this morning was the first sunday in almost a year that i have enjoyed being at church. it was the first time we went to this community and we were warmly greeted by some of the members.
for this, i am thankful.
Filed under: books, church | Tags: church, eucharist, jesus wants to save christians, rob bell
i just finished re-reading rob bell’s book – jesus wants to save christians. i started rereading it late last week and finished it while flying across the country last night.
my second read of it was probably enlightening than the first. i found myself re-examining my own perceptions and desires of what i thought (or wanted) church to be. i’ve been reminded frequently as of late how the church often gets caught up in the “consumer” mentality of our culture. i had lunch recently with someone where i heard as clear as day, that our primary means for doing church is about what makes us comfortable. i wish i could say that i was exaggerating this, but the same sentence was repeated over and over. many of churches are ignoring jesus’ plea to clothe the naked and feed the hungry – because it makes us uncomfortable.
i’m not sure that jesus ever wanted us to be “comfortable.”
maybe that’s what he means when he says, “do this in remembrance of me.” the “do this” part is our lives. opening ourselves up to the mystery of resurrection, open for the liberation of others, allowing our bodies to be broken and our blood to be poured, discovering our eucharist. listening. and going.
because when we do this in remembrance of him,
the world will never be the same;
we will never be the same.
now that is a manifesto.
‘jesus wants to save christians’, pg 181
for churches with a band, why is the band at the front with everyone looking at them?
any answers/thoughts?
Filed under: church, culture | Tags: buddhism, christian, culture, hinduism, muslim, new monasticism, preachers
i was thinking this afternoon about my question last night -
has the church gone too far in trying to reach out to the culture around it?
thoughts?
there seems to be an abundance of conferences and events on making the church more relevant to the culture and many experts giving lectures on how we can impact our community better. i’ve yet to see leaders in the muslim, hindu and buddhist faiths spending money and time on being more relevant – and yet those are the three growing religions in the world.
of those people i know who follow one of those faiths, they say that they continue to follow the rules and traditions since their beginnings. i had a long conversation with someone who had converted to buddhism later in life and he said how much he appreciated the ancient traditions of praying throughout the day and actually felt like he was more connect with God than when he followed the christian traditions that he was raised in.
is there something that is appealing about the traditional ancient ways of expressing our faith in Jesus? in some places across north america, there is a emergence of a “new monasticism” – a form of living in community and following some of the ancient forms of worship.
it seems that in our current christian climate, our focus is on meeting our needs – “what time of church will serve me?”, “what can this place offer me?”. additionally, a growing number of people are part of church communities simply because they have a connection with the pastor or those in leadership, almost creating a christian celebrity mentality. i heard once from a friend who was organizing an event, that because of one of the local pastors would be participating, they’d be guaranteed to have a large response to this event.
its interesting how it seems that it is only within the christian faith, that our leaders are celebrities and we pay large amount of money to read something that they’ve written or watch a tv show because they’ve mentioned it in a sunday message.
have we gone too far?
