Citizens of Heaven
The church and the world have a murky relationship. Historically we’ve tended to either embrace worldly power to try and create Christian empires or withdraw entirely writing off the world as a doomed and broken place. That said there have been lots of individuals and communities who’ve walked a line somewhere in between. This blog is for people looking for that challenging middle way between embracing worldly power and forsaking the world God loved into being.
Posts now on MinistryMatters
The Community has closed, but you can still read updates from this blog at our new online home. See the latest posts from Trevor Freeman on Medium.com and MinistryMatters.
Bystanders in the Kingdom
Most of the time we find that we are bystanders in situations. As bystanders in any group or institution we can choose whether we will be part of the Kingdom of God, or not. Continue reading
The state of nature and the Kingdom of God
The worth and value of each life can’t be learned simply from observing how each living thing interacts with each other. Social, political, and economic equality between people cannot be learned from the state of nature. Justice and mercy and love cannot be learned from the state of nature. In other words, the Kingdom of God cannot be learned from the state of nature. Continue reading
‘Get woke’
The hardest work any of us will ever do is to go deep into the parts of ourselves that we hide and that we hide from ourselves. Continue reading
‘Who do you say that you are?’
“Christian” is a word that this world still needs. What it means is something this world desperately still needs. I don’t want this word to lose all its meaning. I don’t want to cede it to people whose primary agenda is resisting social change or reinforcing existing power structures. Continue reading
Who is it for?
The danger in forgetting that our perspective is limited is that we risk creating a community of faith that serves and fits people who share that perspective. Continue reading
The battle
No act of policy or government action can overcome a people who act with compassion in all things. And no act of policy or government action will be a victory if compassion is the cost. Continue reading
Abundant life
Regardless of how we might choose to ignore it, or put it off, or live, all of us are going to die. Continue reading
Stand
Citizens of Heaven stand, first, in God’s Country. We stand in a place where love is the law, and where compassion is the exercise of that law. We stand in a place where justice and mercy are never contradictory, and where glory and humility are mirrored in each other. Continue reading
A parable
The handful of Sunday regulars has decided that this little church’s time has passed. The decision is made and the paperwork is done. The bishop came out this morning and led a service of deconsecration. Everyone there said it was a beautiful service. It really was too. It was a holy goodbye. Continue reading
