Muraldo D. C.

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Quadfest - The Christian perspective

The concept of Quadfest began as an urgent desire within me, how and when it began I cannot pinpoint but all I know is that once I was aware of it, it did not stop pestering me until I began to bring it to pass. Now it is a significant part of my life, no longer a nagging urge but a reality with all the work, effort, joys and disappointments that doing anything worthwhile brings. Muraldo DC was conceived in much the same way.

The evangelistic nature of Muraldo DC's work is difficult for many to comprehend. Most people question how can dance truly witness for God. This is simply because most people are not really aware of the power of dance as a medium of communication. This however will be easily resolved once people begin to have first hand experience of this work Something else in question however is why is Quadfest part of the work of Muraldo DC as a Christian company?

Quadfest is in its sixth year and in this time I myself have questioned why I organise this event. I have thought ‘well its not directly a Christian event is it? ‘ Oh but its bringing people together of all ages and a variety of cultures to enjoy wholesome entertainment and a form of education’, ‘probably it’s an opportunity to show that Christians do care about the community and we are not just stuck in church buildings keeping ourselves to ourselves’. The fact is that I didn’t really know why I was organizing this event as a Christian; I was just obeying the nagging desire to do it. Moreover I didn’t give my questions as much as a second though as I was completely convicted that I what I was doing had to be, in this I had no doubt. Recently someone actually voiced my own questions to me and I found my convictions rising up within me but I did not have the words to express them.

I love reading, so God often uses this love he put in me, to answer my questions, he often provides the right book at the right time. I had a book on my shelf for months, given to me by a friend, I had decided to take the book off the shelf to read, a book by the evangelical John Stott. ‘ Issues facing Christians today’. What a revelation for me! As with all the books I believe God has directed me to read it was another step in my understanding of what being a Christian means. I was so taken by this book that I had ordered the latest version ‘New issues facing Christians today’. Having read the first book I realised that Quadfest had a Christian purpose but the book covered so many interesting issues that I didn’t fully take this in. However, following the conversation where the occurrence of Quadfest was questioned, the new version arrived and I eagerly went to the chapters to find out how I could express my convictions.

Reading this book it quickly became clear that not only was it time that I understood what I was doing but those taking part in the work of Muraldo DC should also understand. Quadfest is about social involvement: -

It is exceedingly strange that any followers of Jesus Christ should ever have needed to ask whether social involvement was their concern and that controversy should have blown up over the relationship between evangelism and social responsibility. For it is evident that in his public ministry Jesus both ‘went about …teaching.and preaching (Matthew 4:38; 9:35 RSV) and went about doing good and healing’ (Acts 10:38 RSV) In consequence, ‘evangelism and social concern have been intimately related to one another throughout the history of the church … John Stott 1999:3

So what are we actually aiming to do by holding Quadfest?

Quadfest providing an opportunity for people to come together of all ages, in many cases families, to enjoy a weekend of wholesome activities that all can take part in and equally enjoy, activities used in the past to foster a sense of community: that is belonging together. In these days of nuclear and one- parent families, how often in this country does the average family get together to simply enjoy an activity? How many activities are there which actively involve all ages from small children to elders? Didn’t God want us to live and enjoy life together?
Who is the main focus of Quadfest? The elders. Why? The Bible says we should honour our father and our mother. Are mothers and fathers, grand fathers and grandmothers honoured in this society? Are they sought for their wisdom? Are they allowed freedom to demonstrate any of their abilities? How often will people under pension age take the time or the opportunity to witness what their elders can do?
It is an opportunity for non-Christian artists to work with a Christian company who can minister to them simply by the way that members of the company conduct themselves towards each other and towards others. In this way we could offer an alternative to the negative attitudes and behaviours, which so often are rife behind the scenes of most productions.
It is an opportunity to show that Christians do care about the community and are not simply concerned with being members of ‘our club’ (particular church group or denomination), condemning all who are not members and that our faith does relate to everyday life.

· It is a celebration of a range of gifts and abilities from God himself.

But why should we become involved socially and not just restrict ourselves to evangelising with the provision of relief in times of need?

John Stott suggests five biblical doctrines that should convince us of our Christian social responsibilities (I give extracts from his work to illustrate his main points:

A fuller doctrine of God

God is ‘the God of nature as well as of religion, of the ‘secular’ as well as of the sacred’.
Everything that God created is sacred in the sense that it belongs to God and nothing is secular in that God is excluded from it…God made the physical universe sustains it and still pronounces it good (Genesis 1:31) Indeed everything God created is good and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving’ (1 Timothy 4:4) therefore we should be more than grateful for the good gifts of the Creator - for marriage, and the family, for the beauty and order of the natural world, for work for leisure, for friendships, and the experience of inter-racial, inter-cultural community, and for music and other kinds of creative art which enrich the quality of human life. Our God is often too small because we imagine that he is only interested in religious activities (worship and ritual) and religious books. According to the Old Testament prophets the teaching of Jesus, God is very critical of ‘religion’ if by this is meant religious services divorced from real life…. If [what] we say and sing inside church…[has] no corollary in our everyday life outside church, at home and at work, they are worse than worse than useless their hypocrisy is positively nauseating to God.

