raabjerg

Disturbing search term?

Just randomly check my stats, and saw that one of the most used search terms to land on this blog is ‘church of raabjerg’. This strikes me as a strangely odd thing to search for…

4 comments juni 6th, 2009

Random thoughts after camp-meeting

So I just went to the ‘camp-meeting’ of the Adventist church in Norway (where, by the way, I’m staying for the summer). For those that don’t know what this is, it is where many members of the Adventist Church get together for sort of a day of fellowship.

First thought: It was nice. For various reasons, it’s been a couple of weeks since I last had the opportunity to worship with other believers, and that was really nice. Raafat Kamal – known better to some of us as Nat’s dad – gave a very forceful talk about the mission of the church, especially touching on the way we deal with people. Spot on.

Second thought (why am I putting this in bullet-point fashion?): It seems to me – it may not be so though, cf. a conversation I had in the car on the way back, but still, it seems to me – that often we can classify people in our church as belonging to two groups: Those that have their focus on the here and now and those that have their clear focus on his second coming. Within the Adventist Church, with our background and tradition, the latter translates to having a heavy focus on our being in the end time, the coming trials, the call to come out of her (interpretations of Rev 18.4), historical prophecies, and the signs of the times. The latter group seems to be more ‘mainstream’ in their Christian thinking, and generally (i) focus less on these things, while (ii) focusing more on the difference God can make in their lives here and now, the walk with God, the kingdom of God being at hand, and so on (if this group speak of the second coming, it is usually in quite general, more mainline, terms, and not as a focus-point; it’s just part of the bagage). Many times when people step up to the platform to sing a song, contribute with their thoughts, or take part in a debate, I get the feelings they are likely to belong to one of these groupings. I also get the feeling that the directions in which these groups are heading are not the same.

It would be nice to see a synthesis, or a direction that would maintain both, of these two foci – the here and now and the second coming / eternal life – if nothing else, because it seems that both Jesus and Paul managed to have them coexist in their thinking and doing and life. True, this picture is stylised, and I also see a more healthy middle ground in the church, but this seems a minority. I don’t have the answer on how to do it – my theology is probably flawed as well – but I recognise the need within our church for some sort of integration. Much of what has seemed integration up to this point to me does not seem so, since there is often still a lack of focus on the kingdom of God among us, as especially laid out by Jesus in the Gospel of Mark (forgive me if my labelings are not entirely consistent or my thinking not crystal-clear; I hope it still makes sense on some plane of thought). The music program did a good job of trying to integrate though. That was quite good.

Third thought: I have been able to be near – in different settings during the day – a small number of ‘core families’ that seemed to be working very well. It’s funny how you can usually tell when you come into the presence of such a family – the way they interact, the way they treat each other, the implicit respect the parents enjoy from, while not commanding of, the children. Simply a good solid family. Yes, solid is the word. Not coming from such a family myself, I may be more prone to picking up the difference. Whenever I meet people my age who has grown up in a solid family like this, our whole instinctive feeling about marriage seem to be completely opposite. For me, it has been interesting to note that for some people, it would be a strange and foreign thought to worry about the ‘what if’’s and the potential problems (true, some of it may be personality-related, but still I see a pattern). They simply assume, by instinct or experience, that things will work out fine.

Fourth thought: Norway is a really beautiful country. Driving up to Tyrifjord is simply amazing.

12 comments juni 6th, 2009