He who is the image of the invisible God, Firstborn before all creation, Because in Him all things were created—things in heaven and things on earth, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions, whether principalities or powers. They have all been created through him and for Him. Indeed, he is before all things, and they all cohere in Him. He is also the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, Firstborn from the dead, that He might be preeminent in all things, because in him it was decreed that all the fullness of should take up residence and that through Him, God should reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross – whether those on earth or those in heaven.
Colossians 1:15-20
The preceding passage was the text that Tama Ward Balisky from Grandview Calvary Baptist in Vancouver taught from in our morning Bible Studies.
Eddie Gibbs, born in England and recently retired incumbent of the Donald McGavran class of Missions at Fuller Seminary taught us for three sessions on the re-birth of the church into divergent, smaller, distributed, neighbourhood-based, worshiping and serving countries. That last sentence was a mouthful but when you hear him, (I’ll tell you about that later) you’ll understand.
Dr. Ken Nedd, the “stress doctor”, physician and lecturer (from First Baptist Church Vancouver) challenged us to engage our bodies and physical health as God’s gift to us. A gift we must nurture and care for. The gift of personal physical care that we must be pro-active about.
It is Wednesday morning, about 8 workshops are about to begin. Dr. Joyce Chan will lead us in a presentation on multi-culturalism and I’ll write you about that later.
But wait…
Tomorrow at breakfast, each church here (and everyone else next week) will receive a DVD of all the above plenary speakers and workshops. You can decide how to use this resource for many hours of biblical, culturally-engaging and provoking material.
Warmly,
In Christ,
Jeremy