tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-84187279036519913712011-12-06T12:05:00.507-05:00<b>Writings on community</b>, studied from everyday life and the pages of the bible, applied practically to present-day problems in the [U.S. of] American church. <b>Passage studies, musings, and advice</b> for nurturing small groups.<br><b>Not to be confused</b> with the truth or accepted carelessly. <b>An attempt</b> to address our need – foolishly dismissed by individualism – for deep, open, real relationship with God and others; an attempt to keep us from<br><i>walking in gardens alone.</i>Jason M Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07675844250860251052noreply@blogger.comBlogger81100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8418727903651991371.post-31572257394619636632009-08-09T00:20:00.004-04:002011-12-06T12:05:00.524-05:00

"We can make people (often) attend to the Christian point of view for half an hour or so; but the moment they have gone away from our lecture or laid down our article, they are plunged back into a world where the opposite position is taken for granted. As long as that situation exists, widespread success is simply impossible. We must attack the enemy's line of communication. What we want is not

Jason M Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07675844250860251052noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8418727903651991371.post-13428243407120818112007-11-27T12:19:00.003-05:002009-08-09T00:15:12.958-04:00

Below is an audio file (no video, sorry!) of a talk given by a man named Kevin Hass to a group of students at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, USA. The theme of his talk is "Living in the Light", and it directly pertains to the second meaning of the word "witness" (see Witness, Part 1). When used as a verb, "witness" becomes a synonym for talking about our experiences of

Jason M Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07675844250860251052noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8418727903651991371.post-7726799587228753362007-11-16T13:28:00.001-05:002009-08-06T20:29:12.961-04:00

Cultivating love is the necessary first step we the Church must take if we want to fulfill Christ’s prayer for us in John 17, but love alone won’t unify us. It enables us to live genuinely together, to work alongside each other; it is the oil that keeps the cogs joining smoothly or, to employ Paul’s metaphor of the church as a body, it is the blood that circulates life throughout our various

Jason M Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07675844250860251052noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8418727903651991371.post-79863819165977557262007-10-29T23:49:00.002-04:002009-08-06T20:29:57.204-04:00

We interrupt this topical progression to bring you a book review. The book is Jesus Land; the reason is my passion for community.Reading this memoir by Julia Scheeres is an experience something like watching the movie Saved!, except that the book is dogged by abuse of every kind, haunted by racism, and not funny.Also, it’s true.The basic scenario is 1970s back-country Indiana. Julia’s white

Jason M Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07675844250860251052noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8418727903651991371.post-88329661563945314902007-10-06T16:14:00.002-04:002009-08-06T20:29:42.207-04:00

It was just over halfway through my freshman year of college that my thoughts turned to love.No, not that kind of love... I was meditating on a pair of verses from the new testament, verses that I had known for many years but that I had never, quite, noticed.They are as follows:John 15:9-10"Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you

Jason M Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07675844250860251052noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8418727903651991371.post-45319302030477459342007-09-26T00:38:00.002-04:002009-08-09T00:02:45.504-04:00

We speak strangely at churches and spiritual life conventions about “witness.” This word is an interesting bit of christianese. It is both noun (“how does [fill-in-the-blank-action] affect your witness?”) and verb (“I’m not sure if the time is right to witness to him yet.”) Note that in the former example, the use of witness implies a constant condition, as though our lives were always under

Jason M Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07675844250860251052noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8418727903651991371.post-65949515321910385732007-09-18T14:15:00.002-04:002009-08-08T23:57:33.475-04:00

Often when we study the bible, we spend so much time reading or digging deeply into one passage at a time, it becomes easy to lose sight of the broad picture, the threads that weave our whole scripture together. Every once in awhile, it’s a good idea to take a few steps back and remind ourselves what this book is all about.One of those long-threaded themes is a description of God’s intention for

Jason M Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07675844250860251052noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8418727903651991371.post-11930999845723552222007-09-08T09:46:00.000-04:002009-08-08T21:59:22.954-04:00

There is something startling, even disturbing, in the first pages of our bible. Genesis 1 and 2 provide complementary accounts of creation, differing on some of the details in order to direct our attention to separate aspects of the creation act. I notice something very strange when I read them side-by-side – observe with me:1:3Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.4God saw

Jason M Smithhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07675844250860251052noreply@blogger.com2