Convergence- Who Are We? Who Do We Want To Be?

The “church rules” that were set up in the bible were not said by Jesus, they were put in place to fix the problems and sins of the church because church structure facilitates our obedience in God.

The way the government works in the church is not important- it is the fruit.

Fruit of the church should be;
(Taken from Acts 2)

- Praising God
- To look after each other
- Led by the Holy Spirit
- Fellowship
- Set apart
- Fulfills needs
- Practice gifts of the Holy Spirit
- Repent and be baptized
- Share everything
- Everyone Participates
- Numbers added daily
- Committed

What do we (Convergence) value? What are our narratives?

- Social justice
- Participatory salvation (faith without works is dead, works without faith is legalistic)
- Sacrificial generosity
- Holistic lifestyle (no difference between our “sacred” and “private” space)
- Kingdom responsibility (we have skills/gifts- steward and use them)
God’s reality is of personal consequence- if you believe in God, everything you do had personal consequence.
- Purposeful community

What are the church functions?
- worship
- prayer
- teaching
- fellowship and support
- finances
- service (local)
- world outreach/ missions
- share together
- training/ discipling
- leadership

Convergence: an interdependent church (with Broadway)
What does that mean? Look like?

- Unique vision (doesn’t have to be a “contra-vision”)
- Worship- focused on our narratives
- Leadership- we participate with Broadway in the next leadership search. Broadway recognizes core team’s vested interest and experience.
- Finances- take responsibility for Convergence and Convergence Missions- If you are participating in the kingdom you should be tithing
- Prayer, Teaching, and Fellowship- internal
- Service (local) and World Missions- We need to be getting involved
- Training/ discipling- should be intentionally teaching- starting with the basics.

So, this is who we are and who we want to be (as discussed on Thursday, November 2, 2006)

If you have any more ideas, or questions leave a comment, start a dialog, contribute.

Sex: Part Two

Matthew 19: 3 - 12

Jesus' words on marriage and divorce take on a new light when we look at it through God's intention for intimacy in covenant. Here, Jesus was not only talking about the oneness in marriage but the covenental commitment that the Pharisees had with God.

Jesus referred to the oneness in marriage three times in verse 6 - man and woman in marriage are no longer two, but one. Since the oneness of man and woman in intimacy and covenant is a reflection of God’s Trinitarian nature, we are to treat husbands and wives as we treat the Trinity, not as individuals, but as one.

When we look at this passage in light of the passage in Hosea, a new understanding of the apparent contradiction of Jesus' words in verse nine comes to light. Jesus says that when sexual unfaithfulness is present, divorce is permissable. In Hosea, God threatens to divorce Israel citing "prostitution" and "adultery" as breaches of intimacy. Jesus, essentially, answers the Pharisees twice regarding the divorce issue: the first answer points people towards the missional intent of the covenant relationship, and the second answer is an allegorical picture for a legalistic question, pointing the Pharisees towards God's threats to divorce Israel for her unfaithfulness, and then highighting the present state of the relationship - He threatened, but He stayed with her.

Jesus declared that what Moses permitted was not what God had originally planned for intimacy. Even though God threatened divorce from Israel for "prostitution" and "adultery", He chose reconciliation and restoration of intimacy.

It is interesting to note Jesus' three reasons from abstaining from the intimate God-man-woman relationship: two are directly related to the man's physical ability to have sex (his "parts" must be intact and in working order), the third reason was for the “sake of the kingdom of heaven” (Matt 19:12), presumably the very reason Jesus was abstaining. God so wants people to experience sexual intimacy that the only reasons for not taking part are physical incapibility and loyalty to kingdom work. Otherwise, it is God’s design and intention, as it was in Eden, for man and woman to leave their parents and be joined, in a covenanted, excellent, sexual, male-female-God relationship.

Ephesians 5: 21-31
Paul reiterates the passage from Genesis, restating God's intent in the male/female relationship.. Reaching back to the original intention of God for the marriage relationship, he draws his parallel in new language, substituting Christ and the church for God and Israel. Paul in fact moves back and forth from the husband-wife to the Christ-church relationship eight times in these ten verses, demonstrating his commitment to the metaphor.

The language of mutual sacrifice and commitment in this text reinforces the original intent for lifelong monogamy within marriage. Christ as the representative of the Trinity, is behaving as the husband in the metaphor when he sacrifices himself for his bride, the church.

