Monday, September 04, 2006

QUOTING: Blah, Blah, Blah

Quoting: "Blah, Blah, Blah: Making Sense of the World's Spiritual Chatter" by Bayard Taylor:

p.25 - "Consciously or unconsciously, everybody is a walking billboard for his or her worldview. We're constantly advertising what's most important to us. So what are you advertising?"

p.25 - "Too many Christians have the idea that witnessing is primarily verbal -- either preaching the gospel or defending the faith against skeptics. But representing Christ in our culture means much more."

p.30 - "You might say you believe one way, but your real worldview is revealed by what you do."

p.34 - "...the best any of us can do is try to be aware of our own worldview assumptions, to be honest with others about where we're coming from, and to respectfully listen to others' point of view."

p.58 - "God is a passionate lover of His people... God desires to be known by us."

p.63 - "...our life is about our relationship with God."

p.98 - "...our words have much more credibility if our lives back up our words."

p.99 - "God can use us in bringing the good news to people; but God is the One who draws people; God's Holy Spirit is the One who convinces them that they are sinners, unrighteous, and in need of forgiveness."

p.100 - "...only in the Biblical worldview does it make sense to say, 'God loves you.'"

p.111 - "It is startling how little Genesis 1 tells us about the 'how' of creation. The point is, Genesis 1 tells about the 'Who' of creation.... It ought to be enough simply to know the one true God."

p.123 - "If you want a faith that stands up to intellectual challenges, you need to wrestle with the ideas out there that go against Christian faith."

p.124 - "We ought always to stay teachable."

p.126 - "Nobody ever seriously suggested that we could know truth exhaustively as God knows it."

p.140 - "God alone is God, and you are not Him!"

p.161 - "The God of the Bible is not a spirit or a force to be controlled or manipulated. Any spirit or force that opposes Him is asking for it.
Genesis 1 set the stage for a historic series of cosmic smackdowns. Starting with Exodus, one by one Yahweh takes the pretender gods, spirits and demons out."

p.161 - "We generally don't think the old pagan gods had any validity or reality, so we discount a major theme in the biblical story."

p.169 - "...there are lots of terrible examples of Christians not living up to the best and highest Christian teachings."

p.172 - "...all worldviews force some narrowing of the mind -- otherwise they wouldn't be worldviews!"

p.182-183 - "If we want to be convincing to others about our faith, we have to live as if it is true. We need to live authentically."

p.184 - "We all need God's mercy & forgiveness."

p.185 - "What we desperately need is a way to draw reasonable boundaries around Christian faith, and yet allow for good-faith differences."

p.186 - "Any Christian interpretation of Christian faith must begin with the Biblical worldview -- and no other."

p.194 - "...our job is not to decide who is 'in' or 'out' of God's kingdom....We have to leave some things up to God....everyone deserves some respect as a human being. Jesus...calls us to love everyone. Even our enemies."

p.207 - "...do not assume that every church with a Christian-sounding name is necessarily Christian."

p.240 - "God loves you. He can handle your doubts, miseries, and questions. He couldn't love you more than He already does. Hang in there."

p.240 - "Effective Bible teaching needs to make a connection to real life."

Sunday, August 27, 2006

QUOTING: "A New Kind of Christian"

Quoting: "A New Kind of Christian" by Brian McLaren:

p.6 - "My faith has plenty of room for science, and my science only strengthens my faith..."

p.16 - "To be postmodern means to have experienced the modern world & to have been changed by the experience ~ changed to such a degree that one is no longer modern."

Modernerity is an age of....

* conquest & control
* machines
* analysis
* secular science

p.17 - "It's no wonder that religion went scurrying in retreat in the modern era, fleeing the exterminating gas of modern science and secularism... Perhaps religion could survive in the hidden corners of the private sector, but in the public sector it was seen by the scientific establishment as a dirty embarassment, unsanitary, unwelcome..."
* aspiring to objectivity
"...assumed was the highest faith in human reason to replace all mysteries with comprehension... subjective religious faith with objective truth."
* a critical age
-- must debunk anyone who sees differently from you
* the modern nation-state & organization
* individualism
* Protestantism & institutional religion
* consumerism


p.18 - "Can you imagine what happens to the church, to the whole Christian enterprise, when it has so thoroughly accomodated to modernity ~ so much so that it has no idea of any way Christianity could exist other than a modern way?"

p.17: mentions Peter Senge and "The Fifth Discipline":
"Great book. He says that discussion, as opposed to dialogue or conversation, suggests a more aggressive, win-lose style of communication...As a result, the views of the others must be critically relativized, debunked & reduced by one's own views."

* Postmodernity - the broad culture defined by its having moved beyond modernity.
* Postmodernism - a philosophy

p.19 - "...in a new philosophy's early stages, it tends to be negative ~ to focus on what's wrong with the prevailing school of thought. It takes some time for the phase that deconstructs the prevailing view to give way to a phase where the new view is articulated, a new vision proposed."

p.22 - "I think of Paul in 1 Corinthians 9, saying that he'll become whatever he has to ~ Jewish or Gentile, educated or simple ~ in order to effectively convey the Good News."

p.24 - "It strikes me how rare these kinds of words, outlines, and dissective ways of thinking are in the Bible, which preoccupies itself with earthy stories rather than airy abstractions, wild poetry rather than tidy systems, personal & contextual letters rather than timeless, absolute pronouncements or propositions."

p.24-25 - "To Christians steeped in modernity, to move toward postmodernity can only look like 'worldliness', declension, decline, sliding away from the truth as they know it. If people start accepting this new way of thinking, I wonder if they'll be tried as heretics by the existing Christian institutions..."

p.25 - "[God], ...if I hold back from honestly pursuing the truth, wouldn't that be pulling away from You ~ even worse? If I let go of or loosen my grip on some things I've never before doubted, will I fall away from You? Or could I actually find myself falling into You? ...Jesus said you will guide us into all truth."

p.25 - "...the spiritual resurgence I see brewing is unconventional & even irreverant at times, largely developing outside the boundaries of our institutional religions. But that to me says more about the rigidity of our institutions than the darkness of the current spiritual resurgence..."

p.40 - "You young men & women happen to have been born at a time of transition. If you keep doing the same old things with the same old tools ~ the tools you have inherited from my generation... ~ you'll make a mess of things."

p.41 - "Don't put your confidence in the institution of the church, put your confidence in God."

p.44 - "If you were a missionary going to Spain, you'd have to learn to think and speak Spanish. If you are a missionary going to any educated culture on earth today, I think you need to learn to think and speak postmodern."

p.47 - "...the need to put everything into nice, neat categories is part of the problem. Modern people believed that they could create a nice framework that would pigeonhole everything... if you succeed in creating a postmodern framework, I think you've just sabotaged it."

