Tuesday, January 21, 2003

Embodied prophesy
Random thought 1 - I grew up in a setting where prophecies are all talk. And often talk in King James English. I have enough trouble understanding Shakespeare let a KJV prophesy.

Then I stumbled across the Old Testament prophets. People who use their bodies to speak of the Tomorrow.

Random thought 2 – I was moaning to Al Roxburgh (an "immigrant" who I respect immensly) about how hard church planting was, and how often other ministers don’t understand me and judge me by modernist indicators. He shrugged and said, “what do you expect. What you’re doing is prophetic.”

And it suddenly clicked. If Graceway just is, it is prophetic. To do nothing more than live .. to just drink beer and loves Jesus and tells stories and runs art exhibitions … is to get heat. Why? Because it’s embodied prophesy. It’s a challenge to the way others are.

Alan Hirsch commented on his blog;
“Ours is not merely an apostolic role in establishing new ground for the Gospel and church, but must be by nature a prophetic one as well. I find this the most painful aspect of my ministry--an almost total rejection/marginalization from the established church which I am so committed to."

Again, embodied prophesy. Tonight I pray for all my fellow embodied prophets. We who have thrown off the KJV English. We who by the very act of living, feel marginalized. Long may the Spirit pulse in our veins.

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