Monday, December 18, 2006

Advent: Conceiving

Various individuals within our community help us to conceive of the transformation which Advent brings. These folks infuse our community with the imagination of the divine, and help us to bring the "just within reach" Kingdom of God into contact with our grasping fingertips.

Here on this blog, Dan Lowe has brought us several word-images in recent months which give creative expression to some of the complexities of the Kingdom breaking through the seemingly forsaken spaces.

In the traditional church (a context in which many of us have lost all imagination of hope), we look to John and Katheryn as they continue to draw out urban-missional engagement through their lives of service.

I also think of Todd Paul's eagerness to tackle nearly any endeavour, using God-given talents (and sometimes some brash entreprenuerism!) to jump into anything from economics to roofing.

Advent calls us to such imaginitive conceptions.

(Read on...)Central to the themes of the Gospel is our willingness to faithfully stand where we would not have set foot apart from the leading of God's Spirit. The Scriptures resound with the tales of God's people enfleshing the dreams of God, persistantly holding fast to the inbreaking reality of God's goodness.... precisely in the midst of injustice and injury. It is just this kind of faith-filled imagination which prepares the way for the Kingdom.

From the sights and sounds and spirituality of the city, to the pulse of the church's lifeblood of ministry, to the million-and-one odd jobs which make up our days.... we call one another into the conceptulization of realities of redemption.

Take some time to peruse last year's reflection, and put some flesh on your own Spirit-embedded imagination.

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