Kingdom Culture

10th of October already......actually its the 10/10/10...?!

Wow what a month it has been, I am having a blast and am soooo excited there is loads more to come.  I've been trying to get my thoughts together to explain what has impacted me the most and one of the major things is culture. At Bethel you hear loads about impacting people, cities and nations by influencing the culture.  When I think of culture I tend to attach it to a country, for example I'd say that Afternoon Tea is an intrinsic part of the English culture, or that Londonderry was named the City of Culture. But what I've been learning about is Kingdom Culture and what happens when you bring Kingdom Culture into your area of influence.

The best way I've heard it explained is like a Green House. For a seed to grow to reach its pull potential you need to provide it with sustained soil, water, sunlight.  You need to tend to it, protect it and provide it with a 'culture' that will guarantee life - a Green House.  In the same way we can build a 'Green House' of Kingdom Culture, with love as the driving force in our streets, neighbourhoods and cities.

These are some of the Kingdom Cultures that have impacted me:

The Goodness of God - living life with an expectation that good things are going to happen is such a powerful witness, it is so much more the norm' to have an expectation for hardship (Ps 23:6).
 

Generosity - Holding things lightly to live generously - possessions, finance, time.
 

Honour - Respect, more than being considerate its actively showing high regard to each other, to God.
 

Calling out the greatness - Speaking to each other in love, calling out the gold.

This Kingdom Culture has impacted me the most. I am surrounded by people who genuinely love me and talk to me out of a place of knowing that I am made in the image of God, that I am a Saint not a sinner, that I am a Princess.  I rarely hear negativity but instead am constantly told I'm amazing - and do you know what I'm starting to believe them, its not arrogance, its a confidence in who I am in Christ!

So how does this impact a city? a few stories that display the culture of Generosity:

A long time ago a lady from Bethel went into a Spa and when paying for her treatment the sales girl commented on how she really liked her handbag.  The lady asked for a plastic bag, emptied all her belongings into it and handed the sales girl her handbag.

Around the same time the same lady from Bethel was at a checkout and realised she had left her wallet in the car, when she got back; the sales clerk had totalled up the next customers goods, so instead of just paying for herself she paid for the next customers shopping as well, the customer took ages to accept the generous offer and conversation lead to Jesus and an opportunity to pray.

Skip forward to a year ago. At the local drive through Starbucks a Bethel student told the sales clerk that they were going to pay for the customers drinks in the next car, when that car pulled up to the window to pay and were told that their drinks had already been paid for, they decided to do the same.  This pattern of generosity continued unbroken for the next 6 hours, the local newspaper even turned up to see what was going on!!

Skip forward again to a couple of weeks ago when 2 chaps in my year asked the cashier at the local drive threw Taco Bell if it was ok for them to pay for the customer behind.  The cashier said 'sure' lent forward and asked 'so tell me, why does everybody keep doing this?'

I absolutely love these stories of generosity. Redding used to be called Poverty Flats, it was a dead end, a place where the homeless and ex offenders were dumped. Now it is a town where an act of generosity goes unbroken for 6 hours!!! It fills me with such faith for my street, town, city to be transformed by Kingdom Culture.