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Matt George

Be Curious

Matt George · Sep 14, 2021 ·

I read this blog post recently called Be Curious which has led to me being curious when it comes to helping my kids on their faith journey. Not only my kids but those who come to me seeking advice. Making me relook at the way I pastor the Church I have the privilege of leading. This curiosity has led to a wonderful time of reflection with God. That is why I am posting it here on our website to allow you to join me in being curious when it comes to supporting others in their faith journey. I pray you read this blog post and are blessed by it as you journey with God in your life.

Sincerely,

Pastor Matt George

SARAH BRAGG
Host of Surviving Sarah Podcast | Author of A Mother’s Guide to Raising Herself | Helping people survive right where they ar

One of the areas in parenting where fear fights curiosity the most is in regard to faith. I remember correcting six-year-old Sinclair for something she’d done wrong, but it felt all wobbly. It felt like I was trying to force a square peg into a round hole. As I explained to Sinclair that she needed to ask forgiveness from me for her wrong action, I also told her she needed to ask forgiveness from God. As someone who grew up evangelical, I had it drilled into me that no matter what “wrong” I’ve done, I must ask forgiveness from God. This logic never felt wonky to me until I looked into the face of my little girl. And even though it felt wonky, being the good Christian girl I was, I kept moving forward. Fear was yelling at me from the backseat, If you don’t get her to see her need for Jesus, she is screwed for eternity!

That’s when my husband, Scott stepped in, brave enough to interrupt me and say he didn’t think we were going about this well. He stepped forward in the thick of vulnerability and uncertainty. At the risk of making me upset, he spoke up. And he was right. Sinclair could barely comprehend how her offense was wrong toward another person, let alone toward a God she couldn’t see. So right then and there, we looked at fear and reminded it to sit quietly in the backseat. It’s scary to do something different from how you were taught and how everyone around you is doing it. But we were curious. We wondered, What difference would it make in our girls’ lives if they didn’t grow up fearing their actions, fearing that God was watching, feeling disappointed, and waiting for an apology?

So we made a choice about faith and our kids. We stopped pointing out their needs for a Savior—a remedy for their sinfulness. We focused more on loving yourself and loving your neighbor. In moments like I described before, we focused on just making it right with the other human that they hurt. We wanted to build a faith on love instead of a faith built on your need for a Savior.

Curiosity is all about asking questions. And so I started asking questions about other parts of my faith. Curiosity allowed me to ask those questions freely. But most importantly, it allowed me to give my girls space to ask their own faith questions. Most likely because of my personality, I didn’t grow up asking questions; I grew up just accepting what I was told. But I knew I wanted my girls to live curious lives instead of lives driven by fear, especially in regard to faith, and I knew I needed to model for them how to do this.

Scott and I had experienced enough as adults to know that life was far less clear and certain than we’d grown up believing. And after raising our girls for a while, we knew they both had a kid’s natural ability to see life from different perspectives. We didn’t want them to lose that.

We thought about how to help them build a faith of their own. To do that, we wanted them to become women who can ask questions and think critically to determine what and why they believe something. When they were little, we said things like, “God loves you,” and “God made you,” but we avoided certain Bible stories that could lead to fear or cause confusion about God’s love. Then, as they grew, we leaned into their natural curiosity—their developmental wiring to think like engineers and scientists. This may not be for everyone, but we stopped giving certain answers about faith to their curious questions. Instead, we replaced answers with questions like, “People believe a lot of different things. What do you think?” We want them to figure out for themselves what they believe so that they can develop a faith of their own—not just a neatly packaged faith that was handed to them. 

We all know that there is nothing “neat” about life. Life is often messy and more gray than we imagined as children. We want our girls to hold space for the unknown. To ask questions. To be curious. To wonder.

We tend to think that the opposite of faith is doubt, but the opposite of faith is certainty. Faith in its essence requires an ability to sit in the unknown—in what we cannot see. 

Raising my girls has highlighted the uncertainty of life. It has highlighted all the things I didn’t know, all the things I couldn’t understand, and all the things that didn’t have a clear answer. But instead of decreasing my faith, it increased my faith—my ability to believe in what I cannot see and embrace the uncertainty instead of fearing it. 

That’s what I want for my girls. I don’t want the unknown and uncertainty of life to bump up against what they always believed was certain to the point that it wrecks their faith. Instead, I want them to build their faith piece by piece through curiosity and questions. 

One of the greatest gifts we can give our kids is an open-ended response. When we respond to their questions with curiosity instead of fear, our kids find freedom. They learn that curiosity is not the enemy. We have close friends who see it differently but still guide their kids toward curiosity. They still give certain answers and encourage them to ask questions. My point is that no matter how you choose to talk about faith with your kids, the goal is the same: for them to own their own faith. And curiosity is a wonderful guide.

___

Enjoyed this post from Sarah Bragg? Here’s where you can find out more!