p.50 - "...if you have an infallible text, but all your interpretations of it are admittedly fallible, then you at least have to always be open to being corrected about your interpretations... the real authority does not lie in the text itself, in the ink-on-paper, which is always open to misinterpretation... the real authority lies in God, who is there behind the text or beyond it or above it... in other words, the authority is not in what I say the text says but in what God says the text says."

p.52 - "[passage in 2 Timothy] "It says that Scripture is inspired & useful ~ useful to teach, rebuke, correct, instruct us to live justly, and equip us for our mission as the people of God. That's a very different job description than we moderns want to give it. We want it to be God's encyclopedia, God's rule book, God's answer book, God's scientific text, God's easy-steps instruction book, God's little book of morals for all occasions. The only people in Jesus' day who would have had anything close to these expectations of the Bible would have been the scribes and Pharisees...
...I think that when you let go of teh Bible as God's answer book, you get it back as something much better."

p.52 - "[The Bible]...becomes the family story... it tells...the story of the people who have been called by the one true God to be His agents in the world, to be His servants to the rest of the world. It's absolutely essential ~ to give the family a sense of identity, so we know who we are and why we're here and where we're going. And not only that, it's wonderfully honest about our weaknesses & mistakes...there's no mistaking who's the hero in this story ~ it's certainly not any of us humans!"

p.53 - [re: the Bible] "Think of it as a math book... Is it valuable because it has the answers in the back? No, it's valuable because by working through it, by doing the problems, by struggling with it, you become a wiser person, a person capable of solving problems and building bridges... The whole answer-book approach is what modern people want the Bible to be, but it's not necessarily what the Bible really is... it's a book that calls together and helps create a community...that is the catalyst for God's work in our world."

p.65 - "...it's pathetic for some ignorant preacher to mock Buddha and Muhammad -- neither of whom he has ever seriously studied, much less understood -- as if he's smarter, wiser, & better just because he believes in Jesus. He might be blessed for believing in Jesus, but that doesn't make him smart."

p.66 - "I believe Jesus is the Savior, not Christianity."

p.73 - "I think what people really mean when then say they are against organized religion is that they're against hypocritical religion, misguided religion, blind or unthinking religion, religion of rules and laws rather than love, religion that comes diced and preprocessed and shrink-wrapped like ground beef."

p.75 - "Jesus came not to drive the culture from the people but the sin from the culture."

p.76 - "Syncretism...like adulterating pure Christianity with pagan elements... He said we shouldn't mix worship of the One True God with elements from other religions."

p.78-79 - "...we must always come back to the Bible and doing our best to let it form and unsettle us when necessary... the parts of the Bible that bother you most are the ones that have the most to teach you... instead of minimizing your discomfort and trying to explain those parts away, you should bear down on those passages and maximize how different they are, really wrestle with those parts."

p.79 - "If we've sincerely and honestly wrestled with Scripture ~ not just as individuals but as a community ~ and if we're really listening to one another (especially the minority voices, the ones we might try to marginalize and ignore) we have to believe that we'll be better off, more in tune with God's plans for us, less beguiled by our own culture and its subtle ways of tricking us into reinterpreting the faith ~ exaggerating some things, mimimizing others, and totally missing still others."

p.79 - "...at the end of the day, we have to trust that the Holy Spirit will guide us."

p.82-83 - "If we pitch the whole story as 'Do you want to go to heaven or hell?', we run the risk of attracting people who want salvation from hell without necessarily wanting salvation from sin...
Second, in a postmodern context, he said, the individualism of this approach sounded downright evil, like using insider trading information to gain an unfair advantage over others in the stock market. A good-hearted person might respond, 'I love my neighbors, and if you're offering me something that my neighbors can't have, then I don't want it.' However, if it were put in the service context, so that we are chosen by God not for priviledge but for service, the reverse would be true: 'I love my neighbors, and if receiving God's salvation will help me help them, then I want it!'"

p.106 - "Postmodern theology has to reincarnate; we have to get back to the flesh & blood & sweat & dirt of the setting, because..all truth is contextual."

p.112 - "...generosity is one of the most important spiritual disciplines, and greed is one of the soul's worst poisons."

p.117 - "Journaling and all other spiritual disciplines done 'in secret' seem to me to be essential."

p.122 - "The more intense and less routine the educational experience, the greater the impact."

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

QUOTING: "The Ragamuffin Gospel"

QUOTING: "THE RAGAMUFFIN GOSPEL" by Brennan Manning:

p.21 - "The sweet sound of amazing grace...keeps us from denying that, though Christ was victorious, the battle with lust, greed & pride still rages within us. As a sinner who has been redeemed, I can acknowledge that I am often unloving, irritable, angry and resentful with those closest to me. When I go to church, I can leave my white hat at home & admit that I have failed. God not only loves me as I am, but also knows me as I am... I don't need to apply spiritual cosmetics to make myself presentable to Him. I can accept ownership of my poverty, powerlessness, and neediness."

p.23 - "'If we but turn to God,' said St. Augustine, 'that itself is a gift of God.'"

p.25 - "Simply accept the fact that you are accepted."

p.27 - "Any church that will not accept that it consists of sinful men & women, and exists for them, implicitly rejects the gospel of grace."

p.27 - "...the church..can never have any excuse for keeping any sinners at a distance."

p.27 - "Often hobbling through our church doors on Sunday morning comes grace on crutches ~ sinners still unable to throw away their false supports & stand upright in the freedom of the children of God. Yet, their mere presence in the church on Sunday morning is a flickering candle representing a desire to maintain contact with God. To douse the flame is to plunge them into a world of spiritual darkness."

p.38 - "The legalists can never live up to the expectations they project on God."

p.39 - "The fact that our view of God shapes our lives to a great extent may be one of the reasons Scripture ascribes such importance to seeking to know Him." (Peter van Breemen, "Certain As the Dawn", p.l3)

p.40 - "THINK BIG about God." **

p.40 - "...who desires all men & women to be saved..." (1 Timothy 2:4)

p.42 - "The Word we study has to be the Word we preach."

p.42 - "We must never allow the authority of books, institutions, or leaders to replace the authority of knowing Jesus Christ personally & directly."

p.43 - "...each Christian should come straight to the Scripture alone & to the pure Word of God! You see from this babbling of mine the immeasurable difference between the Word of God & all human words, and how no man can adequately reach & explain a single Word of God with all his words. It is an eternal Word & must be understood and contemplated with a quiet mind."

p.43 - "Go to the Bible itself, dear Christians, and let my expositions and those of all scholars be no more than a tool with which to build aright, so that we can understand, taste and abide in the simple & pure Word of God..."
(Gerhard Ebeling, "Luther: An Introduction to His Thought", p.45-46)

p.44 - "...there is only one thing God asks of us ~ that we be men & women of prayer, people who live close to God, people for whom God is everything & for whom God is enough. That is the root of peace...when the gracious God is all we seek."