The picture of the wife presenting herself clean and without blemish (v. 26) implies the sexual relationship - what other way would a husband know his wife was without blemish, unless he saw her naked? The spiritual side of the metaphor will be the church standing before Christ: clean, vulnerable, and totally exposed in submission. This is a very intimate illustration that Paul has implied in his parallels in this marital commentary, and again exposes God’s missional heart for intimacy with his people.

James 4: 1 - 10
Here, as in Hosea, James uses overtly relational and sexual language to describe what he sees as the breach of covenant between Christ and the church by the church’s conformity with the world. James exposes the evils of the heart, and the behaviors they lead to in verses one to three, and then in verse four calls those who do them “adulterers.” He later uses familiar parallel terms like “jealousy”, “longing” and “faithful” as descriptors for the relationship (James 4:5). James’ writing within the same metaphor as Hosea and Solomon again underscores the intent for the sexual relationship to be expressed in a life-long committed monogamous relationship.

The often misquoted verse 4:7b, occurs in James’ diatribe. This verse cannot be understood apart from a missional intimacy reading of the scripture. James is trying to heal the relationship between Jesus and his betrothed church. James is talking about resisting a pursuing and tempting adulterous lover (the Devil) in favor of choosing the one to whom the church is committed. That process is initiated through true repentance. We turn our laughter to mourning and joy to sorrow and show God, our lover and friend, that we are truly sorry for our adultery with the world (jealousy, fighting, scheming, greed, and pleasure-seeking; see verses 1-3).

It is then Jesus’ prerogative and desire to restore the honor of the church (James 4:10). When the church as the bride of Christ draws close to God by rejecting the advances of the adulterous lover, he is capable of restoring our potential for true intimacy. In the culture of the first century church, to restore the honor of an adulterous wife would have been practically impossible as it would have meant the miraculous restoration of virginity. James attests here to Jesus’ desire and ability to do just that for his betrothed, the church.

Marriage has historically been patriarchical and economically or politically instituted. A return to God’s intent for sexual intimacy within marriage can help to curb the injustices intended or achieved by those marriages still arranged outside of mutual love and submission. A concern for God’s intention for sexual intimacy can bring balance to both the cold patriarchical arrangements of previous centuries, and the violently transient marriages of our society today. What God meant for marriage matters, and a proper understanding of its intimate triadic community is a freedom. Within covenant intimacy, we can imitate the very community of God, and experience to the highest degree possible for humans, the freedoms of trust, love, and intimacy experienced within the Trinity.

A missional understanding of intimacy should affect the way we view the covenant of marriage. Our male-female covenant making in light of this thesis must employ the tones of permanency and indissolubility. Rather than look to Matthew nineteen for exegetical framework that would permit divorce, we should strive to pursue God’s original intent for marital intimacy, and stop asking when it is ok to do otherwise. Exegetics that justify divorce on the grounds of Jesus’ words in Matthew five or nineteen presuppose the admission of failure to do God’s will for marriage. Any such theology of divorce is a disaster of permissiveness toward disobedience and un-love for God as well as each other.

Male-female-God sexual intimacy within marriage is a living metaphor, it is God’s declaration of intent for his people, to encourage them toward the possibility of intimacy with him, as he experiences within the Trinitarian community. The Trinity is the ideal picture of relationship in God’s view, and he wants for his people to experience his brand of trust, relationship, mutual investment, and perichoretic intimacy. It is from this desire that he noticed that man without woman was “not good” (Genesis 2:18). He then created male and female in his image, and having presumably watched them express themselves sexually, he described the scene as excellent in every way (Gen 1:31).

It is no doubt important to God that people still experience the intimacy intended by him in the garden of Eden. He is aware by way of experience of the pain that rebellion against his intention for intimacy causes. He longs for us to know his original intention, that sex is a gift in context, meant to foreshadow the kind of intimate relationship that we can have with him spiritually. The disease of sin has perverted his gift, but his missional intention for intimacy is still his passion, and through our love for Christ, he has restored our spiritual virginity.

The question that we were brought back to the night we spoke about this at Convergence was not, "What is permissable sexually?" but rather, "What was God's original intent?" In this way, we should live with a set of how-to's rather than a list of should-nots. The beauty of what can be and is intended to be should be our motivation in sexuality.