Future Church Brisbane
Join Luke Kennedy and friends at Future Church in Brisbane, Australia.
Talks from our gatherings as well as deeper discussions and Application panels around the practicals of Following Jesus.
Future Church Brisbane
Practicing Jesus Together // Vision Series
Embark on a journey to reshape your spiritual life with the wisdom shared in our latest episode, where we tackle the profound simplicity of living with Jesus at the core. Henri Nouwen's teachings set the stage as we discuss the essential blend of solitude and community in our walk with God. You'll discover practical steps to deepen your faith, such as mindful phone use, Sabbath observance, and battling anxiety with breathwork. We also delve into the role of the Holy Spirit in our transformation and unpack Sherry Turkle's insights to distinguish true community from mere digital connectivity.
The path of discipleship is a dynamic one, and we explore the stages of community life that lead to growth and maturity within the church. Learn from the mother of the sons of Zebedee's story about power, ambition, and humility, and understand the importance of showing up for one another in our collective spiritual journey. As a pastor with two decades of experience, I open up about the necessity of correction, confrontation, and the delicate balance between friendship and community for personal development. We close with a heartfelt prayer, inviting you to find the courage to seek depth in your relationships and embrace healing together.
--------------------------------
Future Church Brisbane Website // https://www.futurechurch.io
Future Church Brisbane INSTAGRAM // https://www.instagram.com/futurechurchbrisbane
Today, I want to talk to you about practicing together. Practicing together. Last week, we talked about the vision of our church being extremely simple and the vision is Jesus. When we look at the future of our church, the vision is Jesus. That's the vision. It's not a complicated vision, but we need to get more practical if we're going to talk about how we're really going to change and become more like Jesus.
Speaker 1:I believe it's Henry Newen, the Catholic theologian, who said that we are made for both deep solitude with God and deep community with each other, but most of us live in a shallow in between. I call this attendance culture. Most of us live without deep solitude with God, also without deep community together, but simply in social settings that have something to do with God. This must change. If we are going to have a future together, we must go deeper with God and each other. I want to bring a concept today that I believe will be helpful as we look towards practicing becoming more like Jesus, because I think there can be a lot of guilt associated with the fact that we're not there yet, but we would like to be, and that is don't try to be more like Jesus. Practice becoming more like Jesus. There's a big difference. If you want to run a marathon, you don't try. If you try, you will fail. But you could practice a little each day and get a little stronger each day and eventually it will still be hard but it will be in the realms of possibility. It's the same with following Jesus. Following Jesus is not for the faint and hearted Jesus' vision for the world, a new humanity. In message chapter five to seven it's called the Sermon on the Mount. It's his vision of what the world can become, startling with the church. If we were to actually follow that, it's not easy. That would require significant change in my life, luke Kennedy, me personally, significant change. To do that all at once is, to be honest, quite overwhelming. But I cannot try to become like that. But I can practice and I can practice together with you.
Speaker 1:I was talking to someone the other day and they were saying to me I tried a few of these things. I tried fasting and I tried reading the Bible and I just couldn't stay motivated and I said maybe it's because you were doing it by yourself and Christianity is not an individual sport, it's a team sport. We're in this together. We've got to do it together. You are easy pickings by yourself, and so am I.
Speaker 1:So today, if you are feeling anxious, like most of our generation seems to be, when Jesus says, don't worry, I could simply close the message today and send you on your way and say go and do likewise, don't worry. It's not super helpful. Or we could develop together some practices that may help you actually deal with anxiety, things like parenting your phone. Have you heard of that concept, meaning you put your phone to bed before you go to bed and then you wake up before you wake your phone up? You know, I think it's something like 87% of people sleep with their phone in their bed. If you're so good this is the old school thing that's called an alarm clock I'm thinking about getting one of those.
