Simply Retreat

Re:Hope church retreat was this past weekend. Back at the YWAM Stanely House in Paisley, we heard and discussed a great topic, played round-the-world ping pong, and watched Rugby. The teaching was on Simplicity, advancing the kingdom of God by remembering the simple truths of the Gospel. The talks and discussions were:

1) Simply Master - 'Jesus is Lord' was the statement that unified the early church and drove them with passion. Not only is Jesus Lord of us, but He is LORD. We say that's true today, but do we really believe it and conform our lives to it? If we lived lives that demonstrated this, wouldn't non-believers notice a difference in us?

2) Simply Everything - Jesus claims exclusivity as Lord. There can be no other god. There are many things which compete for our attention to Jesus as Lord. There can be no distinction between things that are God's and things that are ours. Jesus is Lord on Sunday and on Monday.

3) Simply Love - If we really believe that Jesus is Lord over everything and is our Master, and we believe that what He did is real, then we will be motivated by Love to tell others about it.

4) Simply Sent - We have been sent by Jesus. We have been placed by Jesus in our time and location to build relationships with our generation. It is our joy and responsibility to live lives that show Jesus is Lord and tell our friends about him with help from our Christian friends. Let's do it together. We listed 30 people we know who aren't involved in church. We then ranked how well we knew them and what other Christian friends know them. Then we strategised how to lean into relationship with them as groups.

Much of the message was inspired by the book our team is reading, "The Forgotten Ways," by Alan Hirsch. In it he discusses the marks of an authentic Jesus-movement, such as the early church and the present Chinese church. The book has really gotten me thinking about these simple truths, and I'm glad we as a church could work through some of it.