices and mistakes
Empower others to find the best they can be.