p.46 - "Genuine self-acceptance is not derived from the power of positive thinking, mind-games or pop psychology. It is an ACT OF FAITH in the God of grace."

p.47 - "In terms of spiritual growth, the faith-conviction that God accepts me as I am is a tremendous help to become better."

p.49 - "..Jesus hung out with ragamuffins."

p.50 - "If you really want to understand a man, don't just listen to what he says, but watch what he does." ~ Maurice Blondel

p.61 - "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today & forever." (Hebrews 13:8)

p.61 - "...experiencing God's love in Jesus Christ means experiencing that one has been unreservedly accepted, approved & infinitely loved, that one can & should accept oneself & one's neighbor."
(Walter Kasper, "Jesus the Christ", p.86)

p.63 - "When our inner child is not nurtured & nourished, our minds gradually close to new ideas, unprofitable comments, and the surprises of the Spirit."

p.63-64 - "If we maintain the open-mindedness of children, we challenge fixed ideas & established structures, including our own. We listen to people in other denominations & religions. We don't find demons in those with whom we disagree. We don't cozy up to people who mouth our jargon. If we are open, we rarely resort to either-or: either creation or evolution, liberty or law, sacred or secular... We focus on both-and, fully aware that God's truth cannot be imprisoned in a small definition. Of course, the open mind does not accept everything indiscriminately... but it does realize that reality, truth & Jesus Christ are incredibly open-ended."

p.68 - "We miss Jesus' point entirely when we use His words as weapons against others (Christian Pharisaical behavior of *our* day). They are to be taken personally by each of us."

p.74 - "The foremost characteristic of living by grace is trust in the redeeming work of Jesus Christ."

p.74 - "The tendency in legalistic religion is to mistrust God, to mistrust others, and consequently to mistrust ourselves."

p.75 - "We need a new kind of relationship with the Father that drives out fear, mistrust, anxiety and guilt, that permits us to be hopeful & joyous, trusting & compassionate. We have to be converted from the bad news to the good news, from expecting nothing, to expecting something."

p.76 - "The gospel of grace...calls us to sing of the spiritual roots of such commonplace experiences as falling in love, telling the truth, raising a child, teaching a class, forgiving each other after hurting each other, standing together in the bad weather of life, of surprise & sexuality, and the radiance of existence."
(Eugene Kennedy, "The Choice to Be Human", p.128)

p.77 - "Grace means that God is on our side & thus we are victors, regardless of how well we have played the game."

** We take for granted God's gift of salvation & grace instead of showing immense, daily gratitude for it! **

p.84 - "There is a beautiful transparency to honest disciples who never wear a false face and do not pretend to be anything but who they are."

p.89 - "God intended for us to discover His loving presence in the world around us."

p.98 - "Amazement & rapture should be our reaction to the God revealed as Love."

p.99-100 - "Don't ever be so foolish as to measure My love for you in terms of your love for Me!...for I am God, not man."

p.100 - "...we cannot apply human logic & justice to the living God. Human logic is based on human experience & human nature. Yahweh does not conform to this model."

p.102 - "We should be astonished at the goodness of God, stunned that He should bother to call us by name, our mouths wide open at His love, bewildered that, at this very moment, we are standing on holy ground."

p.107 - "We have made the bitterness of the cross, the revelation of God in the cross of Jesus Christ, TOLERABLE to ourselves by learning to understand it as a necessity for the process of salvation." :-(

p.113 - "For those who feel their lives are a grave disappointment to God, it requires enormous trust & reckless, raging confidence to accept that the love of Christ knows no shadow of alteration or change."

p.117 - "Christianity happens when men & women accept with unwavering trust that their sins have not only been forgiven, but forgotten, washed away in the blood of the Lamb."

*** Faith means you want God, and you want to want nothing else. ***

p.171 - "One cannot be a disciple without being committed."

p.190 - "Abba just wants us to show up... We don't have to be perfect, or even very good, before God will accept us."

p.197 - [In the Deep South over 100 years ago...]...the phrase used to describe a breakthrough into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ as, "I was seized by the power of a great affection." *** :o)

Friday, August 11, 2006

QUOTING: More of "Velvet Elvis" by Rob Bell

More quotes from "VELVET ELVIS: Repainting the Christian Faith" by Rob Bell:

p.11 - "...the endless process of working out how to live as God created us to live."

p.11 - "Times change. God doesn't, but times do... letting go of whatever has gotten in the way of Jesus, and embracing whatever will help us be more & more the people God wants us to be." (this, I think, is Rob's take on the EC movement)

p.12 - "For many people the word 'Christian' conjures up all sorts of images that have nothing to do with who Jesus is & how He taught us to live. This must change."

p.13 - "...every generation has to ask the difficult questions of what it means to be a Christian here & now, in this place, at this time."

** Some people's faith is like a trampoline ~ it bends & flexes & moves (springs = doctrines)... for others, their faith is like a wall of bricks ~ pull one out to examine it, and the whole thing becomes unstable & threatens to crumble (bricks = doctrines). (my version of page 26)

p.26 - "..for him, faith isn't a trampoline; it's a wall of bricks. Each of the core doctrines for him is like an individual brick that stacks on top of the others. If you pull one out, the whole wall starts to crumble. It appears quite strong and rigid, but if you begin to rethink or discuss even one brick, the whole thing is in danger."

p.26 - "What if that spring [doctrine] was seriously questioned? Could a person keep jumping? Could a person still love God? Could you still be a Christian?"

p.27 - "I affirm the historic Christian faith, which includes the virgin birth, and the Trinity, and the inspiration of the Bible, and much more. I'm a part of it, and I want to pass it on to the next generation. I believe that God created everything, and that Jesus is Lord, and that God has plans to restore everything."

p.27 - "God is bigger than the Christian faith."

p.27 - "...one of the things that happens in 'brickworld': you spend a lot of time talking about how right you are. Which of course leads to how wrong everybody else is. Which then leads to defending the wall [doctrines]... you rarely defend a trampoline. You invite people to jump on it with you."

p.28 - "The problem with brickianity is that walls inevitably keep people out. Often it appears as though you have to agree with all of the bricks exactly as they are or you can't join... Jesus invites everybody to jump."

"...saying yes to the invitation doesn't mean we have to have it all figured out... I can jump and still have questions & doubts."

p.30 - "Maybe that is who God is looking for ~ people who don't just sit there and mindlessly accept whatever comes their way."

p.32 - "The Christian faith is mysterious to the core. It is about things and beings that ultimately can't be put into words. Language fails. And if we do definitively put God into words, we have at that very moment made God something God is not."

p.33 - "Truth always leads to more...truth. Because truth is insight into God & God is infinite & God has no boundaries or edges. So truth always has layers & depths & texture...
... the mystery IS the truth."

