Owen Hylton Spoke to us about Diversity in the church from the Bible. Click Below for the notes and MP3…….

The Notes

Sunday’s sermon from 1 Cor 10 was about the challenge to engage in the culture and community that God has put us in without our hearts wandering after false gods that are all around us.  In the evening after the meeting I watched Deborah 13, a documentary on a teenage girl who is a Christian but has grown up cut off from the world.  It was horribly sad.  The most disappointing thing about it was that there was so much good – family life, faith, boldness, incredible clarity on sin and judgement - but it was wrapped up in a package that looks incredibly unattractive to almost everyone looking on.  It was a classic case of Christians isolating themselves from the culture and criticising it rather than engaging with it to serve.

One scene near the end particularly hit me.  Deborah had visited a student club with her brother to get exposed to the “real world”, and as she left she was confronted with drunk blokes fighting and puking up, and a fresher who wanted everyone to write on her breasts.  It showed in an extreme form the folly of both kinds of gospel errors: legalism/isolation and ungodly rebellion.  It also showed clearly the need for an expression of Christianity that is in the world but not of the world, that follows Jesus into loving the community we are in but not replacing him with the gods we see in the world around us.

I should say as well that I’m not trying to specifically criticise her; she is a 13 year old girl who is being obedient to her parents and loves Jesus and his cross.  There is a lot in her that I would love to see in my own children when they are teenagers.

You can watch Deborah 13 on iplayer until Saturday 28th March.