Jamin Bradley

We got into talking about Heaven at Nerd Church JXN this past Monday, which is a topic I think many of us misunderstand. The Bible does not end with Christians going up to the clouds as spirits—it ends with Christians coming down out of the clouds with new immortal, material bodies so that they can live on earth again. At that time, Heaven merges with the earth causing the old to be renewed into something new.

We can only imagine what that will be like. Since animals have spirits in the Bible, perhaps anything from the extinct dinosaurs to your childhood pet will be returned to the earth. Perhaps God will ask you if you want to move back into your old house, but it’ll be everything you ever hoped it will be. Perhaps your resurrected body will be able to do things that Jesus resurrected body did, like warp around. Perhaps you and your old friends will get together every night for a Hobbit-sized feast. Perhaps the modern technologies we’ve created will find their own redemption in the new world.

“Will there be work in Heaven?” someone at Nerd Church asked.

“I sure hope so,” I responded. “Not working forever is my Hell.”

It’s true. Unless my body betrays me, I have no plans to retire because pastoring is my dream job. It doesn’t wear me out—it energizes me. It gives me all the space to image my Creator by creating on his behalf, be it through teaching, music, counseling, spiritual discipline, community, cooking, partying, poetry, storytelling, writing, and so on. That being said, it would not shock me at all if God offered me a job to pastor in the resurrection. I feel like he built me for it.

On top of that, the Bible pictures resurrection as a shaking of the old world. Anything that doesn’t belong in the new world falls over during that shaking, allowing only the best things to carry on into the next. (I pray things like my church building make the cut.) And maybe I’m wrong, but if God wanted us to help him turn the world into a garden at the start of the Bible, I can’t help but feel that he’ll invite us to do it again in the new world. I can’t wait to come back to Jackson and start creating whatever I’m assigned to do (though God knows I’m no good with a hammer).

God creates in the beginning of the Bible. God is creating now. God will create again. And he wants to partner with you to bring his creation to fruition. Learn more about how to do this with him this Saturday at Reveal 2025: The Creative Spirit. Use the code JAMINBRADLEYCOM for $5 off your ticket.