Arts and Community - Week 5

By

Bethany Bernard

This last week in FCD we had Sean Hall come and speak to our class about Community and Art and how those two can be used together. He talked about how the definition of art is breathing something new into existance. One example of that is making empty spaces into a place where communities can gather. He also talked a lot about how our story, God's story and the story of other people outside of the kingdom are supposed to be walked side by side until they become like one journey.

Some of the key ideas or themes from this week are: 

1. Holy Imagination-We are created with the ability to imagine alongside God

2. Sensing life/experiences with the 7 senses-taste, smell, sight, touch, hear, kinesthetic (what God thinks and speaks to us), Organic (What we feel inside). 

3. Truth-It's a person and not a set of ideas and that person is Jesus. 

The challenges this week brought up for me, is to live more creatively and to savour moments more often by using my seven senses. We took this challenge to the streets of Kalispell and went around the small town of Montana with the focus of being the embodiment of love like Christ loves and savouring the moments we found ourselves in. Through this experience I realized that if i am going to savour moments in my life i need to be more intentional about it. We also went on a field trip to visit the mayor of Kalispell and ask her what she feels community development ideally looks like in Kalispell. She gave a lot of good insight as to how government can become more community focused then politically focused. We also visited a local park called BACK BACK park that the community of Kalispell chose to create after a house blew up there last year and it had become an empty lot. This is a prime example of how art turns space into a place. If you ever get the time to be in Kalispell MT you should check that park out it is quite beautiful and filled with cool artsy things like a teepee and a pizza oven. But my favourite thing they built in it is the porch they built that you can sit in. All in all I would say that this week has been a pretty fun adventure of seeing how Art and Community can and should be used together for the glory of God.

Community Transformation - Week 4

By

Clara Won

One principle I learned in Community Transformation is that,
‘The Church is the litmus paper of what is happening in the community’.
- by Alistair Pettrie. This is a sobering revelation. It means that what’s happening in the Church is also happening in the community. As I ponder on it. I come to realize that it is evident. The Church has tolerated the low morality among it’s members.  But is ‘loud’ against those whose behaviors we deemed unacceptable. Today, divorce rates are on the rise in Churches. Leaders and members are involved in extra-marital relationships. Families are broken and have become dysfunctional. Many of our children are growing up in homes with single parents or parents often not home due to work commitment.  As a believer, it has dawned on me that repentance should being in our own household. It is time to ‘clean’ up our own backyard in order to have a voice to represent God in the community. It is time the church takes 2 Chronicles 7:14 “If my people who are called by my name Humble themselves, and  pray and seek my face and turn from their Wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin andHeal their land.” seriously. We need to be on our knees repenting,Seeking and praying for God’s forgiveness and asking God to helpUs live rightly.  When the truth of God works in our hearts, then weCan be a blessing to our community and nations beyond.

Community Development Principles - Week 3

By

Dawn Rogers 

God’s heart is for His kingdom, for Heaven on earth. God’s heart is for us to be whole, for us to walk in His intentions that were made from the beginning.

We’re broken. Our relationships on all levels have been damaged—with God, with ourselves, with one another, and with creation. It is not as He intended it to be. But God is a God of hope. God is a God who came to bring Heaven to earth, to reconcile all things, to bring us into fullness in His kingdom, which is “now and not yet” every day. God’s heart is for His kingdom, for Heaven on earth. God’s heart is for us to be whole, for us to walk in His intentions that were made from the beginning.

And Jesus increased in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and man. Luke 2:52

Our Father desires us to walk in this too. Jesus is our model; He is who we look to in order to see things as they should be. All in all, this comes down to love. What does it look like to love God and love our neighbor? They are equally important in value. Jesus sums up the law in loving.

With love we have the potential to restore things, to see a glimpse and a glory of how things were meant to be. If we walk in love, we would do no wrong to our neighbor. When we walk in love we are living out the kingdom of God, we are living out the heart of God for all creation.

So God cares about every part of us: physical, social, psychological, and spiritual. What do we shine to the outside world? Are people seeing the God of mercy and redemption? Or do they just see the spiritual, your-soul-needs-to-be-saved God?

For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. Colossians 1:19-20