Recently there has been a lot of movement.
In the last six weeks I have been in the USA, Mexico, Australia and I am currently writing this in Cambodia. In the last six weeks I have built a cafe, moved out of my flat and taken over a warehouse with a friend. In the warehouse we have dreamed up and created a collaborative, creative place with the hopes of inspiring people and helping them to explore the connection between creativity and true spirituality. There has been a lot of movement.
Here in Cambodia there has been a lot of movement. Sitting in a cafe called Jars of Clay eating my delicious, but very hot curry, I have a suspicion that tomorrow I will experience a small movement of sorts...
In Phnom Penh alone, the city I am staying in, there are apparently over five thousand organisations trying to create little movements to help Cambodians rebuild their lives after the devastation of the Khmer Rouge. From my limited experience many of these movements seem as though they have digressed from a movement into tourism.
I suppose a key element of movement is direction, which requires vision. 'Where are we going and why?' is the key question. I feel that without a good answer to this question any noble movement simply loses momentum. I feel a loss of momentum at the moment, not I'm my life, but in the places around me.
Two days ago I was at the Angkor Wat temples, one of the eight wonders of the world. These temples are seriously amazing and would have taken thousands, if not millions, many years to complete. What an amazing experience of movement that must have been! Today, however, these temples are in ruins, and people have only recently remembered that they are there. At some stage there must have been a huge loss of momentum!
To me it seems that any momentum that is created to meet man's ends, ends with the man that created it. I even feel this to some extent about church movements, especially when it is a foreign culture trying to keep up with Western church movement.
I believe that God started the human movement, a movement of the whole people of the world, which is a movement toward Christ. It is not simply a church wanting to replicate itself in a foreign country, or even down the road. It is not a king wanting to build the biggest temple in the world to show their power.
The movement God wants to create is for the people of the world find their future and hope in Christ, not simply a few people trying to replicate their ideals around them. It is a movement of God and his people awakening the world that already exists in the hearts of the people of the world.
Like I said, there has been a lot of movement lately.
Jared Diprose is a graduate from Carey Baptist College in New Zealand. He runs a creative fabrication business and believes in the power of words to shape lives.You can view some of his work at www.jareddiprose.co.nz.
Jared Diprose' previous articles may be viewed at www.pressserviceinternational.org/jared-diprose.html