Jubilee Culture: Courage
Our values are really important to us. It’s what makes Jubilee the church that it is. We have shared posts on the blog about our Culture: Family and Honour.
Today we will look at another of our values: Courage
Rob spoke on courage in our series on Culture.
What does it mean to have a culture of courage?
Rob described it as ordinary people doing extraordinary things, gentle people making a stand, about weak people enduring difficulty and not giving up. It’s about a community of people learning to encourage one another as we take increasingly bigger steps of faith…!
At the root of a culture of courage is to be fearless enough to follow the Holy Spirit wherever he wants us to go. As Jesus said – I only do what I see the Father do. And when you consider what this ultimately meant for Jesus – this takes courage.
What is courage?
It’s not about being a superhero – superheroes don’t need courage they’ve got super powers and are invincible! It’s not about being brave – that comes later when fear is conquered. For Rob courage has mostly definitely been about ‘doing it anyway’ or even ‘doing it afraid’. So it’s more like you get used to the feeling of fear but this doesn’t stop you. And fear is conquered one challenge at a time.
Where will this courage come from?
Courage is a gift of God by the Holy Spirit. You can see this from the book of Acts. This book is full of Spirit inspired, Spirit-empowered acts of courage.
It records the change in the disciples who one minute are locked away in an upper room ‘for fear of the Jews’ (John 20:19) to the next are out on the streets ‘proclaiming the wonders of God in many different tongues’ (Acts 2:5).
What had changed? The Holy Spirit had come and filled them all. It’s why Jesus said to them not to leave Jerusalem but to ‘wait for the gift’ (Acts 1:4) because ‘you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you and you will be my witnesses…’ (Acts 1:8)
Jubilee and a culture of courage
Courage is not just about the big acts and the spectacular leaps of faith. It takes courage for some just to speak up in a group. To get up and go to work today. To encourage someone else when we are finding things hard.
But it is also about growing and learning as a community of people how to step out in risk-taking faith.
At whatever level though to live courageously and to create a culture of courage means that we will all have to do battle with fear. We are ordinary people but are called to do extraordinary things by the power of the Holy Spirit.
This doesn’t get any easier but together we can en-courage one another celebrating together as one story after another comes through about another Jubilee act of courage and faith.
