This evening, I finished reading the book, "Velvet Elvis" by Rob Bell. I highly recommend this book, if you are exhausted with religion-as-usual. I know I am.
Mind you, it's not that I'm cynical. I'm really not. I'm filled with hope... hope that we can grow beyond the Americanized, drive-thru version of christianity that is so prevalent in our bookstores, on our radios and all over our televisions. Hope that people will recognize the revolution of love that is taking place in the hearts of believers everywhere - people who are done with that whole "give to get" mentality, and replacing it with the "give to love" idea that Jesus made so popular in his day.
Maybe self-help christianity has its place. But the hope I have is not founded so much in the idea that God will help me. No, my hope is that God might actually be able to use me in blessing someone else. And people like Rob Bell have helped me come to that realization.
Granted, he gets some flack for alleged heretical theology (most of which is solid thought, twisted out-of-context, for the sake of accusation). I don't buy into any of that. All I know is that I've met the man. I've followed his teaching. And he's helped me a lot.
Here's a great example:
I believe that greatness IS inside each of us. And the only way to really get it out is to let it flow out, into the lives of those around us. Of course, that's not the easy way. It's the christian way. And it's what we're called to.
Mind you, it's not that I'm cynical. I'm really not. I'm filled with hope... hope that we can grow beyond the Americanized, drive-thru version of christianity that is so prevalent in our bookstores, on our radios and all over our televisions. Hope that people will recognize the revolution of love that is taking place in the hearts of believers everywhere - people who are done with that whole "give to get" mentality, and replacing it with the "give to love" idea that Jesus made so popular in his day.
Maybe self-help christianity has its place. But the hope I have is not founded so much in the idea that God will help me. No, my hope is that God might actually be able to use me in blessing someone else. And people like Rob Bell have helped me come to that realization.
Granted, he gets some flack for alleged heretical theology (most of which is solid thought, twisted out-of-context, for the sake of accusation). I don't buy into any of that. All I know is that I've met the man. I've followed his teaching. And he's helped me a lot.
Here's a great example:
"Most of the messages we receive are about how to make life easier. The call of Jesus goes the other direction: It's about making our lives more difficult. It's going out of our way to be more generous & disciplined & loving & free. It is refusing to escape and become numb to and check-out-of this broken, fractured world.
"And so we are embracing the high demands of Jesus' call to be one of his disciples. We are honest about it. We want our friends to know up front that the costs are high, which is what is so appealing about Jesus - his vision for life takes everything we have.
"In the accounts of Jesus' life, often the larger the crowds get, the more demanding and difficult his teachings get... He is constantly trying to find out who really wants it. And so he keeps pushing and prodding and questioning and putting it out there until some leave and the diehards stay. We never find him chasing someone, trying to convince them that he really wasn't that serious, that it was just a figure of speech... If anybody didn't have a Messiah-complex, it was Jesus.
"This is what we are dying for - something that demands we step up and become better, more focused people. Something that calls out the greatness that we hope is somewhere inside of us." ('Velvet Elvis' - Rob Bell, p.169)
I believe that greatness IS inside each of us. And the only way to really get it out is to let it flow out, into the lives of those around us. Of course, that's not the easy way. It's the christian way. And it's what we're called to.
1 comment:
You write very well.
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