Engage: A radical manifesto - pt 4

This week you're going to look at Matthew 6:1 - 7:12 where Jesus redefines what it is to be practicing our spirituality.

Jesus is redefining our piety (AKA our spiritual lives put into practice or "our outside life match our inside life") and urges us to do this with simplicity, in secrecy for the audience of just God, and to be secure and grounded in God.

ENGAGE

Engage in the discipline of fasting. Jesus teaches on the discipline of fasting as one of the outworkings of our spiritual life. "Fasting" is not black-mailing God on a hunger-strike - it's intentionally choosing to strip away our allegiances to other gods in our life by saying "No!" to them for a period of time so we learn not to let them rule us.

Here's some ways you could fast this week:

• choose not to eat for a day, replacing each meal time with times of prayer
• delete your Facebook, Instagram and Twitter apps off your phone for the week and load the "Pray-As-You-Go" app to use in their place
• choose to say "no" to a social gathering this week (e.g. Friday night drinks or a certain coffee date of the week) and stay in quietly at home to engage in solitude for the evening

---

Engage: A radical manifesto - pt 2

This week you're going to look at the opening several verses of The Sermon on the Mount known as "The Beatitudes". This is Jesus' radical proclamation of hope, describing a portrait of what God is doing now in this broken world.

ENGAGE

Each of the Beatitudes help us to see a portrait of hope. Currently in the world there is plenty of suffering and hopelessness, but these Beatitudes tell us how God is acting in fixing those. Slowly read through Matthew 5:1-11 and consider each Beatitudes carefully.  Which of these are you drawn to at the moment?

Engage in the discipline of prayer and pray for those who need this blessing. This might be for others in the world, or it may be closer to home such as your friends or family – or it may even be for yourself. Pray for "God's Kingdom to come" and for these things we see in the Beatitudes (such as comfort, mercy, peace etc) to happen.

Engage in the discipline of action by meeting the needs of those areas you have identified. Did you notice a relationship that needs peacemaking? Or maybe a person who needs comfort? You might be the answer to that prayer you just prayed...

---

Engage: A radical manifesto - pt 1

To start our journey through the Sermon on the Mount, you need to grasp the whole thing in one go. It will take you about 20 minutes to either read or listen to Matthew 5, 6 and 7.

So, here's what we suggest trying at least three times this week:

WITHDRAW

Make space by choosing a discipline of withdrawing: Commit to making a time of solitude or silence in your busy day. The goal is to make some space where you can be fully present to God and the text you are about to engage with, so do whatever you need to do to achieve that; maybe that means getting up a little earlier, or during your day finding a comfy chair or taking a walk to a cafe or park, or in the evening you could flick off the TV/close your laptop for a bit.

ENGAGE

Fill the space by choosing a discipline of engaging: When you've made that space for yourself, grab your own Bible or use the links below to read/listen to the whole of the Sermon on the Mount. The goal is to just take in the whole thing.

Message series: "A radical manifesto"

Today we find ourselves in a culture that screams various messages at us all day, everyday. 

"Be this _____!"
"Ah, it's sweet - do that ______!" 
"You're not this _______!"
"________ is the most important thing you can seek."
"Who do you think you are to believe that ________?"

What would it look like to let the radical core-teachings of Jesus, told as a sermon on the side of a mountain, inform the way we would look at this world? What kind of people would we be in the midst of this world as a result?

Welcome to our message series for July; a journey of looking at the sermon that redefined everything – and continues to do so today.