(I don't know whether I agree with that one or not... letting it stew for a bit)

p.35 - "It's possible to believe all the right doctrines & not live as Jesus teaches us to live."

p.44 - "It's possible to make the Bible say whatever we want to, isn't it?"

p.46 - "[The Bible] has to be interpreted. And, if it isn't interpreted, then it can't be put into action... it's not possible to simply do what the Bible says. We must first make decisions about what it means at this time, in this place, for these people."

p.47 - "When you followed a certain rabbi, you were following him because you believed that rabbi's set of interpretations were the closest to what God intended through the Scriptures."
(Rabbi's interpretations = "yoke")

p.56 - "Somebody in your history decided certain Bible verses still apply & others don't." (previous page gave examples)

p.56 - "Now some people may get a little uneasy about this discussion on interpreting the Bible & say, 'We shouldn't make it say what we want it to say'... I agree, but everybody is resting on a set of interpretations, and we need to be honest about it."

p.56 - "What is accepted today as tradition was, at one point in time, a break from tradition."

p.60 - "..the Bible is about today." (Yay! He's agreeing it's relevant!)

p.61 - "...some call this the more-than-literal truth of the Bible." (that it gives us strength & direction because of the meanings we derive from it)

p.64 - "...the Bible meets us where we are. That is what truth does."

p.78 - "...God is always present. We're the ones who show up."

p.78 - "For Paul, truth is available to everyone. Truth is everywhere & it is available to everyone. But, Paul takes it further because, for him, truth is bigger than his religion...For Paul, anybody is capable of speaking truth. Anybody, from any religion, from anywhere."

(At first I wanted to argue this one... I automatically wanted to shout, 'That's not true!' But, Bell says Paul bases this off Romans 2:14... that the truth "is known to them instinctively". Looking at it like that, then okay. I'll agree... for now.)

p.79 - "Paul affirms the truth wherever he finds it.... he doesn't just affirm the truth... he claims it for himself... what they said was true so he claims it as his own."

(Note: this could be dangerous... can't claim it unless it's Biblically based, I say. Otherwise you're opening yourself up to the devil's sneaky ways.)

** Bell goes on to encourage us to use Philippians 4:8 ("Whatever is true, whatever is pure...") & says to "claim [truth].. because it is from God. And you belong to God."

p.80 - "I live with the understanding that truth is bigger than any religion & the world is God's & everything in it."

(Later on this same page, Bell says "All things are mine". Does this mean he could just go up and take something that belongs to someone else & say, "It's mine 'cause all things are God's, therefore all things are mine, and I'm claiming it"? How far would he take this? On this one, I think Bell got a little carried away with himself...)

** Bell has issues (it seems) with:
- limiting truth
- limiting faith (p.83)
- empty ritual
- obligation (p.97)

p.84 - "My understanding is that, to be a Christian is to do whatever it is you do with great passion & devotion. We throw ourselves into our work because everything is sacred." (Col.3:17)

p.85 - "This truth has significant implications for how churches function."

p.85 - "A church is a community of people who are learning how to be certain kinds of people wherever they find themselves, so they can do whatever it is they do "in the name of the Lord Jesus"... God isn't in one building only. Doing things for God happens all the time, everywhere..."

p.87 - "...to be able to quote these prophets & poets, Paul obviously had to read them. And study them. And analyze them. And, I'm sure he came across all sorts of things in their writings that he didn't agree with. So he sifts & sorts & separates the light from the dark, and then claims & quotes the parts that are true."

(I just LOVED this passage, as it goes right along with my new motto: "Take what you love & leave the rest"! Whoohoo! Yay, Rob!)

p.88 - "...being a good missionary... means teaching people to use their eyes to see things that have always been there; they just didn't realize it... it is searching for the things they have already affirmed as real & beautiful & true, and then telling them who you believe is the source of all that."

p.97 - "Not 'I have to', but 'I get to!'... Not obligation, but celebration... Not duty, but desire."

p.98 - "...what a church should be like: strip everything away & get down to the most basic elements. A group of people desperate to experience God."

p.101 - "The more honest, the more raw, the more stripped down we made it, the more people loved it... All we cared about was trying to teach & live the way of Jesus."

** the work of the cross is ongoing, day-to-day, in our heart, soul, mind & life.... it reminds us of our brokenness & dependence on God.

** salvation isn't just a "ticket to somewhere else"... it's a transformation to a new creation... eternity starts NOW! (not when we die)

p.110 - "It's possible for the cross to have done something for a person [salvation] but not in them [changed heart/life]." (bracketed, mine)

p.114 - "...our lives become so heavily oriented around the expectations of others that we become more & more like them, and less & less like ourselves. We become split."

p.114 - "...I had this person I knew I was made to be, yet it was mixed with all of these other...people. I wasn't measuring up to the image of the perfect person I had in my head."

p.116 - "If we don't know who we are, or where we're trying to go, we put the people around us in an uncomfortable position. They are doing the best they can with what they have..."

p.119 - "I cannot lead people somewhere I am not trying to go myself. I don't have to have arrived. I don't have to be perfect, but I do need to be on the path."

p.120 - "I say the system has to be changed. It has to be destroyed & replaced not with another system, but with an entirely new way of life. I see it happening, and it gives me great hope... I see honesty. I see people who want to be fully alive. I see people who want the life Jesus promises, & who are willing to let go of ego & prestige & titles to get it."

(this is very EC)

p.120 - "...very few people actually live from their heart."

p.128 - "...discussing the words of God, wrestling with what they meant, and what it means to live them out."

(I don't think we do enough of this. I don't, anyway. But, I want to!)

*** DEVOTION means you give up your whole life to be just like your "rabbi" (Jesus). You don't want to miss a thing He says or does. You follow Him everywhere & study His every move; you try to imitate Him in all areas of your life. ***

p.131 - "Jesus calls the not-good-enoughs" (to be disciples/followers) **

p.131 - "The rabbi (Jesus) believes you can do what He does. He thinks you can be like Him."

JESUS BELIEVES IN ME


p.134 - "God believes that people are capable of amazing things."

JESUS CHOSE ME


p.139 - "It wasn't so much what he was saying, as it was the place he was coming from. The beginning premise seemed that we are bad & don't do enough, & if we are made to feel guilty enough about it, then we will change our behaviour...
I don't think this is what Jesus had in mind."

