In the fashion of SNL, here is the weekend update with host, Joel Hickenbottom.

This weekend in the news, Joel went to dinner with some friends at Carlitos in Santa Barbara. It was here that a welcomed conversation on the Kingdom of God came up. More specifically, we spoke of the idea of the prophetic and that seemingly forbidden word, the "Holy Spirit".

It has been on my heart lately to have a balanced meal from the following food groups:

Jesus

Our Saviour and our Friend ("What did you do with my Son?")



Community

We Need Community, Just as the God-head is Community (Father/Son/Spirit)

Shared Hospitality Towards One Another, Neighbors and Strangers



Mission

Seeking the "Kingdom Come"

Local and Global Sharing of the Reality of the Kingdom and its King



Worship

Bringing Songs, Hymns, Liturgies, Praise, Gifting, and Talents

Living in the Realization that We All Have an Offering to Give

Our Hearts, Hands, Mouths and Lives Always Carry this Offering



Justice

Setting the Captives Free (The Poor, The Enslaved, Creation)

Not Acts of Charity with Heart and Mind, and No Soul, but Acts of Justice that Embody the Heart of Jesus

Wait Just A Minute...

We have been dismantling and rebuilding so much of what we have known in Christendom. In the past few years, conversations of Post-Modernism, Missiology, Living in Community, New Ways of Worship, and Justice have all become hot topics for the Church. We have worked at getting past the Gospel of Salvation to a more holistic Gospel of the Kingdom.

Along with all of this dismantling, I struggle with how the active nature of the Spirit of God fits into it all more actively. It is not to say that the Spirit has not been ingrained into this, and that is clearly evidenced, for example, by what we've all shared in as the Bridge Community.

But I still seek to understand how the Gospel of the Kingdom, which should be about all the things mentioned above, can integrate this more active role of the Spirit guiding us, helping us, and speaking to us. Some thoughts are that we could have another group to this breakdown:

• The Spirit
  
  - Actively Breathing on Everything and Everyone
  
  - Awaiting our Active Participation with Him
  
  - The Involvement of the Spirit that Re-Shapes:

• How We Commune with Jesus,


• How We Create Communities and Live Out Community,


• How We Pray and Worship and the Intimacy Asked of Us,


• How We Creatively Bring About Justice One Again,


• And I think the most importantly...
  
  How We Interact With Our Neighbors, Co-Workers, Friends, and Family

I long to see what our lives, our homes, our communities and the marketplaces could turn in to if we just look past the indifference and our outlook on this topic of the Spirit of God. For too long, the Spirit has been that mysterious third-person within the Community of God (Father/Son/Spirit) that we always ignored when our Family (the Church) would hang out.

It's time that we don't just let Him sit at the table with us and ask a few questions to ease the awkwardness. Instead, I pray we learn that it's time to begin the engagement into a full conversation of life with Him. If He was left for us as a gift when our Saviour departed, then we need to embrace this gift.

In the wonder that if we embrace the whole Gospel of the Kingdom, maybe our world might not just see us feeding the hungry, raising our hands to a ceiling, and uttering sometimes self-righteous prayers (of which we are all guilty of at times) all things that ultimately can be categorized as nice things (hopefully, very real things). But it is by the Spirit that all men are drawn towards Jesus, and it is by this Spirit that was hovering at Creation and has been awaiting our interaction ever since, that our world can be changed.