URBANarmy

"The old fashioned dying love which God alone can inspire must be there or all is in vain. Without that love no organisation that man can devise will ever accomplish anything. But with that love anyone of you who will devote himself to this Gods purpose may become in Gods hands a power for the salvation of the world..."

From TSA's Handbook of Doctrine The holy life is expressed through a healing, life-giving and loving ministry. It is the life of Christ which we live out in mission. God sanctifies his people not only in order that they will be marked by his character, but also in order that the world will be marked by that character. God changes the structures of society through a variety of means, but he changes them through the mission of his sanctified people, empowered and gifted by his Holy Spirit. The mission of God’s holy people encompasses evangelism, service and social action. It is the holy love of God, expressed in the heart and life of his people, pointing the world to Christ, inviting the world to saving grace, serving the world with Christ’s compassion and attacking social evils. Holiness leads to mission (The Salvation Army, 2010: 198).

"If only we has eyes to see and ears to hear and wits to understand, we would know that the Kingdom of God in the sense of holiness, goodness, beauty is as close as breathing and is crying out to be born within ourselves and within the world... The kingdom of God is where our best dreams come from and our truest prayers. We glimpse it at those moments when we find ourselves being better than we are and wiser than we know ... The kingdom of God is where we belong. It is home, and whether we realise it or not, I think we are all homesick for it." Buechner, F. (1992). The clown in the belfry: writings on faith and fiction . San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco.  152 ff

This has the makings of a good day. If you are interested let me know and I'll add you to the list.

“The biblical fact,” Eugene Peterson points out in his book ‘Working the angles: the shape of pastoral integrity’, “is that there are no successful churches. There are, instead, communities of sinners, gathered before God week after week in towns and villages all over the world. The Holy Spirit gathers them and does his work in them. In these communities of sinners, one of the sinners is called pastor and given a designated responsibility in the community. The pastor’s responsibility is to keep the community attentive to God.” (1987:2) The shape of training college programmes in the future may be many things; but a curriculum not fully dedicated to developing spirit filled leadership that maintains attentiveness to God, is a curriculum pulled out of shape. The Form of training was an important area for discussion for the European Training Leaders Network and followed on from the discussions of Essence, and then the Function of training. If the function of training is that of developi...