(This reminds me of several churches I've attended... the guilt manipulation & shame was so rampant...)

p.139 - "...it is possible for religious leaders to actually get in the way of people entering into the life of God." (Matthew 23:13)

p.140 - "...this new way of life involves a constant, conscious decision to keep dying to the old so that we can live in the new." ('...to live is Christ')

p.141 - "...the issue is my learning who this person is who God keeps insisting I ALREADY AM." (Phil.3:16)

p.142 - "It is letting what God says about us shape what we believe about ourselves."

Take seriously who God says you are!


** God's strength & power...not mine.

p.146 - "We can trust God's retelling of the story, or we can trust our telling of the story... Do we trust God's version of reality, or our own?"

p.149 - "The entire movement of the Bible is of a God who wants to be here, with His people."

p.151 - "It is trusting that I am loved. That I always have been. That I always will be. I don't have to do anything. I don't have to prove anything, or achieve anything, or accomplish one more thing. That, exactly as I am, I am totally accepted, forgiven, and there is nothing I could ever do to lose this acceptance."

p.159 - "God has given us power & potential & ability. God has given this power to us so that we'll use it well. We have choices about how we're going to use our power."

p.164 - "...people are rarely persuaded by arguments, but more often by experiences."

(this is very EC, too)

p.164 - "It is our turn to redefine & reshape & dream it all up again".

(I strongly disagree here... God dreamed up the way we do church --the basics of it, anyway-- and how the Christian life is to be lived out. We can't dream up something new to change what God has already put in place.)

p.165 - "God chooses people to be used to bless other people."

p.165 - "God blesses everybody. People who don't believe in God. People who are opposed to God. People who do violent, evil things."

(Again, I strongly beg to differ! What about Soddom & Gomorrah? Did God bless them?)

p.165 - "The church doesn't exist for itself; it exists to serve the world."

*** p.167 - "...when there is an agenda, it isn't really love, is it?" ***

p.167 - "...we have to rediscover Love. Period."

p.167 - "...love that loves because it is what Jesus teaches us to do... We have to surrender our agendas."

p.168 - "The way of Jesus is a journey, not a destination."

Monday, August 07, 2006

Responding....

I'd like to sort of respond to a few posts that were made on the forums I've been reading:

Meanwhile, the scriptures seem to be treated like statutes. I could see little difference in how scriptures were researched and applied and how the secular law was researched and applied. Both seemed to be handled pretty much the same way. And I kept asking 'where is the Spirit of the Lord in all of this teaching we are getting at church?" That I had read the scriptures for myself at 17 did much to beg this question. How anyone who really knows the Lord can read the Gospels and not ask that, I don't know. I think this is the chief reason I left the traditional conservative church I was in and was drawn to check out the charismatic movement. I was never fully a part of that movement in the classic sense of calling myself charistmatic or being in a church that claimed to be. But I understood the hunger for the Spirit of God. I think there were alot of people like me in those days (late 70s), and many of them did eventually become "charistmatic." I also saw how some of them compromised the scriptures in order to seek after a spiritual experience. I didn't agree with that either. So I found myself somehwere in this no man's land between these two factions. [posted by "bzirk"]


This is familiar territory to me. My original church seemed to treat Scripture in the same way. From what I recall, it was used to suit the church's own ideals, etc, and I was left wondering about soooo much. Thank the Lord, God delivered me from that church, and I am now able to see past the legalism! I am now able to see how much I missed out on!

For example, reading Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code" for the first time, I wondered about whether or not some of it was actually true! And, although I'm a born-again Christian, and although I was brought up in the church, I didn't honestly know! I had never been taught the history of Christianity (even in the Christian schools I attended from Kindergarten through Grade 12!), and so I had to go searching for answers. Thank the Lord for Bart D. Ehrman's, "Lost Christianities"! It was just the thing I needed.

But, how sad that, even having been surrounded by Christianity -- church, Christian schools, Christian friends & family -- I still wasn't taught the foundations of my faith! Sure, I was taught, "Jesus loves me", and *some* of what the Bible says, but there was sooooo much that was missing!

In some groups, statements of belief have the same authority as Scripture. We call this creedalism. Baptists also make statements of belief, but all of them are revisable in light of Scripture. The Bible is the final word. Because of this distinction, we are generally more comfortable with the word "confession." Still, we are "creedal" in the sense that we believe certain things, express those beliefs and order our institutions accordingly. There have always been Baptist limits. And within these limits, there have always been Baptist preferences. (Emphasis mine)
[from the Southern Baptist Convention's "BF&M"?... I think]


That's the important point, when thinking of this "emerging church" business... If you're going to revise statements of belief & such, it's okay ONLY as long as it's "revisable in the light of Scripture"... as long as "the Bible is the FINAL word." Aside from that, it's heresy.

Sunday, August 06, 2006

My thoughts...

Basically, from what I can tell so far, the "Emerging Church" is about "walking the walk" (faith), not just "talking the talk"... it's about getting rid of the hypocrisy, the masks, and the legalism that are so rampant in churches today, and being more "real".

That's how I see it, anyway...

Saturday, August 05, 2006

Emerging Church: Defined?

This was posted, today, on that forum I originally found out about the "Emerging Church" through... And, it's PERFECT! I've been trying to find a way to put into words what I like about the EC... "John in the VW Bus" said it perfect:

If someone at church says, "I want to be more like Jesus", we say "Amen". If a friend says, "I'm learning more about God every day", we listen and praise God. If we read a post here that says, "I'm a disciple of Jesus, and he's teaching me", we post these [:)] . If we see a bumper sticker that says, "Be patient; God is not finished with me yet", we smile and thank God for the reminder that He isn't finished with us either.

On an individual basis, we're all for growing, learning, changing, becoming; we hold tight the idea that we know and understand more than yesterday, but less than tomorrow. We accept that we don't yet have everything exactly right.

God is the potter and we are the clay. He is molding us, smoothing out the rough parts, and chipping away that which does not look like Jesus. Could He be doing the same with us corporately? Is it possible that His church also has rough parts, and God is chipping away what doesn't belong? Again, I think most of us accept the idea that God is not finished with His church yet, either.

Could this also be said of our doctrine?

I'm not saying that the Truth changes, that anything goes, or that there is not pure doctrine that we can understand. I'm not saying that the Bible doesn't have pure Truth, or that one interpretation is as good as another, or that it's all just a great big mystery. But maybe we don't understand perfectly. Maybe we understand better today than yesterday, but not as good as tomorrow. Doctrine doesn't change, but our understanding of it does, and should; we call it "growing in Christ". God's word doesn't change, but we understand it better each and every day. God doesn't change, but our belief and faith and knowledge and love for Him SHOULD be growing and changing and making us more like Jesus.


