Love Claims and Larry Crabb

(Some of this is my paraphrase of notes from a friend who attended Larry Crabb's School of Spiritual Direction.)
Love does not label people. Labeling leads to writing-off some. Love sees other people as people, as image-bearers of the Creator, before it sees them as Americans or Japanese, as Hindus or Muslims, as engineers or prostitutes. As Christopher Wright says in The Mission of God: "(W)e do not see the label but the image of God. We see someone created by God, addressed by God, accountable to God, loved by God, valued and evaluated by God. So while we affirm the validity of reaching out...to all people everywhere, we must also think critically about the methods, attitudes and assumptions with which we do so....To love your neighbor as yourself is not just the second great commandment in the law; it is an esential implication of our common createdness..."

Whether they act like it or not, whether they express it or not, everyone needs to love and be loved.

I found the use of the concepts of "detachment" and "attachment" interesting and helpful.
The Spirit of God works to detach our souls from our attempts at self-fulfillment by giving us a deep awareness of emptiness apart from God, thus promoting brokenness and repentance. The Spirit also works to attach our souls to God. This attachment to what is ultimately real encourages greater detachment from that which cannot truly satisfy. It fosters confidence and release. We are enabled to give to others expecting less and less in return.

One of the reasons we who live and work among Hindu people often shy away from God-talk which involves the word love is because of that famous sign hanging from the rear of trucks in India, artistically printed on the backs of autorickshaws, graffitied on many a boundary wall: Love is God. But certainly we in the West get the definition of love wrong as much as those in the East.

Our daughter is 16!

We can hardly believe that Karis turned 16 on the 28th. I joked that all of the fireworks were in honor of her big day (The 28th was also Diwali, the great Hindu "festival of lights"). And then it snowed that night...October...in England! "Lord, thank you that You're able to take care of our daughter. She's growing up too fast!"

Love Claims?

During our group's conference in July we were asked to explore the idea of “Love Claims” for our interaction with people of other faiths as compared to more traditional, Western-based “truth claims.” (Please don’t misunderstand: We are not forsaking the proclaiming of truth!) For me, the whole presentation was the planting of a seed, a needed and somewhat provocative call to evaluate how we reach out to people. Three descriptive statements regarding “Love Claims” are:
-telling the message in love
-the message is: “God loves you in Christ Jesus”
-the goal: acceptance of God’s love, love shown back to God, and a capacity to truly love other people

Many of us have seen in conversations where we are proclaiming "the truth" how quickly the mood can become "we're right; you're not." The context slips so easily into "us" versus "them", doesn't it.

Our instructor for the "Love Claims" sessions reminded us (we who are so concerned about truth, and rightly so--for the most part) of the centrality of love in God's kingdom. In fact, "God is love." Such a focus on love leads naturally into proper discipleship: the two greatest commandments becoming more and more evident in our lives.

Elliot's bday number 14

We had a wonderfully rich and fun evening celebrating our son Elliot's 14th birthday with our team last night. Patti's veg lasagne and two salads, some Domino's pizza, and brownies (after the candles were blown out and removed) with ice cream for dessert scored with everyone. Many thanks for all your prayers in helping Elliot continue to grow into manhood and as a follower of Jesus.

Intro to B Nelson's Column

Hello from the northwestern part of Greater London! I was encouraged to start a blog, so here we go. I would greatly appreciate ideas and guidance from anyone connected with our work here in the UK. From the outset, I wish to state that we plan to consider carefully our vocabulary as many kinds of people eventually may be reading these postings.

Thanks, and God bless you!