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Live kingdom values, not world's
EMS school points to Christ, the center
By Laura Lehman Amstutz Eastern Mennonite SeminaryPage:
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HARRISONBURG, Va. — God’s kingdom looks radically different from the world’s, especially when it comes to violence.
Greg Boyd: “Christians ought to be the window through which people can see God.” — Photo by Steven Stauffer/EMS
“We need to distinguish the kingdom of the world from the kingdom of God,” said Greg Boyd, keynote speaker at the School for Leadership Training at Eastern Mennonite Seminary.
Boyd, senior pastor of Woodland Hills Church in St. Paul, Minn., spoke to the near-record 300 participants Jan. 19.
“The kingdom of God looks like Jesus,” he said. “It cares about the people Jesus cared about; it does the things that Jesus did.”
Boyd, whose congregation is Baptist, encouraged the predominantly Mennonite audience to uphold its tradition of being in the world and not of it, but in a different way, by clinging to the value of acting out their faith.
“We are to be the ones who manifest God’s love,” he said. “Whatever will be in heaven, we are to be now. Christians ought to be the window through which people can see God.”
Boyd repeatedly called for Christians to see themselves primarily as citizens of the kingdom of God.
“We don’t get to choose who we love,” he said. “God chooses for us, and God chooses whoever is in front of us, whether they are enemies or friends. Jesus died for every human being, and loving everyone is agreeing with God that they were worth dying for. It is agreeing with God that they have unsurpassable worth.”
The theme was “Centered in Christ in a Right and Left World.” Boyd joined seminary student Chris Johnson and Jennifer Davis Sensenig, lead pastor at Community Mennonite Church in Harrisonburg, in reflecting on the theme.
Davis Sensenig’s sermon focused on Psalm 146, describing how this scripture encourages Christians to live as part of God’s kingdom.
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