Website: https://www.sarahbragg.com/

Book: A Mother’s Guide to Raising Herself

Podcast: Surviving Sarah

Instagram/Twitter: @sarahwbragg

Stories From the Heart

Matt George · Sep 1, 2021 ·

Throughout our upcoming series called Stories From the Heart, we are going to be diving into stories in the Bible and discovering the heart of some of our most loved Bible Stories. This will allow us to dive deeper with God and discover more of God’s heart.

Too often we do not dive into the Bible and really wrestle with the stories presented in the holy scriptures. This series is aimed at diving into the stories to discover more about the heart of God.

As Christians we should always be seeking fresh revelations because the Bible is the living word of God meaning there is always more to discover. Sometimes the smallest verse or sentence can completely reshape our understanding of a passage. This happens once we are willing to truly dive into the scripture. Swimming in the deep waters with God is something that can totally reshape our walk with Christ.

The goal of this series is to help us learn more about the Heart of God and I would encourage you to attend one our services at 9am at 6 Highfields RD followed by Morning Tea.  May God’s grace and peace be with you and may you always remember there is more to discover.

Please the messages planned below:

The Story Melchizedek

In this message we look at the story of Melchizedek found in the Bible and wideness of the Heart of God.

(Pastor Matt George)

September 12th

Jesus and the Women Caught in Adultery

We will unpack a story of Jesus and a Women caught in adultery and how this reveals something beautiful about the Heart of God.

(Pastor Matt George)

September 19th

The Financial Supporters of Jesus’s Ministry

In this message we will look at the individuals that financially supported Jesus’s ministry and what this shows us about the diversity embraced in the Heart of God.

(Pastor Matt George)

September 26th

Joseph from Arimathea

We will look at the story of Joseph from Arimathea found in Luke 23: 50-56 and what this reveals about the Heart of God.

(Naomi Kay)

Hands Open Action is Required

Matt George · Aug 12, 2021 ·

Check out our recent Midweek Devotional by clicking the link below.

Listen to Others

Matt George · Aug 6, 2021 ·

Check out our recent Midweek Devotional where we hear the Communion Message from Mal Spooner (August 1st, 2021).

More Rooms?

Matt George · Jul 29, 2021 ·

Check out our Midweek Devotional about our upcoming series for the month of August.

Using the Speck as a Mirror

Matt George · Jul 22, 2021 ·

Check out our recent Midweek Devotional by watching the video below.

Preaching “On the Mount”

Matt George · Jul 20, 2021 ·

The following is Richard Rhor’s Daily Meditation from Centre for Action and Contemplation

   Popular religious scholar and friend Diana Butler Bass shares how Jesus’ teaching “on the mount” placed him in the lineage of Moses and other revered Jewish prophets. Jesus builds on his own Jewish tradition to call his hearers to transformative living. She writes: This section [Matthew 5–7] opens with Jesus going “up the mountain,” a deliberate choice that ancient Jewish Christians would have recognized as aligning Moses and Jesus. The Sermon on the Mount opens with blessings—on the poor, those who mourn, the meek, and those who hunger—in the same way that Moses pronounces blessings on the people of Israel as they prepare to enter the land of milk and honey in Deuteronomy 28. . ..  

Jesus’s first hearers would have understood what he was doing. Jesus was restating the written Torah, the passed-down law of Moses, in the words of his own “oral Torah,” a practice common in Judaism. In Matthew, Jesus places himself in the line of authoritative voices in the Hebrew tradition. Although this was done throughout the history of Israel by teachers, scribes, and prophets, including the most revered leaders, when Jesus claimed to join the ranks of these teachers, it was a pretty gutsy thing to do. . ..   Near the end of the sermon, Jesus states the Golden Rule, the foundation of all the commandments: “In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and prophets” (7:12) . . . .

The crowds got it—Jesus the rabbi was at work renewing and reinterpreting the law and, in the process, claiming the divine authority to do so: a teacher and a prophet. . . .   Jesus does not replace. Jesus reimagines and expands, inviting an alternative and often innovative reading of Jewish tradition. [1]

The German preacher and religious reformer Eberhard Arnold (1883–1935) believed that the people who heard Jesus’ message—both in his own time as well as ours—were obligated to act on the ancient call of God to live the Great Commandment, not simply listen to it.

It is incredible dishonesty in the human heart to pray daily that this kingdom should come, that God’s will be done on earth as in heaven, and at the same time to deny that Jesus wants this kingdom to be put into practice on earth. Whoever asks for the rulership of God to come down on earth must believe in it and be wholeheartedly resolved to carry it out. Those who emphasize that the Sermon on the Mount is impractical and weaken its moral obligations should remember the concluding words, “Not all who say ‘Lord’ to me shall reach the kingdom of heaven, but only those who do the will of my Father in heaven” [Matthew 7:21]. [2]  

[1] Diana Butler Bass, Freeing Jesus: Rediscovering Jesus as Friend, Teacher, Savior, Lord, Way, and Presence (HarperOne: 2021), 39, 40, 41. 

