Does The Bible Have A Place At The Loft?

Moving into a new term at The Loft, I have been thinking for some time now about the kinds of things we teach at The Loft and how we structure the teaching patterns/topics. Together with the planning team, we have decided to strive for more continuity with the teaching topics, and that got me thinking about whether or not we should do series on, for example, particular books of the Bible.

The more I have thought about this, however, the more I have thought that the responsibility of giving this kind of teaching lies with the church. I think that as a branch of the church, we have a slightly different responsibility, which is to offer teaching that is entirely relevant and applicable to students and student life. That being said, teaching that is given in any kind of church context should be founded in biblical truth and application. With talks that I write, I will always try to include as much of the word of God as is possible and sensible. But, I recognise that The Loft is, for some, the only place where they will hear teaching that is solely student-specific and I think that fact should shape what we teach on first and foremost.

As The Loft has grown and continues to grow as well, I would like it to be an event that isn’t structured exactly like a Sunday meeting at churchcentral. Obviously, we want it to be completely in line with the vision and values of the church, but I think the fact that we are hoping to create something different will also structure what and how we teach.

I Wanna Be A Billionaire…

So, last Sunday night Jonny spoke to us at The Loft about our identity in Christ; what we become when we decide to follow Jesus, how we can be described, what rights we are given and the work that God starts to do in us when we take that step. Jonny was brilliant! The things he said were both eye-opening and challenging. He said that there are well over 100 adjectives in the Bible that describe the people of God. All of these generally fit into three categories: ‘being’ identities; terms that describe what we are ‘becoming’; and also ‘doing’ identities. In each of these categories, Jonny focused mainly on just one description.

The Bible says that when we are in Christ, we are children of God. We are his sons and daughters , and as such, he loves us, protects us, provides for us, disciplines us and much much more. This is part of our ‘being’ identity; it’s who we are. As children of God, we are being made more like Jesus in all his glory; we are being made holy. And the Bible says that God “will bring [this work] to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1). It’s amazing to think that this is happening regardless of how hard we work towards it. This is our ‘becoming’ identity. The ‘doing’ part of what Jonny spoke about is that we are “fishers of men”. What God has done for us through Jesus, by his grace, is so incredible that we feel compelled to share this story with as many people as possible.

All of this and the other phrases we talked about last week could be quite a burdensome thing if we consider it in the wrong light. We could feel that we should strive to be more righteous and holy like Jesus out of a sense of obligation. The same could be said of our attitude towards sharing our faith. I think that diligence is a good thing and I believe in working hard to be the best you can be, but it’s clear from the New Testament that all of this is actually part of God’s grace given to us. It’s totally out of his grace that he loves us and calls us his children, despite what we’re really like; and that he’s working in us as we follow him, adding good things to our character and giving us the freedom and the gifts we need to do what he’s planned for us to do. Billionaire isn’t one of the phrases in the Bible describing the people of God, but in terms of grace, we are very rich.

The Loft – Part Deux

On Sunday night, we had the first meeting of The Loft for this academic year, taking it into the second year that it has been running.  I’m really looking forward to what’s going to happen with The Loft this year and I’m anticipating some pretty cool stuff.  I know it’s not all about numbers and numerical growth, but we all talk about them anyway and it’s a good way of monitoring the popularity of events…so I will mention them.  Briefly.  We had over 30 people, which I think is brilliant for the first one of the year.  Throughout last year, the only meeting where we had over 30 was the very last one of the year…and the topic of that one was sex and relationships!  So, it feels like we’re hitting the ground running and I’m hoping we build momentum and keep attracting more people.

If you don’t know what The Loft is, it’s all about students.  We meet every other Sunday evening in Beorma Bar (upstairs in the Birmingham University guild) and it’s put on for the students at the church I go to in Birmingham, churchcentral.  We love chatting to each other and getting to know each other better and we also love worshipping God together.  So, that’s basically what it’s all about.  We want it to be a chilled out environment where we do just that and where we are encouraged to find out about the stuff that God wants us to do with our lives…and then go out and do it.  We cover different student-related topics as well with speakers coming in to talk to us or where we have group discussions about stuff and look at what the Bible says.  Last year, we covered things like sex, relationships and what we do with our money.  I expect we’ll do similar things again, as well as some other very cool stuff.

