The Story we find ourselves in: God’s Grand Narrative

As people individually and as a body we are in a story bigger than ourselves, bigger than Redeemer 'Central', bigger than 'Redeemer in Belfast'.

There are many different readings of the biblical narrative but we can reduce them down to two main perspectives. American Pastor and church planter Jeff Vanderstelt, speaking on Biblical Missiology, outlines these two perspectives for us.

“We view the biblical story as either the story of God or the story of humanity.

- If we believe it is the Story of God, then Jesus is the hero. He is the one to whom every part of the Story points. It really is ALL about HIM.

- If we believe it is primarily the Story of Humanity, man is the hero and every part of the Story points to him. Jesus plays a supporting role, but the story is really ALL about HUMANITY.

Your presupposition about The Story will absolutely shape your convictions about the Church’s mission and the embodiment of that mission in your culture.”

At Redeemer we hold the presupposition that this is God’s Story and that it is all from Him, about Him and through Him and for Jesus.

Our new vision and strategy for Redeemer is Kingdom vision and strategy. We are part of something that God is doing. He has promised he will build His church (Matt 16:18), he has been building His Church in Ireland for centuries, and in his grace he has invited us to be a part of this redemptive story, called us onto His mission in this great city of Belfast to share the good news of the gospel of grace found in Jesus.

We, Redeemer, don’t exist for ourselves; we exist for God and for the city. We are not primarily about attending services but bringing service. We are not primarily about running programs but relating to people. We are not about meeting in small groups with only an end unto ourselves but about building missional communities with a vision to multiply and reproduce for the sake of the spreading of the gospel. We don’t go to church… we are the church.

As the church we yearn for transformative change in the lives of the people we engage with in our communities and we believe this will happen by introducing them to Jesus. Jesus is our vision, He is our Hope and in a land where peace has been hard to come by He is the Prince of Peace, bringing Shalom to the people and the communities in our city. The only way to introduce people to our Jesus is to be with the people.  Of course this sounds so obvious it’s silly, but it is simple and true. We will go to the people. This is our ‘radical’ strategy.

We will go to the places the people are and we will worship and exalt the name of Jesus and serve the people there. Yes, we could stay here doing what we are currently do in Central - cosy as it is, but that would be selfish at best and disobedient at worst. Remember, we are part of the Grand Narrative, we are the storytellers and this is an opportunity to tell that Story and be a part of what God is doing in this city. We want to tell people the great redemption story that God came for them, incarnated as Jesus 2000 years ago, lived, died and rose again to bring restoration, renewal and eternal peace with God through forgiveness of sins.

Would it not be amazing to see and hear stories of Jesus transforming people’s lives in Belfast? I believe those stories will be the ones worth publishing; those stories will be the ones we get most excited about and as a result we trust that more people will meet the King and be graciously and mercifully welcomed into the Kingdom like we have.  In this Jesus will take all the glory and that will be our story, more than anything else.

Comments

Write Your Comment

Name *

Email *

Website

Notify me of follow-up comments?