[2] Eberhard Arnold, Salt and Light: Living the Sermon on the Mount, 4th ed. (Plough Publishing House: 1998), 135.

Mark’s Jesus

Matt George · Jul 16, 2021 ·

Check out our recent Podcast which looks at the version of Jesus depicted in the Gospel of Mark.

Helping Others With Putting Themselves First

Matt George · Jul 15, 2021 ·

Check out our Midweek Devotional by watching the video below.

The Good Samaritan

Matt George · Jul 7, 2021 ·

Check out our recent Podcast that takes a deep dive into the story about the Good Samaritan.

Encouragement

Matt George · Jul 6, 2021 ·

Check out our Midweek Devotional on Encouragement by watching the YouTube video included in this post.

Rebuke of Mary

Matt George · Jul 6, 2021 ·

Check out our recent Podcast that dives into the Rebuke of Mary.

Self-Worth: Knowing Our Worth In The Eyes of Christ

Matt George · Jun 29, 2021 ·

We would love for you to join us this month on Sunday at 9:30am 6 Highfields Rd. Find some information about our series for this month.

Self-Worth (July Series)

Throughout this series we are going to dive into our Self-Worth. Looking at what the Bible tells about our Self-Worth and how to curb some of the toxic self-talk that can plague our everyday living. Knowing our true Self-Worth through the eyes of Christ is essential as we navigate through life.

July 4th

The Divine Fingerprint

We will look at how we all have a divine fingerprint within because we are all created in the image of God. (Genesis 1:26-27; Psalm 139:13-14; John 3:16-17)

July 11th

Putting Ourselves First

We will look at how it is important to put ourselves first at times so we can give others the best version of ourselves. (Mark 1:29-39)

July 18th

 In The Mirror

We will unpack the power of the Holy Spirit which magnifies our divine fingerprint which encourages us to look within. (Acts 1:8; Philippians 4:13)

July 25th

Flipping the Script on Self-Talk

We will look at how we can flip the script on our damaging self-talk by resting in how God sees us. (Hebrews 4:14-16)

Hypocrisy

Matt George · Jun 10, 2021 ·

Midweek Devotional from June 10th

Love One Another

Matt George · Jun 3, 2021 ·

Cling to the Promise

Matt George · May 26, 2021 ·

The following is a spiritual imperative from Henri J. M. Nouwen book titled The Inner Voice of Love: A Journey Through Anguish to Freedom.

Do not tell everyone your story. You will only end up feeling more rejected. People cannot give you what you long for in your heart. The more you expect from people’s response to your experience of abandonment, the more you will feel exposed to ridicule.

You have to close yourself to the outside world so you can enter your own heart and the heart of God through your pain. God will send to you the people with whom you can share your anguish, who can lead you closer to the true source of love.

God is faithful to God’s promise. Before you die, you will find the acceptance and the love you crave. It will not come in the way you expect. It will not follow your needs and wishes. But it will fill your heart and satisfy your deepest desire. There is nothing to hold on to but this promise. Everything else has been taken away from you. Cling to that naked promise in faith. Your faith will heal you.

The Sound of the LORD

Matt George · May 18, 2021 ·

Check out our Midweek Devotional from May 12th

In The Beginning

Matt George · Apr 27, 2021 ·

We are starting a new series at our Church this month called, In The Beginning: Diving into Genesis Ch. 1-11.

In this series we are going to look at what God can show us through these amazing stories found in the beginning of our Bible. These stories are too often skimmed over or debated between scholars and theologians. Our goal throughout this series is to dive into the heart of these stories and see what they reveal to us about the Nature of God and humanity.

The book of Genesis is a beautiful part of our Bible and can teach us so much if we are willing to sit with the text. Allowing God to show us more than we can imagine as we sit with them and reflect on the things happening in our world when God inspired these Holy scriptures.

We would love for you to join us on this journey as we practice our value of Going Deeper with Genesis Ch. 9-11. You can stay up to date with our sermon by either checking out our YouTube Channel or Podcast (which you can find details about below). We will have weekly blog post and Midweek Devotionals throughout this series going deeper into the book of Genesis.

Our series kicks off this Sunday May 2nd, and feel free to attend our service at Geham SS from 9:30am to 11:00am followed by a light morning tea.

Sincerely,

Pastor Matt

Highfields Church of Christ – YouTube

The First Appearance

Matt George · Apr 8, 2021 ·

Check out this Midweek Devotional where we look at the first appearance of Jesus after the resurrection in the Gospel of John.

New Lens

Matt George · Apr 6, 2021 ·

Listen to our Good Friday Message and may God’s grace and peace be with you.

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