God is the God of the nations as well as of his covenant people…
Not to realise this is to make the same mistake as the Israelites who reduced God to the status of a tribal deity on a par with the deities worshiped by the Moabites or the Ammonites, of the Old Testament. ‘Are not you Israelite the same to me as the Cushites…. Did I not bring Israel up from Egypt, the Philistines from Crete and the Arameans from Kir? (Amos 9:7) Although Satan is the ruler of the world God remains the ultimate governor of everything he has made. ‘From his dwelling place he watches all who live on the earth – he who forms the hearts of all, who considers all they do (Psalm 33:13-15). God promised Abraham and his posterity he will bless all the families of the earth, and that one day he will restore what the Fall has marred, and bring to perfection all that he has made.

God is the God of justice as well as of the justification
God is concerned that our community life is characterised with justice

He upholds the cause of the oppressed
and gives food to the hungry
The Lord sets the prisoners free,
the Lord gives sight to the blind,
The Lord lifts up those who are bowed down,
The Lord loves the righteous,
The Lord watches over the alien
and sustains the fatherless and the widow,
but he frustrates the ways of the wicked.

(Psalm 146:7-9)

This applies to all people, all nations, e.g. Amos 2:4-8, 1:3-2:3Nahum 1:9ff. 2:2ff. 1:14, 3:1, 2:13, 3:5, 3:19.

A fuller doctrine of human beings

We must serve our fellow human beings because by divine creation they are godlike being made in Gods image and likeness and possessing unique capacities, which distinguish them from the animal creation. Human beings are not just souls or bodies not just social beings they are all three. If we truly love our neighbours we must be concerned for their total welfare, the wellbeing of their souls, their bodies, and their community.

All to often Christians can be accused as below: -

I was hungry
And you formed a humanities group to discuss my hunger
I was imprisoned
And you crept quietly to your chapel and prayed for my release.
I was naked
And in your mind you debated the morality of my appearance
I was sick
And you knelt and thanked God for your health
I was homeless
And you preached to me of the spiritual shelter of the love of God
I was lonely
And you left me alone to pray for me
You seemed for holy, so close to God
But I am still very hungry – and lonely – and cold

A fuller doctrine of Christ

The Son of God did not stay in the immunity of his heaven. He emptied himself to serve. He became little, weak and vulnerable. He entered into our pain our alienation and temptations He not only proclaimed the good news of the kingdom of God but demonstrated its arrival by healing the sick. Feeding the hungry forgiving the sinful, befriending the dropout and raising the dead. He had not come to be served he said but to serve and to give his life as a ransom price for the release of others. So he allowed himself to become a victim of gross injustice in the courts and as they crucified him he prayed for his enemies.

If the Christian mission is to be modelled on Christ’s mission it will surely involve for us as it did for him an entering into the world of others.

A fuller doctrine of salvation

We must not separate salvation from the Kingdom of God
For the kingdom of God of God’s dynamic rule, breaking into human
history through Jesus, confronting, combating and overcoming evil,
spreading the wholeness of personal and communal well being, taking possession of his people in total blessing and total demand. The church is meant to be the Kingdom community, a model of what human community looks like when it comes under the rule of God and a challenge alternative to secular society.

We must not separate Jesus the saviour form Jesus the Lord
His lordship extends far beyond the religious bit of our lives. It embraces the whole of our experiences, public, and private home and work, church membership and civic duty evangelistic and social responsibility.

We must not separate faith from love.
Our attitude to him will be revealed in and so judged by, our good works of love to the least of his brothers and sisters …

‘Faith by itself if it is not accompanied by good works of love is dead… I will show you my faith by what I do’ (James 2:17, 18)

We have been re-created in Christ to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do (Ephesians 2:10)

A fuller doctrine of the church

In place of the ‘club model of the church, we need to recover the truth of the Church’s ‘double identity’. On the one hand the church is ‘holy people’ called out of the world to belong to God But on the other it is a ‘worldly’ people in the sense of renouncing ‘otherworldliness’ and being sent back into the world to witness and serve.

John Stott ‘New issues facing Christians Today’ (p 17 – 30)

John Stotts’ book has brought me to the understand that Quadfest is a work of love, inspired by God, for us to acknowledge and celebrate his many blessing upon us, in so many ways and an opportunity to allow the kingdom of God to be seen in action, an opportunity to be the ‘light’ and ‘salt’ within our community. I thank God for these opportunities and now with better understanding, I continue to develop Quadfest with joy, even during the trails, knowing I am obeying what God himself has ordained.