Think of the "painting" on the wall not as the faith or doctrine itself (if it were, it would be entirely heretical and blasphemous to change what God has painted). Think of the "painting" instead as our attempt to portray the faith, as we understand it. Maybe we didn't get every detail right, not yet anyway; so we keep at it. That "repainting" is making our doctrine more like God's. Could this be a way of looking at "repainting" the faith? Perhaps "repainting" refers not to changes in God's doctrine, but growth in our understanding of it.

We accept the individual responsibility to grow. How about as the church?


Thank you, "John". Awesome! I love it! And, I agree wholeheartedly. :o)

QUOTING: "Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith"

Quotes from "VELVET ELVIS" by Rob Bell:

[inside front-cover] “We have to test everything. I thank God for anybody, anywhere who is pointing people to the mysteries of God. But those people would all tell you to think long and hard about what they are saying and doing and creating.
Test it.
Probe it.
Do that to this book. Don’t swallow it uncritically. Think about it.
Wrestle with it.
Just because I’m a Christian and I’m trying to articulate a Christian worldview doesn’t mean I’ve got it nailed. I’m contributing to the discussion.
God has spoken, and the rest is commentary, right?

[p.14] “I am learning that what seems brand new is often the discovery of something that’s been there all along – it just got lost somewhere and it needs to be picked up, dusted off, and reclaimed. I am learning that I come from a tradition that has wrestled with the deepest questions of human existence for thousands of years.”

[p.18 – TRAMPOLINE STORY]
“Several years ago my parents and in-laws gave our boys a trampoline. A fifteen-footer with netting around the outside so kids don’t end up headfirst in the flowers. Since then my boys and I have logged more hours on that trampoline than I could begin to count. When we first got it, my older son, who was five at the time, discovered that if he timed his bounce with mine, he could launch higher than if he was jumping on his own.
I remember the first time he called my wife, Kristen, out into the backyard to watch him jump off of my bounce. Now mind you, up until this point he was maybe getting a foot higher because of his new technique. But this one particular time, when my wife was watching for the first time, something freakish happened in the space-time continuum. When he jumped, there was this perfect convergence of his weight and my weight and his jump and my jump, and I’m sure barometric pressure and air temperature had something to do with it too, because he went really high.
I don’t mean a few feet off the mat. I mean he went over my head. Forty pounds of boy, clawing at the air like a cat thrown from a second-story window, and a man making eye-contact with his wife and thinking, This is not good.
She told us she didn’t think our new trick was very safe and we should be careful. Which we were. Until she went inside the house.”

[p.?] “An atheist is a person of tremendous faith. In our discussion about the things that matter most, then, we aren’t talking about faith or no faith. Belief or no belief. We are talking about faith in what? Belief in what? The real question isn’t whether we have it or not, but what we have put it in…
Everybody follows somebody… We got our beliefs from somewhere. We have been formed, every one of us, by this complicated mix of people and places and things…we are each taking all of these influences and living our lives according to which teachings we have made our own.”

[p.12] “They knew that they and others hadn’t gotten it perfect forever. They knew that the things they said and did and wrote and decided would need to be revisited. Rethought. Reworked.”

[p.22 – Springs]
“This is where the springs on the trampoline come in. When we jump, we begin to see the need for springs. The springs help make sense of these deeper realities that drive how we live every day. The springs aren’t God. The springs aren’t Jesus. The springs are statements and beliefs about our faith that help give words to the depth that we are experiencing in our jumping. I would call these the doctrines of the Christian faith.
They aren’t the point.
They help us understand the point, but they are a means and not an end. We take them seriously, and at the same time we keep them in proper perspective…
In fact, its stretch and flex are what make it so effective. It is firmly attached to the frame and the mat, yet it has room to move. And it has brought a fuller, deeper, richer understanding to the mysterious being who is God. Once again, the springs aren’t God. They have emerged over time as people have discussed and studied and experienced and reflected on their growing understanding of who God is. Our words aren’t absolutes. Only God is absolute, and God has no intention of sharing this absoluteness with anything, especially words people have come up with to talk about him. This is something people have struggled with since the beginning: how to talk about God when God is bigger than our words, our brains, our worldviews, and our imaginations.”

[p.25] “If there is a divine being who made everything, including us, what would our experiences with this being look like? The moment God is figured out with nice, neat lines and definitions, we are no longer dealing with God. We are dealing with somebody we made up. And if we made him up, then we are in control. And so, in passage after passage, we find God reminding people that he is beyond and bigger and more.
This truth about God is why study and discussion and doctrines are so necessary. They help us put words to realities beyond words. They give us insight and understanding into the experience of God we’re having. Which is why the springs only work when they serve the greater cause: us finding our lives in God. If they ever become the point, something has gone seriously wrong.”

[p.34, 35] “A trampoline only works if you take your feet off the firm, stable ground and jump into the air and let the trampoline propel you upward. Talking about trampolines isn’t jumping; it’s talking. Two vastly different things. And so we jump and we invite others to jump with us, to live the way of Jesus and see what happens. You don’t have to know anything about the springs to pursue living “the way”.

QUOTING: "A Scandalous Freedom: The Radical Nature of the Gospel"

"Quotes from "A SCANDALOUS FREEDOM" by Steve Brown:

p.7 - "If Jesus said we're free, we ought to accept His declaration at face value and run with it. It ought to help us define ourselves. But it doesn't. Christians will do almost anything to get away from the simple meaning of the word and the wonderful experience of freedom.
Something about freedom scares us to death. We continue in our bondage ~ and that is a major tragedy. It's a tragedy because Christ went to so much trouble to set us free. It is a tragedy because there is so much more to being a Christian than obeying rules, doing religious things, and being "nice". And it is a tragedy because our heritage is freedom..."

p.9 - "A Christian does have an advantage over those who aren't Christians. Not only do we know the truth about what God wants us to do, He provides the power to do it. If we don't have the freedom not to do what He wants, however, we have redefined the word 'freedom'."

p.38 - "Too many Christians blandly accept the clichés of the faith ("Jesus loves me, this I know..") without dealing with the complexity."

p.41 - "Do you want to know what God is like? Then look at Jesus. If you want to know how God reacts to people, look at how Jesus reacted to people."

p.44 - "What we say about God has no bearing on who God really is. I can say that God is the Great Pumpkin, but my declaration doesn't make it so. God remains who He is.
I think it was C.S. Lewis who pointed out, in answer to Freud and others who charged that Christians had created and worshipped a "father" god out of their own desire, that we certainly wouldn't create the God of the Bible. I know that, if I created a god for myself, he would be far safer and far less terrifying than the one in the Bible."

p.64-5 - "Before I gave up, I spent half of my time trying to do something I couldn't do, and the other half of my time trying to convince others that I had done it. It is called hypocrisy, and it's quite human and quite injurious to your sanity...as well as your freedom. That's why I gave it up.
One of my problems is that I like to be liked. I spend most of my social and professional life around Christians, so it is mostly Christians I want to please. Any "real" Christian must say and do certain things, thus ensuring acceptance by the Christian community. You have to subscribe to a certain standard, and live reasonably close to it; you must use certain catchwords popular in the Christian community; and you must never express doubts or ask questions..."

