How do you deal with other people who do not share your convictions about spiritual matters? The following video is probably one of the most helpful teaching tools I’ve come across for addressing this issue. In simple church, it is imperative that we do not become a “bounded” circle. If we do so, we will become ingrown and die. What would it look like in your life/simple church if you were to adopt “centered set thinking?”
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View interesting discussion on this video in The City here: http://bit.ly/t9H3cI
Bounded set vs. Centered set. It all depends not only on how a person defines the boundary or the center, but on how boundaries can focus on the center or on how the center can provide boundaries. When the Creator placed Adam and Eve in the Garden (Genesis 2), He also provided boundaries. Adam failed to honor those boundaries — to protect the Garden, the Presence of God in that creation sanctuary. Of course the video just seen has our typical American pragmatism at heart, and does touch on something of our American churchianity today. But, yes, if I am drawn and destined for The one and only true Center, for Christ, I will have to change and exchange my world circle for his kingdom circle. Yes, there are boundaries that are good. Indeed, when God entered into covenant with Abraham, that covenant — as with all other covenant in the Scriptures — meant boundaries. The Ten Commandments are about covenant boundaries. When Jesus brings us into his new covenant, there are covenant boundaries. Theology matters. Biblical theology is about how The Center brings us into The Boundary. Biblical church implies the boundaries of a fellowship bonded and bound together by the center, Jesus Christ. Sounds like a lecture, doesn’t it? Trained as an engineer, I am a bit leery about using mathematical models of social reality — boundary set vs centered set — to cross the waters of the Jordan River with our Joshua.