Speaker 1:You could take a Sabbath, which is simply a time to stop working and refresh your soul 24 hours of not buying and selling and participating in my usual work. You could maybe sell or give away some stuff that you have impulse bought on Amazon Prime Day and come back to a heart of simplicity. Less stuff could make you less anxious. You could take a few moments each day to stop and turn your phone off and just breathe and think about a simple phrase like God cares for me, and breathe deeply. It's a practice, and if we would practice the ways of Jesus over time, we would become less anxious. That's a fact. So instead of trying and failing, we could practice.
Speaker 1:So let's talk about practicing together. How do we change? We need to get very practical, because following Jesus can seem very arbitrary, like is he real, like this is a big concept. But it needs to become more practical. And I'm not talking about like I am not the guru and you're the student, like we are in this together. Okay, I am learning to practice literally what I preach, and the Holy Spirit is central to this change. It's not like you can have it stack your way to follow Jesus or the world loves that. That's great. There's more at work than that. The Holy Spirit must come in and work in your heart to change. This is much of what Sunday is about, much of what worship is about. It's about practicing, learning how to allow the Holy Spirit to come and do something in your life that you cannot do for yourself, and then taking that into your week and doing likewise. This is not the end of the worship.
Speaker 1:When we talk about community, sherry Turkle probably has the most well researched studies on community in her book Alone Together, which is a powerful statement of our generation. Alone Together Texting offers just the right amount of access, just the right amount of control. This is a modern Goldilocks, for her texting puts people not too close but not too far, but just at the right distance. The world is now full of modern Goldilocks. People take comfort in being in touch with a lot of people whom they also keep at bay.
Speaker 1:Technology is seductive when it offers to meet our human vulnerabilities and, as it turns out, we are very vulnerable indeed. We are lonely, but we are fearful of intimacy. Digital connections and the sociable robot may offer the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship. Our network life allows us to hide from each other. Even as we are tethered to each other, we'd rather text than talk. Does that sound familiar to anyone? Does that sound familiar to me? Connectivity is not the same as community.
Speaker 1:Here's what I see in the Australian church. It's my observation. People desperately know that they need community, yet at the same time, they are desperately afraid of community. What if I try a community and it doesn't work? What if I get hurt? What if the pastor is a narcissist. What if this all goes off the rails and there is real hurt in the church in Australia? That's a fact. There is that Like there isn't any organization to be fair. But we have high expectations of the church and some of that is warranted. But although, let me say this, although community is the place where you will be hurt, it is also the place where you will be healed and grow into a person of love.
Speaker 1:Bonhoeffer, the German Lutheran pastor and theologian who led much of the anti-Nazi effort In Germany, he said this. He called community a wish dream and he said it like this he who loves his dream of community more than the Christian community itself, the reality of it, becomes a destroyer of that community, even though his personal intentions may be ever so honest and honest and sacrificial. Let me say it a different way it is not the community that you dream about that can change your life, it's the one in front of you. It's the reality of it. Bonhoeffer would come from a very wealthy family, an elite family in Germany. At the time of the Nazis, at the height of the war, he created a Christian community. People could live and practice the ways of Jesus together. One day his brother came to visit him. He was ashamed of him. His brother came and said to him you're embarrassing our family, stop this nonsense. So Bonhoeffer put him in a boat and rode across the lake and on the other side of the lake there was a German Nazi youth camp where they were indoctrinating youth. And he pointed to it to his brother and he said this must be stronger than that if we are to have any future. Now we are not building a convent here, we're not doing that, okay, we're just saying just relax, the doors are not locked, you can leave anytime you want. I am personally not afraid of the crazy ideology of the world sexuality, body image, careerism, secularism, individualism. I am not afraid of that for my children. What I am afraid of is that this community may not be strong enough to show them what life with Jesus is really like. That's what I'm committed to. We're gonna be in this together, guys. This can't be a wish dream. It has to be more than that.
