I was truly impressed with every aspect of the Faith at Work Summit that many of us just experienced together at Christ Church in Mason.
I knew it was going to be great when I ran into Chuck Proudfit just before the Summit began. He greeted me, hugged me, and told me he’d be doing his best to be a Smiling Icon for the three days of the summit.
And he was.
He was an image of God full of the Spirit, and the three themes of the summit—creativity, collaboration, and continuity could not be more Trinitarian.
TRINITARIAN COLLABORATION
We stem from a being who lives and is nonstop collaboration—each member of the Godhead is distinct and unique, but still completely collaborative. And it’s a way deeper collaboration than just three “individuals” choosing to cooperate.
Notice Jesus’ own words, and try to visualize it in your mind’s eye and heart to feel the kind of “collabortion” he is calling for. “Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” (John 17:21, NIV)
There is a harmonious “in-ness” described. A working together that is so collaborative that it is beyond what humans can do without the enhancement of the God WIFI, the Holy Spirit, to make it happen.
And when they do, a harmonious “oneness” occurs that is, well, supernatural, and the world knows and knows God is in it. And when we catch them up on the flow, they feel the reality of God.
And something amazing happens.
TRINITARIAN CREATIVITY
What does God do when God is not saving the world from its Sataninspired individualism and competition?
He creates.
The collaborative life of God is a non-stop Creator, Sustainer, Redeemer, and Greater Creator.
He simply creates things that are always getting better, and always “newing.” “I am making everything new!” (Revelation 21:5, NIV)
It’s just what happens when you live in collaborative oneness. Collaborative “newness” occurs. Things are created, then made better. They’re redeemed, and they’re mad new. No frozen status quos in Kingdom Collaborative Life.
You’re always making things better, always unsticking things that are stuck, always being renewed and made new!
I personally think that’s a repeatable life lesson we’re supposed to learn from the Exodus. We may do things one way for a while (aka, shepherd sheep in Egypt). But things change, and rather than just get stuck in one’ Egypt of familiarity, Exodus-reality forces (thrusts us) out of ways we’re stuck in, to create something adaptive and more harmonious and “new.”
It’s just what Trinitatarian Beings and humans do!
Finally, there is another key takeaway that resonated with my “T.I.P.P. Centered Christianity” heart (“Trinitarian Incarnational Practice and Proclamation Christianity” heart).
Live in “continuity.” By engaging in the collaborative, constantly creative heart of the Trinitarian communion (collaboration) known as God, you continue! Things last. Life is spread. Not dying, decaying life. But new life.
A key Scripture mentioned at the conference spoke to this, and bears repeating: “19 For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. 20 For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.” (Romans 8: 19-21, NIV)
When we live like what I call “Smiling Icons (you can reread what that’s all about at https://www.smilingicon.com/blogs), we infect even our world with the very life of God. We live out of the “Trinitarian” communion (collaboration) that is God. We create. And things are made new. They “last.” They’re always bettered, always reinvented, always more harmonious with the Infinity that is God’s life, always made “new.”
Collaboration. Creativity. Continuity.
It’s not something we merely “have to do” now that we’ve heard about it at the conference. It’s something we “get” to do. Because we live and move and have our being in the Trinitarian life of God (Acts 17:28). It doesn’t get any better than that.
SO NOW THAT IT’S OVER . . .
It’s really easy to get addicted to “mountaintop” experiences by simply living only to go to whatever the next summit is. But I’ll never forget what someone said one time when I was detoxing from Christian mountaintop experience addiction. Summits are great. Mountaintop experiences are great. But just remember. Vision happens on the mountaintop. But fruit is born in the valley. I’ve made two solid follow-up connections to collaborate with people who care about the same thing I do, as we heard early in the summit. For one, we’ve got a date and time already. For two more, we’re working immediately to establish it.
I encourage you to do so as well.