FRESH expressions of Church

Our local network of youth workers (FRESH) met thi smorning for an AWESOME meeting. IT was fantastic as we all came to an agreement about the fundamentals of our work with young people and planned ways in which we can seek to focus not on events but on discipleship. This is something we've been moving towards for many months but it really came together today and it's all encapsualted in this pretty diagram!


We also looked at doing another 24/7 prayer event next year which should be fantastic!

After the meeting, over lunch, when some people had gone home we also got into a fundamental vs liberal debate about Christians dating non Christians, sex before marriage, women in leadership, whether all "good people" get to heaven, homosexuality and whether or not gay people can be priests, the culpability of Eve, the Great Commision, the value of studying the Scriptures in the original languages and gifts of the spirit. What was so wonderful about this discussion was the level of respect for people of different views. I was pretty much in a liberal minority on pretty much every topic going and I'm sure I shocked a few people but it was really good to be open about where our differences are.

The two passages which featured most prominently for me (with particular reference to who is saved) were both from Romans:

"But what does it say? "The word is near you, on your lips and in your heart" (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim); because if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For one believes with the heart and so is justified, and one confesses with the mouth and so is saved." (Romans 10.8-10)

and

"For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8.38-39