Welcome to enCompass for February 2011, and welcome to all those who attended our summer conferences for the first time last month.

This month we're excited to launch our new Calendar of readings and disciplines for 2011 - have a read below.

The Compass Team

Developing a sense of rhythm for life

Less than two full months into the year, and already a bunch of my New Year’s resolutions have been blown to bits! One of the consistent challenges that I have noticed in myself as I try to live faithfully in contemporary western culture is the problem of time. My life is characterised less by rhythm and more by the constant pressure of busyness and distraction – which makes it hard to develop good habits and to grow in maturity. Talking with others suggests that I am not the only one.

Since its humble beginnings over two thousand years ago the church has found that there are many ways we can work with God in developing that maturity – prayer, worship, habits of simplicity, generosity, etc. But one of the most important ways is through the discipline of reading – and the primary text of Christian reading is the Bible.

Alongside or to some extent perhaps because of our busyness and distraction, I suspect that many of us have lost the art of reading the Bible well. Popular devotional guides on the market can tend to treat the Bible like a cup of coffee: as a daily pick-me-up. Now there are days when it will be just that – but it is not its only, or even primary, role. True transformation is a slow, deep process. Attention needs to be given to the broad sweep of Scripture, and most importantly, to how we can allow that story and the Christ who fulfils it to transform us.

This year, we have created a resource that we hope will be helpful in addressing some of these problems. Throughout history, the Church has used calendars as a way of adding shape, order and rhythm to life. So we have created our own simple Calendar, adapted to life downunder that might assist you in finding a sense of rhythm this year.

Each month we have provided a list of structured readings from the Bible, designed to carry you through the Story over the course of the year. Each month also includes a simple theme, drawn from the Church’s rich deposit of spiritual disciplines, with suggested things you can do during the month to develop and practice habits of faithfulness. For example, in the month of February, we encourage you to explore “Beginnings” in the Bible, and the question of hermeneutics – how do we read well?

You can check out the Calendar at www.compass.org.nz/calendar

Feel free to print out any of the resources that you find helpful, and/or modify and adapt them to fit your situation. Contact us anytime if you have suggestions or queries.

If possible, we would encourage you to use this calendar together with others, so that it becomes not just an individual journey, but a community experience of growth and connection.

You can also sign up for regular emails specific to each month at: http://www.compass.org.nz/calendar/2011/instructions

Sam Bloore

Download the calendar overview

Download the February study

Genesis 12: The Promise to Abraham

This month one of the biblical passages the Compass Calendar asks us to reflect on is Genesis 12:1-3, the calling of Abraham.

It is a passage of profound importance to the whole biblical story, a three-verse hinge that much of the narrative swings on. Genesis 1-11 has told the tragic story of God’s creation of a good world that quickly turns against him. Things go from bad to worse—Adam and Eve eat forbidden fruit, Cain murders his brother and by Genesis 6 all of human society is rebelling against God. Noah is a fresh start, but a false one. By Genesis 11 the descendants of Noah have forgotten God and are once again living in ways that directly contradict God’s intent for human life.

The calling of Abraham is an answer to a question: how will God put right the world he has created? It is a strange answer. Somehow through the descendants of Abraham and Sarah all the world will one day enjoy the blessing God always intended for it. This promise drives the story from here on and it takes the rest of the Bible to find out how it will be fulfilled. As you read the passage, reflect on how the biblical narrative unfolds in connection to this promise. What light does it cast on the story of Israel, or Jesus, or the calling of the Church?

But it is not just a turning point in a story—it is worth reflecting on this passage as an account of two people, just like us, trying to walk faithfully with God. Abraham is called the Father of Faith, and it is easy to see why. God calls him to leave everything his culture taught him to find his identity in—his family and land—to go to a place God will eventually show him. Abraham was promised a son and God took twenty-five years to deliver. And even after that, God soon asked for him back and Abraham faithfully took Isaac up the mountain, raised his knife, and only stopped when God commanded him.

Abraham held onto God’s promise. Even through long years of wandering without a home. Even through long years of barrenness and in spite of an aging body. Even when God’s inscrutable will seemed to desire the death of the son Abraham so deeply loved and whom God had promised to bless the world through.

As I read Genesis 12:1-3, I have found myself reflecting on what sort of people Abraham and Sarah were and what I can learn from them and their journey with God. I’d encourage you to reflect on this also. We too are a people of a promise—the promise that one day Jesus will return, that God will put things right in this world, that even now his Spirit is with us and the kingdom is near. It is the same promise Abraham had, though filled out in colour and dimension as the story has unfolded.

Abraham was not perfect. He failed to believe the promise and to trust God many times. But over the years he grew into a man of profound faith—and God was happy to be identified with him, introducing himself to later generations as the God of Abraham. This gives me great encouragement and a challenge: how am I living out of God’s promise? This promise is not primarily an individual offer to me, but was made to Abraham and found its expression through Israel in Christ. God, though many times it seemed like he wouldn’t, proved faithful to his promise to Abraham. God’s promise in Jesus is that he will prove faithful to us also. This God I want to walk my days with even when I don’t always know where I am going.

Andrew Shamy

Professor John Lennox in Auckland

You are invited to a special event in Auckland on Monday 28 February:

'Christ among the philosophers': an evening with Professor John Lennox

John Lennox is Professor of Mathematics in the University of Oxford: an accomplished scholar, author and apologist. He is well known for his work on the interface between science, philosophy and theology, and for debating high profile atheists such as Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens.

John will be speaking on 'Christ among the philosophers', drawing on his experience and many years of thinking about and wrestling with questions such as, Is faith delusional? Is it reasonable? How can we live faithfully in the public square? How might one engage faithfully as a Christian in the academy?

Where: Monday 28 Feb, 7pm to 9pm
When: St Paul’s Church, Symonds St, Auckland
No charge and no need to RSVP

For more information, visit www.compass.org.nz, or email sam.bloore@compass.org.nz

(Paid parking will be available until 9.30pm in Wilson car park on St Paul St.)