Speaker 1:Matthew, chapter four, took it to the Bible. Matthew chapter four Jesus Calling to the disciples. I read this last week. Well, while I was walking along the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, simon, who's called Peter, and Andrew, his brother, casting a net into the sea because they were fishermen, and he said come, follow me and I will make you fishers of men. We talked about what that meant last week. You can watch it online Immediately. They left their nets and they followed him. And he starts calling other people. He calls a whole bunch of people. In a day After this he calls Judas You're thinking Jesus, what are you thinking Like? Surely you knew this guy? And then he calls Simon the zealot. Simon the zealot was part of a group called Zechariah Zechariah. They were murderers. There were people they were political activists who turned violent. Does that sound familiar? They would go and they would cut the throats of Roman officers, sneak up on them and then sneak back into the crowd. They were called Daggermen because they would do that with daggers. He was invited onto Jesus' leadership team At the same time. Very soon after that, he invites Matthew, the tax collector, who's literally working for the people who that guy is killing.
Speaker 1:Now let me ask you this when Jesus steps away from the table at dinner into another room, do you think there's fireworks or what? Do you think there's some argument about politics or how we should best change the world? Who is right and who is wrong. Do you think there's some fireworks? Just imagine the most extreme white supremacists you could find and the most blue-haired left activists you can get and put them in a room together and say now we're gonna build a community to get the guys. It's gonna be beautiful. This is literally what Jesus is doing, and yet we I haven't probably been in community. It doesn't sound right. We are not facing that. Yet Jesus brings these people together and builds them into people of love, and both of those people died for their face together. That is the power of the gospel. That's what we need in this country. Just later on, you can see it gets more interesting in Matthew, chapter 20. This is so funny to me.
Speaker 1:The mother of the sons of Zebedee you can tell this is Gen Z because their mother is asking them for their boss, for a promotion. I love Gen Z, you're amazing. But don't get your parents asked for a promotion and kneeling before them and asking, ah, what do you want? Jesus says he knows what she wants. I want my boys on the left and on the right when you come into your kingdom. She's still thinking it's politics. I want this guy to be Secretary of State and I want this guy to be Vice President. And Jesus says to her are you willing to drink the cup that I'm about to drink, meaning this? They knew what it meant. Are you willing to die, like I'm about to die, because this is a different kind of kingdom we're talking about. This is upside down kind of kingdom. And she says in her pride she says yeah, sure, of course we are. No, you're not. Come on, we're willing to die.
Speaker 1:And Jesus goes on to give a lesson about the kind of leadership style in their church. It's not gonna be about lauding at other people, it's gonna be about serving. Can you imagine the other 10 guys on the team how indignant, how fired up and how viscerally angry they would be at those two guys? And yet Jesus calls them to come together. John Mark Homer says it like this there is the ideal of community. Then there's the messy reality of community, and discipleship happens in between, in between the mess of being a human. Together, that's where you will grow, and if you run from it, you run away from it at your own stuntedness.
Speaker 1:There's three stages of community. Let me go through them real quick. Number one there's the honeymoon, where everyone seems amazing. You're all amazing. I can't believe I found a church like this where everyone's so amazing, everyone's like almost perfect, too good to be true. It's probably because it is Because we're not perfect. Second phase is I just called it awakening Awakening to the reality that nobody here is perfect. In fact, join the club like we are the same, like we are no better than each other.
Speaker 1:In this room, the wish dream is somehow shattered at this moment. This is where most Australians jump off. Sure, most people leave church at this point and it's really sad because the next part is maturity. The few who stay and work through the challenge end up with the greatest benefit of community, and that is finding wholeness together. It's the same in marriage, it's the same in any relationship and it's the same in a church community.
Speaker 1:I wonder where you are today, where you at, where you at In honeymoon, in the conflict? I don't think we've been long enough yet as a church to be in maturity, but we will. We'll get there, because I'm not quitting on you. So I'll meet you. Meet you in the middle, with all of my imperfections, in a mature community. It's where people who have been longer, been down the track, been a little further than you. They will come and tap you on the shoulder and say let me help Equally, where there's sin in your life, they will graciously rebuke you for your benefit.
