{"id":5313,"date":"2010-01-19T12:41:01","date_gmt":"2010-01-19T12:41:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/2010\/01\/gods-beloved-life.html"},"modified":"2010-01-19T12:41:01","modified_gmt":"2010-01-19T12:41:01","slug":"gods-beloved-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2010\/01\/gods-beloved-life.html","title":{"rendered":"God&#8217;s Beloved Life"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"mt-enclosure mt-enclosure-image\"><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/assets_c\/2010\/01\/Efrem-10810.html\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/01\/Efrem-thumb-333x286-10810.jpg\" width=\"333\" height=\"286\" alt=\"Efrem.jpg\" class=\"mt-image-right\" style=\"float: right;margin: 0 0 20px 20px\" \/><\/a><\/span>Last weekend <a href=\"http:\/\/www.efremsmith.com\/?page_id=2\">Efrem Smith<\/a>, author of <em><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0830833293?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=jescre-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0830833293\">The Hip-Hop Church: Connecting With the Movement Shaping Our Culture<\/a><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=jescre-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=0830833293\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" style=\"border:none !important;margin:0px !important\" \/><br \/>\n<\/strong><\/em>and a pastor from &#8230; in Minneapolis MN, preached at Willow Creek and all I can say is &#8220;Wow.&#8221; He blessed us and challenged us and inspired us &#8212; fantastic sermon. He preached from 1 John 3 and, in effect, he deconstructed and then reconstructed some current ideas by making this argument:<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>You can&#8217;t have God&#8217;s Beloved Community until you have God&#8217;s Beloved Church, and you can&#8217;t have God&#8217;s Beloved Church until you have God&#8217;s Beloved Life &#8230;<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>New life in Christ is designed to create the Church and God&#8217;s Church is to be a blessing to the Community. The sermon ended on a powerfully dramatic note when Efrem talked about &#8220;love lifted me&#8221; and Bill Hybels asked him if he could sing the song. Well, Efrem said &#8220;No&#8221; but an African American woman in the front row said she could &#8212; and she sure could!<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>OK, truth be told, I&#8217;m not a little proud that Efrem is a Covenant pastor at <a href=\"http:\/\/sanctuarycov.org\/\">Sanctuary Covenant<\/a>.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last weekend Efrem Smith, author of The Hip-Hop Church: Connecting With the Movement Shaping Our Culture and a pastor from &#8230; in Minneapolis MN, preached at Willow Creek and all I can say is &#8220;Wow.&#8221; He blessed us and challenged us and inspired us &#8212; fantastic sermon. He preached from 1 John 3 and, in&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":70,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gospel"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>God&#039;s Beloved Life - Jesus Creed<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2010\/01\/gods-beloved-life.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"God&#039;s Beloved Life - Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Last weekend Efrem Smith, author of The Hip-Hop Church: Connecting With the Movement Shaping Our Culture and a pastor from &#8230; in Minneapolis MN, preached at Willow Creek and all I can say is &#8220;Wow.&#8221; He blessed us and challenged us and inspired us &#8212; fantastic sermon. He preached from 1 John 3 and, in&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2010\/01\/gods-beloved-life.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Jesus Creed\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-01-19T12:41:01+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/01\/Efrem-thumb-333x286-10810.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Scot McKnight\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"God's Beloved Life - Jesus Creed","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2010\/01\/gods-beloved-life.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"God's Beloved Life - Jesus Creed","og_description":"Last weekend Efrem Smith, author of The Hip-Hop Church: Connecting With the Movement Shaping Our Culture and a pastor from &#8230; in Minneapolis MN, preached at Willow Creek and all I can say is &#8220;Wow.&#8221; He blessed us and challenged us and inspired us &#8212; fantastic sermon. He preached from 1 John 3 and, in&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2010\/01\/gods-beloved-life.html","og_site_name":"Jesus Creed","article_published_time":"2010-01-19T12:41:01+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/01\/Efrem-thumb-333x286-10810.jpg"}],"author":"Scot McKnight","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2010\/01\/gods-beloved-life.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2010\/01\/gods-beloved-life.html","name":"God's Beloved Life - Jesus Creed","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2010\/01\/gods-beloved-life.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2010\/01\/gods-beloved-life.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/01\/Efrem-thumb-333x286-10810.jpg","datePublished":"2010-01-19T12:41:01+00:00","dateModified":"2010-01-19T12:41:01+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/19879975236b70da80f4cbea933c59d0"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2010\/01\/gods-beloved-life.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2010\/01\/gods-beloved-life.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2010\/01\/gods-beloved-life.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/01\/Efrem-thumb-333x286-10810.jpg","contentUrl":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jesuscreed\/files\/import\/assets_c\/2010\/01\/Efrem-thumb-333x286-10810.jpg"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/2010\/01\/gods-beloved-life.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"God&#8217;s Beloved Life"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/","name":"Jesus Creed","description":"Scot McKnight on Jesus and orthodox faith for today","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/19879975236b70da80f4cbea933c59d0","name":"Scot McKnight","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/c10\/c10b0226ed6cfd8319b2b8742ac4088ax96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/c10\/c10b0226ed6cfd8319b2b8742ac4088ax96.jpg","caption":"Scot McKnight"},"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/author\/smcknight"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/70"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5313\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jesuscreed\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}