Revelation

Image by ehpien via Flickr

There has been a rising source of tension in my life recently. The small group that I am involved with in my neighborhood. We can't seam to settle on what exactly we are doing. We seam float around from one idea to another. Every idea seams to be just as revolutionary as the next. But today I realized that this group is different from any other that I have been in and perhaps am the one who should change.

Most small groups are content spending each week politely discussing a topic and moving on to a new topic the next week. Not this group. My friends add the extra step of dreaming up big ways of how these new ideas can be integrated into our lives.

I realize that I have been wanting complacency and the status-quo, when others are inviting me to dream for a bigger more fulfilled life.

The Shack - Book Review

Cover of The Shack

While on vacation I started reading the book "The Shack" by William P. Young. This has been a widely popular book sense it has come out even making it to the NY Times Best Sellers list.

On one hand I can understand why. The Shack attempts to explain everything anyone would want to know about God. How does the Trinity work. Why did Jesus have to die. What is Gods plain for the world. And the most important question in the book, why is there pain in the world.

As for myself I did not like the book. To me The Shack seamed to be one persons attempt to spread their own theology. What little plot that exists is only there to support the long philosophical arguments about God.

Undoubtedly some will find this very helpful, but I feel this book is a snapshot of some of what is wrong with Christianity today. To often we seek the easy answers, the explanations that will satisfy our deepest questions. What I find fascinating about Jesus is that his narratives were different.

Jesus spoke in parables. Short story's that explained little, but drew the listener into into a deeper questioning. The Shack reads as if some one is preaching to you rather than asking you to question more.

iWoz - Book Review

Cover via Amazon

I recently finished reading the book iWoz; How I Invented the Personal Computer, Co-founded Apple, and Had Fun Doing It. This is the autobiography of Steve Woznaik. I found this book to be a delight, not only because it is an easy read, but because it also feeds my fascination Apple computers.

In reading this book I was fascinated with how passionate Woz is. Wither it is engineering, education or parenting, he throws all he has at the task at hand. You can almost feel his grittiness as you read the storeys from his youth. I wish I had half of his enthusiasm.

One of my favorite bible passages is about the sheep and the goats. In it Jesus makes the point that we may be surprised at who gets into heaven. I wouldn't be surprised if Woz is up there. Although respecting Jesus, he is not a "Christian". But this does not stop him from giving generously in many circumstances; selling apple stock to employees who didn't get any before the IPO, putting on a rock concert even though he lost 12 million dollars, teaching computer classes at his kids school. He even has a street names after him in San Jose because of all his philanthropy.

My only critique is that in his zeal for engineering he often descried, in some detail, the engineering projects he worked on. This sometimes got tedious, especially for someone without an engineering background, but those parts are easy enough to pass over.

Ps...then looking at pictures of Woz, especially during the 80's & 90's he reminds me of my father. The could easily be mistaken for brothers.

Let's take Jesus out of his packaging

Image by bookgrl via Flickr

The other day a friend told me a story. Apparently some college professors wanted to use the Shane Claiborne's book "Jesus for President" as a starting point for a class the were going to teach.

It resulted in a couple of students committing to spend the year getting a homeless man off the streets. What surprises me is not so much that they were successful, but that their teachers were shocked that their students would do such a thing.

My question is this. What is the state of religious teaching in the church if professors would be so shocked. What are we expecting students to get out of religious training if not to become more like Jesus. Why do we care so much about teaching Greek and systematic theology? Sure these are important things but they are not as great as a group of college kids learning to be more like Jesus.

Let's take Jesus out of the box we package him in and see what happens.

Life is funny

Last night our group, (I'm not sure what you would call us, house church, organic church, small group......whatever) came full circle. We have been talking about doing a relational tithe, (sometimes called a giving circle) for a while now. Last night we hashed out some of the details. One detail was about how we will give. It was noted that walking in the door and handing someone a few bucks before the meeting started didn't seam to do the act justice. It was suggested that perhaps we could make some sort of meaningful ritual out of the act of giving. (We were careful avoid the word offering.)

The discussion of how we would collect the money was interesting also. There were three suggestions: A promotional Tequila cowboy hat, a baseball cap with the Borat catch phrase "Sexy Time" on it, or a glass jar. We settled on the glass jar although the "Sexy Time" cap was a close second.

Life is funny, we spend so much time and energy forging our own path. Questioning and critiquing the actions of our forefathers just to come around full circle to appreciate that traditions we once scorned.

Book Review - A Year of Living Biblically

Cover of The Year of Living Biblically

This evening I finished reading the book "A Year of Living Biblically", by A.J. Jacobs. It was a delightful read in the emerging style of immersion journalism that is quite popular these days, resulting in an insightful and hilarious book.

Jacobs spends the year following the Jewish and Christian rules that he gathers from the bible, trying his hardest to take the most literal interpretation possible. Over the course of the year he manages to stone an adulterer, go to a snake handling service, travel to Israel, and refrain from shaving his beard.

To give away the ending of his book, Jacobs concludes with idea that we are all following our own interpenetration of the Bible, cafeteria style. A much as we would like to think that myself (and others like me) are following the bible correctly to some degree we are all picking and choosing (interpreting for ourselves) how we will follow the bible.

If I am honest with myself, I have to agree with Jacobs. How can we expect to follow all the the rules the bible sets out for us. We all have those parts of the bible that we love and cherish, and those parts that we choose to hold at a distance. And maybe this isn't so bad. As the the Apostle Paul says "Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known" Perhaps we aren't suppose to know how it all fits together. Perhaps it's ok if we hold closer to the things we can understand and that move us.

And A.J. just in case if you read this review..........helmet.