Jeremy Schultheiss is a youth pastor, storyteller, and advocate in San Diego. He writes at www.jeremyschultheiss.com.
Posts By This Author
4 Ways to Embrace New Narratives for Advent
suradach / Shutterstock.com
The narrative of a retail event like Black Friday weekend is broken.
What if we could embrace a new narrative? What if that new narrative is really an old narrative just seen with new eyes?
This weekend, the global church is starting Advent, which is a time of preparation for the coming of Jesus. However, we live in a world where Jesus has already entered. How should our lives look different in response to that and as a church be part of bringing the kingdom of God to earth in this Christmas season?
Let Our Prayer Be More Than a Hashtag
Syrian refugees at the Slovenian border in September. Photoman29 / Shutterstock.com
God’s been telling the story of restoration since Genesis when we were created selem Elohim, in the image of God. We were created into perfect communion with God. From Genesis 3 until the end of the Old Testament, we see a narrative of a people in exile and God giving opportunities for reconciliation and restoration of relationship that humanity is incapable of accepting. Reconciliation is an exchange of something worthless (our condition of sin) for something immeasurably worthy (communion with God).
In the New Testament we see a biblical narrative through Jesus of now-but-not-yet restoration. In Jesus we see the coming of the Kingdom of God and get to be reconciled back to God. We even get a glimpse of an eternity where there is no more death or mourning or crying or pain.
If we truly believe we are the image of God, it changes how we approach the image of God in the world. Our call then is to actively partner with God in taking the world somewhere.