Quelques convictions intéressantes données par l'Abri Fellowship

-Commitment to apply God's truth to the whole of life and to encourage Christians to make a contribution to the wider culture. Scripture makes no distinction between the sacred and the secular, that is, it does not encourage us to think that some activities, such as prayer or evangelism, are more spiritual than other activities, such as caring for children or manual labor. Rather we are taught that Christ is the Lord of all of life and that our calling is to honor Him in all that we do. We are to take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ and to seek to serve Him in every human activity. Often Christians retreat from the wider culture, believing it to be completely dominated by ideas and practices which are contrary to God's commandments. Developing our own sub-culture will provide protection from the world for ourselves and our children, many Christians feel, and so society is abandoned to go its wicked way. Yet, God has not abandoned the human race, humans all still bear the divine image, and therefore His Glory can still be perceived in all human cultures despite the terrible corruptions of sin. As Christians we are called by the Lord not to withdraw from the world but to be in it, living as salt and light in it, rejoicing in all that is good in human society, and committing ourselves to make a difference in our own small way in whatever calling we are placed by the Lord. The Christian's call is to seek God's kingdom in all of life and to work at limiting the effects of the fall. This is true not only in our own human relationships but also in our relationship with the environment. We receive this earth and all its creatures as good gifts from God and as a responsibility of stewardship. Christians above all others ought to care for the creation. Our calling is both to exercise dominion over the earth for the benefit of humanity and also to pass our world on the next generation in as good or better order than we received it. -The appreciation of God's gifts in all of life. God is the maker and giver of every good gift. The universe displays His delight in creating what is good, beautiful and true. As those made in his image, we are called to enjoy God's creation and to delight in using body, mind and imagination to express our own creativity and to enrich the lives of others as we do. For example, whether it is the appreciation of great art in all the varied disciplines, or whether it is the "hidden art" of serving a well prepared meal, or digging a ditch, we should honor, and be thankful for the depth and richness which art brings to our lives. Likewise, through the sciences we can understand and appreciate the beauty and wonder of God's order in creation and through our productive and creative work we can take delight in the shaping of our environment and the expression of our uniqueness and humanity. -The need to understand the culture we live in and our responsibility to communicate to it. Christ became incarnate in a particular culture at a particular time in history. He knew his contemporaries, for He was one with them, raised and educated as they were, shaped by the same ideas and customs, and yet He lived in obedience to His Father's will in all that He did and said. On every page of the gospels we see His deep knowledge and understanding of the times in which He lived and of the people to whom He sought to make known the good news of the kingdom. To resist the ideas and practices of the culture in which we live we have to understand them and bring them before the bar of Scripture. Reflection on the Word and on the world are necessary, both for holy living and also for wise communication of the gospel to those around us. Paul spoke the same truth, but he presented it in different ways depending on whether he was in a synagogue with Jews and God-fearing Gentiles, or whether he was on Mars Hill with pagans. To communicate faithfully we have to work at understanding the intellectual climate of the times in which we live, and we need to give ourselves to people in love if we want to know what idols captivate the hearts of our contemporaries.