SMITCHing

Earlier this month my church kicked off a conference we're hosting for the North Pacific District of the Foursquare Church. The theme is Fully Known, with keynote presentations by a group of guys who run a ministry called True Faced. They've created a powerful story about knowing and being fully known. It sings of grace, and authenticity born of a hatred for two-faced living that traps people in self-protective lies. Their assertion? There's no true freedom apart from God's relational Gospel of grace. They were brought to that conviction by the failure of an autonomous sin-management theology.  Those terms, "relational Gospel of grace" and "autonomous sin-management theology", probably require some explanation. The team from TrueFaced sees a relational Gospel of grace as grounded in the inter-trinitarian life of God where Father, Son, and Holy Spirit share an intimacy and transparency in love that is the model for all relationships. This requi...

I recently attended a service at a small church plant in Berkley, Emeryville actually. The pastor didn't preach, but gave a talk on the church's core values, during which he referenced seeking God's Presence. It coincided with recent discussions in my own church about the very same topics: values and the Presence of God. I began to think about valuing God's Presence, and I really like that particular phrase. Christians often talk of seeking God's Presence, as if it's possible to withdraw from it. But David writes distinctly about that impossibility in Psalm 139, when he asks: "Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence?" It's a good question. It also indicates a theology of Presence that says God is always present to us. The only distance we ever experience from an omnipresent God is relational. It makes sense when you read the Scriptures, which say that he isn't far from those who seek Him, and we gen...