Where would you place yourself on a scale from "sinner" to "righteous"?
Sinner __________ Not too bad __________ Good __________ Righteous
Maybe it depends—some days we might feel more sinful, while others, perhaps, we feel closer to righteous. But the reality is, as Christians, we are both sinners and righteous at the same time. This can be a challenging reality to keep in view.
Over these last few weeks I’ve been reading a book called “Both / And” by Gary Millar, which dives into the great paradoxical truths of the bible. One that intrigued me is that we are both righteous and sinners at the same time.
I had a severe case of whiplash on Monday this week.
We had a massive Sunday where there was so much to celebrate in the life of our church.
The joy of new life in Jesus celebrated through the baptisms of many of our brother and sisters in Christ at Wellington City and at the beach in Island Bay. (Also followed by a church swim!)
The privilege of welcoming dozens of new people into our church community across all three of our congregations with Hutt running its first Newish Dinner and Night Church welcoming a bunch of new students with Sundae Sunday.
The encouragement of seeing people maturing and stepping up to serve across our whole church, even at personal cost.
I think churches have a complicated relationship with 'celebrating'.
The churches I grew up in rarely celebrated anything. And when we did it felt weird and maybe a little bit suspicious, like we were trying to big note ourselves.
So churches got planted, people became followers of Jesus, pastors and missionaries were sent out into God's harvest field, people matured as followers of Jesus, amazing events happened where the gospel was clearly proclaimed to many unbelievers...