p.68 - "Are you a sinner? Me, too!... But, so is everyone else... Martin Luther, John Wesley, Billy Graham, Mother Theresa, and your pastor. None of us is probably going to get a whole lot better ~ and yet, Jesus is still fond of us."

p.68-9 - "The only people who get better are people that know that, if they never get better, GOD WILL LOVE THEM ANYWAY... God will not only love you if you don't get better, He'll teach you that getting better isn't the issue; His love is the issue."

p.71 - "There really is something neurotic about Christians who spend most of their time trying desperately to please a God who is already very pleased. They don't have any freedom, and they sometimes take away the freedom of others.
...I'm getting better by not trying so hard to be better... when I stopped working so hard at being better and turned to Jesus, that's when, almost without noticing it, I started getting just a little bit better. So, I have decided to get as close as I can to Jesus, who will always love me, even if I don't get any better."

p.76 - "Religion can make people mean, angry, gloomy, critical, judgemental and neurotic. Religion can also become an abuser of Christians. I have seen so many people hurt by religion that sometimes I think it would be better to be a pagan.
Worst of all, religion can keep you from God. It can become the substitute ~ and not a very good one ~ for a relationship with God Himself. Something about institutional Christianity (as necessary as it is) will kill your freedom if you aren't careful.
Whenever a new Christian comes into the church I wince a bit, because I'm afraid that they will get the 'religion disease', that the 'church virus' will kill off the joy and freedom Jesus purchased on the cross to give them."

p.113 - "The church should be a place where we can say anything and know we won't be kicked out, where we can confess our sins knowing others will help us, where we can disagree and still be friends. It ought to be the one place in the world where we don't have to wear masks."

p.108 - "When the requirement for acceptance in any particular group is to think certain thoughts, to act in certain ways, and to fit certain molds ~ and we don't think or act that way, or fit the mold ~ we tend to fake it. We put on a mask that says, 'I'm just like you. Now, will you please love me and accept me?' I can think of hardly anything that will kill your joy and freedom more than wearing a mask geared to get others to accept you because you're acting like them."

p.108 - "Allow me to let you in on a secret: NOBODY fits the mold & most of us wear masks to cause others to think we do. The greatest tragedy of the church is that, in many cases, the most dishonest hour of the week is the hour we spend at church."

p.127 - "Never again would I be so irresponsible as to, without thinking and without questioning, give control of my life to another human being. I would always remember that others don't deserve that kind of worship and unthinking obedience."

p.129 - "You can accept truth & trust authority ONLY if the truth allows questions, and the authority allows challenge."

p.156 - "But, what if it didn't have to be a secret? What if we recognized that the church wasn't a gathering place for saints, but a recovery group for sinners? What if we didn't have to pretend to be good? What if we didn't have anything to protect any more?"

p.163 - "...something a Christian should never forget: The battle is already over. GOD WON. It's final. There is no contest. Our side has already triumphed!"

p.171 - "Christians are dangerous! ...No, not those ones. The real ones... The weenies aren't dangerous. They're irrelevant. But those Christians who've discovered they don't have anything to protect and nothing to lose, who have learned that Jesus is Lord, and that it doesn't matter what others think about them or do to them ~ they are dangerous... REALLY dangerous!"

p.165 - "Whenever religion becomes leverage, it ceases to be the religion of Jesus. The gospel of God's grace takes away the leverage. Why? Because, if I'm forgiven without condition, you can't make me feel guilty. If God loves me, you can't manipulate me by threatening to take away your love. If God knows my secrets and doesn't condemn me, then you can't use my secrets as blackmail."

p.171 - "Jesus didn't die to make Christians 'nice'. Gentle? Yes. Kind? Yes. Loving? Free? Of course! But NOT nice! In fact... you are now free to be bold. Sometimes boldness can be seen as quite offensive."

p.172-173 - "The ministry with which I'm involved (Key Life Network) sponsors a Born Free seminar in various places around the country. Part of that seminar features a section on assertiveness training for Christians. The very fact that it is a part of the seminar creates controversy in some circles. Why, people ask, would Christians need assertiveness training? Aren't Christians supposed to be different from the world? How can assertiveness bring honor to Christ?
The very fact that those questions get asked suggests we have a problem in the church that needs addressing. Something has happened in the church, and it isn't good.
It is not that we don't have some leaders who are aggressive, manipulative, and power hungry. It is not that we don't have neurotics in the church who are
critical, angry and mean. The real problem is that we have people in the church who let these leaders and neurotics get away with being aggressive, manipulative, power hungry, critical, angry and mean.
There is a problem in the world, too. Some people believe that we agree with the "spiritual" nonsense that some people call "Christian", with worldviews
that destroy and imprison the poor and the wounded, with silly propositions passed as truth, and with shallow thinking that passes for philosophy. Our problem is that we have said nothing to disabuse people of such views....
This chapter addresses the question "Why are we so bound and so imprisoned that we feel afraid to speak up, stand up, and be Christ's witness in the church
and in the world?...
In other words, if we're free, why don't we use our freedom to be bold?"

p.173 - "Try it. Just say 'no' (without explanation). And then wait. Since the Christian subculture expects you to explain yourself, the person who asks will wait for your explanation. But, you don't need to give one. Just let your 'no' be 'no'. (Matthew 5:37; James 5:12)."

p.176-177 - "The church is supposed to be the place where honesty is a given. The church is supposed to be the testing place for the people of God where a filter of supernatural love cleanses & purifies ~ but doesn't eliminate ~ godly expressions of honesty, criticism, and even harshness. In the church, we are supposed to understand the idiocy of worshipping at human, fallible & silly alters. If we don't understand this when we're with the people of God, then how are we going to be an asset to our culture ~ the place to which Jesus called us?"

p.185 - "Do you want to know something that will make you both free and bold in proclaiming the truth? Desire to be understood, and then take steps to make sure that those who don't know Christ can grasp the reality of what you believe."