Most, importantly, we’ve now got some cool orange lights.

What’s The Point?

“Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless. What does man gain from all his labour at which he toils under the sun? Generations come and generations go, but the earth remains forever…I thought to myself, ‘Look, I have grown and increased in wisdom more than anyone who has ruled over Jerusalem before me; I have experienced much of wisdom and knowledge.’ Then I applied myself to the understanding of wisdom, and also of madness and folly, but I learned that this, too, is a chasing after the wind.”

I was thinking today about the talk that Jonathan Bell, my church leader, gave at our wedding. It was a 3-point talk and one of the points was: ‘Keep an eternal perspective’. As I was thinking about this, I was reminded of the passage above, written by a very wise guy called Solomon. It just made me think that without an eternal perspective, a reason to it all, a raison d’etre if you like, or direction in life, everything is meaningless. Everything. Whatever we give our time to. Whatever we set our hearts on. In the end it comes to nothing; it is metaphorically a chasing after the wind.

I need to remind myself more regularly than I have been doing lately of the bigger picture and the fact that God has a good plan for me and my life. It’s not just about me either!

Misery Guts

On my desk at work, I have a calendar that has a short thought for the day on each page that you tear off.  On Friday last week, this thought/notion was: “Most people would rather be certain they’re miserable, than risk being happy”.

Is it really a risk to be happy?!  I don’t know about the majority of people, but I would much rather be happy than miserable!  Hopefully, I don’t come across as being miserable very often (some of you may beg to differ – especially if you’ve seen me on days when I’m going round the park and not taking wickets!).  In myself, I have happy days much more often than I have miserable ones and I really don’t enjoy the miserable ones at all.  I feel that when they do come along, I affect people with my misery in a negative way – so I’d much rather allow happiness to be the much more dominant contagious emotion.

As a Christian, my happiness/joy comes from knowing that I’m loved by a gracious God, which gives me hope for this life and the next.  At my church, Churchcentral in Birmingham, our church leader Jonathan recently did a series entitled “Finding Joy in…”.  It’s brilliant – I strongly recommend you listen to the talks that you can find here.

Be Happy While You’re Living…

My desk calendar at work has little exerpts/quotes/notes for the day written at the bottom of each page. Today, as I was tearing off the weekend page to throw away, I noticed that the line on this particular page read:

“Be happy while you’re living, you’re a long time dead.”

Reading this reminded me of and made me so grateful for what Jesus has done for us on the cross. That is exactly what he has saved us from if we believe and follow him. And he hasn’t just done that so that we can continue to live in the same kind of life where there’s still pain and suffering and there’s still imperfection; he’s saved us out of the eternal effects of death so that we can have an eternal and glorious life. It’s gorgeous (sounds better when read in a Welsh accent)!

The other way this little calendar comment made me think was that the person who wrote it clearly doesn’t believe in life after death, but they clearly have it in them to believe in some kind of world with no end. Interesting.

Why is The Loft Called The Loft?

Last night, The Loft took place for the second time this term.  If you didn’t read my last post, The Loft is a meeting for students at churchcentral (the church in Birmingham that I go to) where we hang out, eat, drink, listen to music, play on a wii, worship God and learn from the Bible.  It’s at Beorma Bar in the Birmingham University guild every other Sunday evening.

Anyway, so why is it called The Loft?  Well, you may have heard the phrase ‘the upper room’.  Jesus and his disciples shared their last meal together in the upper room of a house.  They chatted, ate together and spent time worshipping God.  Also, just before the day of Pentecost, Jesus’ family and friends spent time praying in the upper room of a house where they were staying.

We wanted a name that would describe a place where people could eat together, hang out with each other and with Jesus, worship God, and be filled with the Holy Spirit so that we are prepared for what God wants us to do (basically what happened at Pentecost).  Obviously, we didn’t want a name that sounded as religious as ‘The Upper Room’, so we created The Loft.  We think it sounds cooler and more ‘student-y’.  We hope you like it and we hope it catches on.