Speaker 1:You don't know when, like personally benefits, when they tell you you're wrong, it's not like, oh, it's doing me great favor. It's never that it's only for you. If you haven't seen that done, well, just hang around. Eventually you will. I think a lot of people. The moment they are corrected, they will leave. That's a fact. I've been pastor almost 20 years. I'm actually 60 years old. I know, I don't look it. I've been pastor very young. Most people do not like to be corrected, including me, maybe more so me, depending on your personality. Australian culture is not a culture where people are corrected easily. It's an issue for us Guys. We've got to get better at it, and in the church we need to get better at it. So this is the vision for community groups is that we would learn how to become healthy, mature communities.
Speaker 1:There's a difference between friendship and community, a different thing. You know that right. Friendship is the people that I choose. I choose you because I like you. We are like friends. We have common interests. We like doing things together. I get your humor, you get mine. We like doing things together. We are friends.
Speaker 1:That is not necessarily community. Community is the place where God puts you, where there's people around you who you don't necessarily get along with, but they're there for you so that you can grow into a person of love. How else will you learn to forgive unless you have a community where you need to forgive? God is genius. God, grow my patience. Okay, join the community and don't run away and you'll get patience. But it won't come from an altar call where somebody prays over you.
Speaker 1:What is community? Seven quick things. There's probably too much information. Put it on social media or something. What is community? And then we're going to finish.
Speaker 1:There is no following Jesus without community. When you become part of the family of God, you also become brothers and sisters with the family of God. This is inescapable. You can't just have a daddy and no siblings. It doesn't work. In my generation, people want to follow Jesus by themselves. It's not possible. It's a dream. You can't do it. We need each other to follow Jesus together. That's the call Number two we need relationships to flourish Life is better together. Have you heard that scripture? Romans 12, verse 15, it says celebrate with those who celebrate, mourn with those who mourn.
Speaker 1:When I was diagnosed with cancer, a friend called me and he said to me how many people do you want to come to your house? I was like I don't know A couple. I didn't pray for me, we didn't like an hour. My room was full of pastors coming to pray for me, not from our church, from all over Brisbane and the Gold Coast. I couldn't believe that. I was really inspired by that. Those guys have texted me every day since. Let's check this frame for you, check it. I want to encourage you. I wake up every day with my phone with new text messages from people who want to pray for me. That's community. That's actual community, not just friends.
Speaker 1:I initiated those relationships, by the way, because I found some. You know, I gathered some money before we started this church and I bought as many pastors in this city dinner all together. I said I want to be friends. I'm not competitive. I would cheer for you. You can plant next door to me In the next building. I'd done more than me. I would cheer for you. It's okay. Let's be friends. Can we have a community? Can we have a good city together? And that has come back to me in spades.
Speaker 1:Number three community is the context where we change. Community will expose you, but it's also the place where it will be encouraged. Pizza Zero has a great book about this. He calls it your Shallow Side. Everyone has a shallow side your damage, but mostly hidden version of who you are. You know what I'm talking about. I've got one.
Speaker 1:Most of us are masters of hiding this and we fear that it will be exposed. One of the reasons this place isn't dark it's not like a black box, it's like a beam pointing at me right now and you're all hidden and anonymous to each other. One of the reasons is because we don't come to church to hide. We come to be known and in some ways, we come to be exposed, because exposure is the only way you'll be healed. If people really see you and as we grow and mature together, you will be able to worship. I know it's awkward. I know it's awkward at first, but in time you will see that you will be able to worship God freely, looking around the room and seeing others do the same, and you will not be ashamed as you get healed. It's a good thing. People have been doing this for a few thousand years without any lights off. We're coming back to some of that stuff.
Speaker 1:For a lot of young men let me just talk to the young men here For a lot of young men it exposes our pride, and pride is simply a cover-up for insecurity. We all have it, so we so desperately need the encouragement of community, but our insecurity will not let us really enter it. It's a problem for us guys. When I was looking down the barrel of seven weeks of radiation, the doctor was sitting there telling me just very casually and also you can expect a permanent illusory eyesight as well, sorry about that and I was like, did I just hear you right, because you said it real casual I walked out and I thought I don't need to do that.