QUOTING: "The Barbarian Way: Unleash the Untamed Faith Within"

Quotes from "THE BARBARIAN WAY" by Erwin Raphael McManus:

p.70 - "The more your identity is rooted in GOD'S value for you, the less you are controlled and limited by what others think of you."

p.44 - "...to walk in the character of Christ is always the right choice, regardless of outcome or consequence."

p.16 - "...Jesus did not suffer and diet so that we could build for ourselves havens, but so that we might expand the kingdom of His love."

p.47 - "True religion always moves us to serve others and to give our lives to see those oppressed find freedom."

p.48 - "I wonder how many of us have lost our barbarian way and have become embittered with God, confused in our faith because God doesn't come through the way we think He should."

p.59 - "John [the Baptist] didn't fit into the organized religion of his time because God didn't fit either."

p.48 - "Jesus' death wasn't to free us from dying, but to free us from the fear of death. Jesus came to liberate us so that we could die up front and then live. Jesus Christ wants to take us to places where only dead men and women can go."

p.53 - "A world without God cannot wait for us to choose the safe path. If we wait for someone else to take the risk, we risk that no one will ever act and that nothing will ever be accomplished."

p.60-61, 63 - "...He spoke only what He heard the Father saying and did only what He saw the Father doing. He called His disciples to make this their pattern for living... we have to learn to see the invisible, and hear the inaudible... to know the barbarian way, you must receive your instructions from God Himself."

p.64 - "Discipleship is translated into standardizing everyone into the same pattern. We have equated the promise that we would be conformed into the image of Christ with a belief that all of us will be the same. Discipleship has become the mechanism for uniformity rather than uniqueness.
Yet, if we learn anything about God through John, it is that God has no problem with spiritual eccentrics. The point, of course, is not that God makes us mentally or emotionally imbalanced, but that He makes us passionately and spiritually unbalanced. God steers us in the direction of His kingdom, His purpose, His passions. His desire is not to conform us, but to transform us. [Romans 12:2] Not to make us compliant, but to make us creative. His intent is never to domesticate us, but to liberate us."

p.66 - "I think there's a problem when people talk about meeting God or knowing God, and yet remain unchanged."

p.66 - "You are not intended to be a spiritual zoo where people can look at God in you from a safe distance. You are a jungle where the Spirit roams wild and free in your life! You are the recipient of the God who cannot be tamed and of a faith that must not be tamed. You are no longer a prisoner of time and space, but a citizen of the Kingdom of God ~ a resident of the barbarian tribe. God is not a sedative that keeps you calm and under control by dulling your senses. He does quite the opposite. He awakens your spirit to be truly alive...you are most fully alive when you're on an adventure with God!"

p.69 - "When you join the barbarian tribe, you begin to live your life with your eyes and your heart wide open. When the Spirit of God envelops your soul, your spirit comes alive, and everything changes for you. You are no longer the same. And, to those who cannot see the invisible, to those who refuse to believe it exists, the path you choose, the life you live, may lead them to conclude that you are not simply different but insane. People who are fully alive look out-of-their-minds to those who simply exist."

p.82 - "...a Spirit tribe... this tribe would bear evidence of His Spirit. They would be God-taught, God-moved, and God-inspired.
Our spiritual legacy is that we belong to the barbarian tribe."

p.101 - "We are called to fear ONLY God."

p.101 - "What we fear is what we're subject to; our fears define our master."

p.101 - "When we fear God and God only, we are no longer bound by all of the other fears that would hold us captive. The fear of death, the fear of failure, the fear of rejection, the fear of insignificance ~ all...become powerless when we know the fear of the Lord... Perfect love casts out all fear."

p.128 - "It is true that the enemy will essentially leave you alone if you are domesticated. He will not waste his energy destroying a civilized religion. If anything, he uses his energy to promote such activity. Religion can be one of the surest places to keep us from God. When our faith becomes refined, it is no longer dangerous to the dark kingdom."

p.128 - "Barbarians, on the other hand, are not to be trusted. They respect no borders that are established by powers or principalities. They have but one King, our LORD, and one mission. They are insolent enough to crash the gates of hell."

p.133 - "I am saying that we need to find the courage & freedom to be ourselves. We need to let ourselves become the unique individuals that God created us to be. We need to stop trying to be what everyone else wants us to be, and stop worrying about what everyone else thinks. Barbarians live as if they are naked before God, and naked before men. They have nothing to hide; they don't waste their time or energy pretending to be something they're not."

p.122 - "If our children are going to walk away from Christ, we need to raise them in such a way that they understand that to walk away from Jesus is to walk away from a life of faith, risk, and adventure, and to choose a life that is boring, mundane and ordinary.
For Aaron, the jump was fraught with danger. From my vantage point I could see that, though the jump was terrifying, he would find himself triumphant. It was important that he jumped, and perhaps even more important that he knew me as the kind of father who would always call him to greater endeavors rather than send him back to the safe place."

"You cannot meet the Creator of the universe
and remain the same."

(p.65)

The Emerging Church ~ Not all it's cracked up to be

For the past couple of days I've been reading everything I can get my hands on about the Emerging Church. I originally really liked its basic principles and wholeheartedly agreed with most of it! ... But there *were* some little "red flags" going up in my mind about parts of its claims.

Much as I agree with the ideas of using more contemporary methods to reach out to the population and bring them to Christ... evangelism... I don't agree with the EC people that claim that the Bible isn't wholely true (it is), and who say that Truth can't be known (it can -- John 8:32).

I read a couple of articles that really had me wondering:

* The Emergent Mystique (by A. Crouch - Christianity Today)

* Emerging Confusion (C. Colson - Christianity Today)

* Evangelical Drift (C. Colson - Christianity Today) ... not necessarily about EC, but still somewhat related.

But, it was this review that really clinched it for me. I am not fully going to buy into the Emerging Church "conversation" (as they call it).

I cannot condone a method that denies the absolute inerrancy of God's Word (the Bible), or that questions the basic foundations of the Christian faith.

I do agree that certain aspects of how we do church need to be changed. The church has, as the ECers say, "become a place where we go to get our needs met". It has become a place where people are afraid to step on other people's toes, so-to-speak.

I really like what Steve Brown writes in "A Scandalous Freedom", "go ahead ... upset people!"

I like the ideas of using PowerPoint presentations, narrative stories (sometimes), poetry, art, and other means to make worshipping God more "attractive" to those who are seeking. We shouldn't be "stuffy" and "unapproachable". That's probably why I like the church I'm in now... they use an overhead projector for the song lyrics, instead of using hymnals (though, the hymnals are still present in the pews). And, they have a nice blend of contemporary music and the older hymns. The pastor isn't afraid to be "real" with his congregation... he readily admits his failings & shortcomings right up there in the pulpit! :o) And, one of the things I love best about my pastor? He reads books like Rob Bell's "Velvet Elivs" -- even controversial ones like Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code"! -- and isn't afraid to say he likes them! :o)

I can't deny it -- I still love books by the Emergent Church "followers". I loved "Velvet Elvis", "A Scandalous Freedom", and "The Barbarian Way". I'm currently reading one called "Jesus, Mean & Wild" by Mark Galli. I'll continue to read them. And, I love the idea of challenging "the static orthodoxy" (quoted from this article). But, only to an extent.