What is the kingdom of heaven like? Which metaphor describes it?

Is it a tower reaching to God?  Is it built out of man-made bricks like:

• Believing the right things to please God
• Doing the right things to please God
• Worship services, where believers look to the stage or vaulted domes to see God
• Defending the cause of God's righteousness for him by criticizing sinners
• Building a membership of those that behave a certain way to build God's kingdom

The Tower of Babel.  Are we repeating a classic mistake when we bring our offerings to God to build his kingdom?

Or is it a blossoming tree springing out from the source, the trunk, which is God himself, with branches like:

• God's truth, revealed by the Holy Spirit
• God's goodness, reflected in the lives of those that follow him
• Communities of believers that look to each other to see how they can nourish each other, as extensions of the arms of God
• Defending the cause of the powerless by fighting injustice
• Inviting and welcoming a collection of people who bring differences, variety, talents and ideas into God's kingdom

The Inverted Tower: the branches springing out from the source.  Are we building the same kingdom that God is?

Are WE building God's kingdom for him, out of man-made stuff?  Or is God building the kingdom out of his own passion for humankind?  Who is this kingdom for anyway, for God?  Or, for us? Is it God's gift to man, or man's gift to God?  


Something to consider, because if we think the kingdom is the tower, made by man, for God, we are probably building it upside down.


by Brad Duncan

Dear Pastor, Please Invite the Gay

by Brad Duncan

Dear Pastor,

Please invite the gay crowd to our church.  Please invite the LGBT people.  Please do it soon, and with no reservation. Please love the gay crowd and welcome them.  Don't make their sexuality an issue at all, or withhold acceptance from them, don't criticize or hold back your friendship.  Don't talk to them about sin instead of grace.  Just invite them.

Please don't delay or discuss it in committee.  Time is running out.

Dear Pastor, do it for us, before our hearts grow cold and hard.  Do it so that we can remember the dank stink that grows in our hearts from the seed of hate.  Do it before we can't love anymore.

Do it before we start to think that sitting in judgment makes us good, makes us better, makes us receive salvation.  Do it before we forget about grace altogether.

As long as we can love to hate a class of people for their lifestyle, we can believe that we are somehow saved by ours.  Maybe we think we are saved by our straightness, our lack of accepting the gay crowd?  Did we already forget about the blood of Christ and about grace?  Have we already turned stale?  Do we think we're actually ON God's side by not inviting them?  Or are we against him?

Dear Pastor, the gay crowd is not going to corrupt our children, or convince us to be promiscuous or unfaithful.  The gay crowd is not going to make us love sin or the devil.  The gay crowd is not going to make us love God less.  The gay crowd will not diminish our worship, or reduce our appreciation for the Bible.  The gay crowd is not contagious or repellent.

No, dear Pastor, the gay crowd will melt our hearts. For if we can open our hearts to those we have formerly hated with no cause at all and no harm or threat to us, because we don't like their non-straight lifestyle, if we can repent and actually love them, then maybe our dead hearts can live again, our cold hard hearts can melt and love again.

No the gay crowd has something we don't -- acceptance of differences.  Let's hope they can accept us now after all this time, and find room in their hearts for forgiveness of our sins.  Let's try to repair the damage.  Time is running out.

The gay crowd needs God exactly as we do, and the gay crowd can love God exactly as we do.  Are they believers, like us?  Isn't that up to them what they believe, and not up to us?  Do they believe that Christ died for them?  Who are we to object?

Please invite them, before it's too late.   Not too late for them -- too late for us.

 23"So if you are offering your gift at the altar and remember there that another believer has something against you, 24leave your gift at the altar. First go away and make peace with that person. Then come back and offer your gift. (Matthew 5:23,24, God's Word)

Related Posts:

Hello Evangelicals!

Any Other Word?

A Letter to the Unaccepted

Forward Progress 4: The Good News of Grace

Forward Progress 2: God's Will and Purpose

Forward Progress: 

Lessons and Trends in Progressive Christian Faith

by Brad Duncan

A 6-part series on the church, faith and theology,

and how they can move forward into the next generation. 

God's Will and Purpose

There's something wrong with our religion when it leads us to try to please God instead of relate with him.

As Christians, we're all trying to do the right thing.  We're trying to believe the right thing, do God's will, give him the credit for all good gifts, honor him as holy, and sing his praises.  From a very early age I learned that the most important thing in life was to please God and do his will.  I can't knock us Christians for our good intentions :) in this regard.

So I want to challenge us on this from two directions, two ways to view the same thing.  From one side, I would ask if all of this trying to do the right thing, is really, ... the right thing?  Does God want our sacrifices, actions, songs, beliefs that are pointed in the direction of pleasing him?  Is there anything that God wants us to do? Any instructions, any right worship?  Any right individual purpose?  On the other hand, from the other side I would ask if we could describe what God really desires?  What is God really interested in, what are his passions, what are his intentions?  If we could find those, maybe we could do "his will" best by getting doing what he cares about the most.

Reflecting on the first point, is God pleased by our focus on serving him, whether through individual disciplines, worship or religious practices?  The Christian routine is to gather every week for worship in an effort to bring our collective focus on God through various acts like singing, praying, reading the Bible.  We practice and talk about traditions.  We practice our arts: orchestral, vocal, guitar riffs, PowerPoint slides, light shows, sermons, prayers.  We talk about how good it is to be in God's house and do something great that will shine our light brightly in the world by worshiping our God.  We talk about how each person can take that same "church moment" and live it all week long to be a light in the world.  The we invest a little time in shaking hands with some people, maybe having a cup of coffee.  We take an offering and use the money for good works, and to keep the lights on.

Of course I'm speaking broadly and your church may have a more people-focus than what I am describing, but can our churches answer "yes" to any of these questions: