A New Creation
Malvern Community,
"It’s the new Jan Brady!"
If you know that reference, it dates you. Made in the early 70’s, The Brady Bunch seems to be eternally repeated through my childhood in the 80’s.
Who can forget the episode when Jan, tired of living in the shadows of her two sisters, decides to start wearing a curly black wig. Thinking her new self would be a hit, her friends instead assume she’s wearing a Halloween costume.
Jan Brady fears being ordinary and so tries to rebrand. However, her sudden shift exposes her as a try-hard and she ends up being mocked for her inauthenticity.
We live in a culture that pressures us to be simultaneously authentic and yet constantly trendy. We are told to find our "true self," but we are expected to package and market that self for social media, jobs, or social circles, forced to chase ever changing milestones.
It’s incredibly exhausting to navigate.
The culture-wide phenomena is an expansion of the tension inside each one of us. Something inside of us wants to be accepted just as we are. But also knows that we’re not as we should be.
This Sunday I’m speaking into this tension, how in Christ there is a new Creation.
It’s Communion Sunday, so my words will be brief, but the whole service is a genuine, analogue space to commune with God.
Come as you are.
Recommended Books from last Sunday
On Sunday I spoke about finding our identity in Christ as being like a work of art.
If you resonated with the creative aspect in the sermon, you may like to read Erwin McManus' book The Artisan Soul: Crafting your Life into a Work of Art.
If you resonated with the general ethical approach to good work, you may prefer Tim Keller’s Every Good Endeavour: Connecting Your Work to God's Plan For the World (also in the church library)
The book I mentioned in the sermon was The Craftsman, by Prof Richard Sennett.
Have a meaningful week,
Tim