The Joshua House
a missional community of worship following Jesus...

General Info
Date: Saturday, November 4th
Time: 5-7pm
Where: Terra Nova Co-op common room

Please e-mail or call us by Friday, Nov.3rd by noon to tell us if you are coming and if you would like to bring something for dinner.

Dinner
The main course will be: Some kind of take-out (likely Pizza)
We still need: Some kind of dessert

Study/Discussion
Watching and talking about John chapter 11:
v.1-16 (The Death of Lazarus)
v.17-27 (The Resurrection and the Life)
v.28-37 (Jesus Goes to the Tomb)
v.38-46 (The Raising of Lazarus)
v.47-57 (The Plan of Caiaphas)

Please try to read it beforehand and bring your bibles and any questions at all that you may have and be ready to discuss it. 

Well, I watched Peter Jackson’s King Kong this past weekend and I must say it was a pretty good movie.  It had all the elements of a worthy watch including drama, comedy, action and of course great computer animation.  In fact, it reminded me of watching Jurassic Park back in the day.  A decent story backed up by good special effects.

Of course there were many things one could take from the movie as a whole or from the unique and varied characters.  One especially noteworthy performance was given by the beautiful and virtuous Ann Darrow (played by Naomi Watts).  It was also good to see Adrien Brody (the guy who played the mute character in The Village - another one of my favourites) playing the role of Jack Driscoll (no relation to Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church).

Overall I found one main theme in the movie that I thought noteworthy:

Man (humankind) naturally seems to fear and act violently toward that which he does not understand. 

King Kong in this instance is truly analagous to so much of what is happening in our violent world today.  Perhaps much of the violence stems not simply from anger, which is more likely a secondary reaction, but rather from fear.  This makes sense in my Christian worldview as I realize that God has revealed himself to us in Jesus so that we do NOT FEAR but instead LOVE in his name.  He did this by revealing himself to us personally and dying for us so that we can know and experience the reality that he is in control.  That we need not fear for the whole world is literally in his hands, as the song says.  I understand that working this out in our lives is harder then it looks but this is still what God calls us to.  In fact the apostle John says that real love casts out fear! (1 John 4:18)

I pray that we could all come to see God more clearly in Jesus in the coming days and not be afraid of who he is calling us to become but rather rejoice in that the "KING" has come and actually cares about us and knows us better than we know ourselves.

Some thoughts… 

 
As of late I’ve been extremely impacted by some words I can’t get out of my mind.  Fortunately the words are not my own but rather those of Dallas Willard, well-known Christian teacher, philosophy professor and all around smart, godly guy.  The funny thing is how these words came from a book of his that I read together with a group at the beginning of the summer.  Why this came into my mind only a couple of days ago, I don’t exactly know.  Well, with enough of an intro let me just tell you what they are.

They have to do with the two basic forms of evil in relation to others.  Perhaps here you can envision individuals you know (i.e. friends, relatives, co-workers, etc.), perhaps communities (i.e. churches, work-places, neighbourhoods, etc.) or even tertiary institutions such as governments, nations, etc.  According to Willard two of the most powerful ways in which we sin against others are through what he calls, "Assault" and "Withdrawal."  "What does he mean by this?" you might ask.  So I don’t try to make a goof of myself in trying to explain what Willard explains so well, I will simply quote him.

"We assault others when we act against what is good for them, even with their consent.  It is not only when we harm them or cause them pain against their conscious will.  Hence, seduction is assault, as is participation in or even compliance with the social structures that institutionalize wrongdoing and evil.  The more explicit and well-known forms of assault are dealt with in the last six of the Ten Commandments—murder, adultery, theft, and so on.  These are deepened in their meaning by the teachings of Jesus, especially in his Sermons on the Mount and on the Plain (Matthew 5-7; Luke 6) and the teachings of Paul in such passages as Colossians chapters 3-5 and 1 Corinthians 13.

We withdraw from someone when we regard their well-being and goodness as matters of indifference to us, or perhaps go so far as to despise them.  We ‘don’t care’." - Renovation of the Heart, p.182

so, how now shall we then live?