Speaker 1:Say a little bit of water. Sorry about that, I don't need to go through that. I could just walk away, take a chance. All my pending cost of friends will pray for a miracle for me which I believe in miracles and see what happens. But also, you know I have this. I have like I have this. I didn't plan on doing that, sorry. I have little babies, one little baby who needs a father.
Speaker 1:Okay, so that's what I kind of think about Now. Back to you, back to you, back to the young men. There's people in your life who desperately need you to grow. I'm talking to the young guys here. There's people who really, really need you to become mature and grow up and do what's difficult and follow Jesus for real. So I would just encourage you don't run away, but lean into God's grace and lean into community.
Speaker 1:Because number four community is where you will be healed. You will be healed. I know we all need healing. Community is the only place and here's what happens with I see this so many times we wall ourselves off from community because we were hurt. Yet the problem is the community is the only place where we will be healed. So we forever stay unhealed when the healing is right there and available. Don't do that. Christopher Smith in his book Slow Church etc. Like this.
Speaker 1:Long term relationships are the crucible of genuine progress in the Christian life. We've got to stop skimming on on friendships. We've got to go deeper in community, long enough for people to see your shadow side, to help you become the moment you are, to love you through your junk. Number five I'll skip because I said friendship is not necessarily community. Number six community takes commitment. We all want to belong, but the problem is we're also addicted to options. You know this. I want options and I want deep relationships. It doesn't work. You got to choose. If you're in, jump in and start digging, dig deeper. That's the place of change.
Speaker 1:St Benedict said staying put. He calls it community is staying, put together to get somewhere. The best place you're going to get to where you're going is by staying put. You can change church, especially if you're not looking for discipleship or like. There's many other good churches, like great churches in Brisbane. I'm friends with most of them. There's lots of good ones. But if you're in, just be in, be in it, don't skim, don't fast food. Church, be in Community takes time. Last one and intention.
Speaker 1:Some of you will be frustrated that it's not happening fast enough. Like I'm here, luke, why haven't I got great community yet? I've been here like three months? It's because you've been here three months and we have our whole lives ahead of us. So Sunday gatherings are important and it's good to sit under, like God's ways and in the scriptures being proclaimed of your life. It's a really important part of your formation.
Speaker 1:But it's really to really get this You've got to be smaller. We've got to getting groups. So call somebody, get a coffee, get in a group. I have like an online group for the guys, like some of the guys who share scriptures and pray for each other. If you don't know what to do, just ask somebody. How can I get more involved? Someone will like bring you to their group or just invite you over for dinner or coffee or something. People are friendly here. Friendly is not good enough, by the way. We need to go deeper than friendly, but friendly is a good start. Friendly is better than not friendly, but we can do better than that.
Speaker 1:Let me let me finish these three. Three questions that you can just ponder on yourself. Maybe you could take a photo of it. I see most of you doing that right, rather than writing notes. That's fine. There's no judgment.
Speaker 1:Who are you in community with? Like, really, how negotiable is your community? Like, I just don't feel like turning up. That's the day when you should turn up. I just don't really feel like it today.
Speaker 1:And number three, maybe most importantly for today how are you allowing the community to form you? Are you actually letting it change you? Or you like cut the walls up If you bring those walls down just a little bit. Humility is the art of bringing the walls down. That takes humility, because people will see you don't have it all together and neither do I. That's humility, but it's wonderful. We're going to pray for us. Jesus, so difficult. God, I really need your help. Don't want to just live shallow. Help us to go deeper With you, deep solitude with you, deep community with each other, and I pray for the people here who have been living in the shallow, the shallow in between, that today, holy Spirit, that you would move our hearts, change us even. Help us to have desire to change, help us to trust, help us to have humility around, letting other people in, and I pray that we would find great healing together as we lean on and trust you. Thank you for a God Amen.