Citizens and Exiles - A Life of Engaged Non-Conformity [Ryan Ashley]

Daniel 1, Jeremiah 29:12-14

A community of followers of Jesus seeking to rediscover the teachings of Jesus and the practices of the early church and apply them to the soil of a post-Christian world.

“Babylon far surpassed any other city in the known world.”

Greek Historian Herodotus

Two Sides to Becoming a Creative Minority

1. Fight off Syncretism 

2. Fight off Separatism

Strategy of the Babylonians

1. Isolation

2. Enculturation

3. Integration

4. Identification

In the world of the Hebrew Scriptures a personal name was often thought to communicate something essential about the bearers identity, birth order, circumstance, or the divine purpose that the bearer was intended to fulfill.

Names are revelatory about the nature of a person.

“Narrative Holiness is guided by the idea that we are called to live by our story, not a set of rules, to live according to a narrative that orients us in a way that runs in harmony with the story of God but may often run counter to the narrative of our culture”

Lee Beach

“Put another way, narrative holiness thinks about holiness as continuing to write God’s story. It is an attempt to conscientiously participate in in the ongoing expression of Gods life in the world. This makes holiness deeply relational, as it is an outflow of our connection to God and is ultimately expressed in our connections with one another.”

Lee Beach