Chapters 2 & 3 Thoughts...

Hey amigos y amigas,

Well, it's been sorta quiet around here lately, but I'm sure it's because we're all overwhelmed by our day-to-days lately. I've gotten caught up with the book here, so I thought I'd toss out some random thoughts on chapters 2 & 3. (I think we should technically be through chapter 4 by the end of this week, but who cares... this isn't a college course for goodness sake... let's just take on chapter 4 next week:-)

| Chapter 2 |

I resonate with his two preoccupying questions: #1) What are the biggest problems in the world? #2) What does Jesus have to say about these global problems?

I've found myself burdened by these questions over recent months... I've found it to be kind of an awkward place to be spiritually & mentally (which McLaren touches on... the whole notion of feeling the polarization of opinions and feeling mostly burdened without much direction). I think I've also found it awkward because it really creates a stark contrast to my lifestyle and the culture we live in.

As an example, the other day I checked in at the New York Times (should have taken a screenshot), and the banner article was identified by an image of a Somali mother who was starving to death because she was foregoing food so that her children could eat what little they did have. Slightly lower on the NYT homepage, on the side margin, was a glamor-shot of Charlize Theron as a link to an article all about her celebrity lifestyle. The contrast made my stomach sink. I've saw an in-depth interview with Theron a couple years ago, and based on what I saw, I think that she would have also been sincerely disturbed by the contrast inadvertently displayed by the NYT (particularly as an African herself).

Who gives a damn about the celebrity scene when confronted with the reality of starving mothers and children?? Unfortunately, these types of backward priorities are what we're spoon-fed from a young age by our culture. A culture that teaches us to think, "Yeah, so there are 'people' dying from starvation... OK... but what I'm really interested in is who designed that dress that she wore to the awards ceremony." I'm speculating, but I would guess that the Charlize Theron image got more clicks than the Somali food crisis story. That's just the way it is in our culture... and I don't want to be a part of it anymore. [whew... didn't intend to get into all of that...]
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I also resonated with the notion that western Christianity (in my personal experience) has been severely limited to an individual bias with regard to the application of the good news. I think it's Greg Boyd who calls this the "me & my personal Jesus" perspective. Me & my personal Jesus workin' on my sins, my dreams, my prayer requests, my salvation. It's not that it's unfounded, but rather that it is only a fraction of the Gospel... and arguably a minor fraction in comparison to the implications of Jesus's teachings and actions for all of creation.
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I got excited as I read about McLaren's encounters with Claude Nikondeha and his wife Kelley Johnson because they live here in Arizona, and Kelley has emailed us with interest to become involved in our Emerging Desert cohort upon their return from Africa later this summer. They are the heads of what is now the Amahoro Africa organization (which I assume we will hear more about later in the book).

| Chapter 3 |

McLaren's retelling of Claude's talk in Burundi was very powerful. (I'll leave it at that, for my 2 cents)

I like the discussion questions at the end of each chapter. I'll post a couple that particularly got me wanting to hear some of y'all's (is that a word? maybe in TX...) thoughts, responses, reactions:

- Could you relate to Justine's response to the conversation about the kingdom of God?

- What questions are raised for you at this point in your reading? What does your reading so far have you thinking about? Is there anything that bothers you, concerns you, or especially interests you?

Seek Ye First...

I am caught up on the book reading…really…and I have thoughts about it, to…but I don’t have my book with me today, so I’m not quite prepared to post my thoughts on that yet.

However, I was reading from “My Utmost for His Highest” this morning, and I thought it was really applicable to all we’ve been discussing and thinking about regarding God’s kingdom and how we live our lives. I’ve pulled the parts that I thought were most significant. (Well, it’s really most of it…)

Divine Reasonings of Faith, My Utmost for His Highest (May 21)

“But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” 

-        Matthew 6:33

“We look at these words…[and] we argue in exactly the opposite way – “But I must live, I must make so much money, I must be clothed, I must be fed.” The great concern of our lives is not the kingdom of God, but how we are to fit ourselves to live. Jesus reverses the order…

“Take no thought for your life…” Our Lord points out the utter unreasonableness from His standpoint of being so anxious over means of living. Jesus is not saying that the man who takes thought for nothing is blessed – that man is a fool. Jesus taught that a disciple has to make his relationship with God the dominating concentration of his life, and to be carefully careless about everything else in comparison to that…Some people are careless over what they eat and drink, and they suffer for it; they are careless about what they wear, and they look as they have no business to look; they are careless about their earthly affairs, and God holds them responsible. Jesus is saying that the great care of the life is to put the relationship to God first, and everything else second.

“It is one of the severest disciplines of the Christian life to allow the Holy Spirit to bring us into harmony with the teaching of Jesus in these verses.”

Isn’t this the constant pull we find ourselves in? Isn’t this what we started this blog about in the first place? What does it mean to seek after God’s kingdom? How are we to live in light of God’s kingdom? Where is the balance in focusing the attention of our lives, and how do we truly “seek God first”?

It truly is a struggle for me not to put myself first. There is not much in my life that prevents me from putting myself first. That’s why I love the last sentence of the passage from today, it is a discipline to allow God to change my heart about these things. I also love what he said about the man who takes thought for nothing being a fool – I think that so often this idea is romanticized in Christian culture today. I am more inclined to agree with Chambers in that it doesn’t mean to stop living your life, it means to rightly align your priorities in life. And maybe that means denying yourself certain things, but I think there is a fine line of being “careless” just to say you don’t care, and to put God and His kingdom and calling first in your life.

There was another section from My Utmost a couple of weeks ago that talked about habits, and making our habits with God unconscious. It’s hard to explain, but one of the examples he used was something like, “I don’t have time to do that, I have to spend my hour with God.” To which Chambers replied, “No, you have to spend your hour with your habit.”

As we look to change our lives to seek after God and His kingdom and His righteousness, let’s truly do that! Fix our eyes on HIM, not on the specific lifestyles or habits that we’re forming, or even the “good things” we’re doing. THEN everything else will fall in place.

I don’t really have any obscure or earth-shattering thoughts on this verse or the commentary. It just really spoke to me, and made me think twice (well, it’s been more than twice…) about how I live my life in relationship to God and His kingdom.

book

Hey guys...

How is everyone?

Just wanted to encourage us all to be praying for Asia. I'm sure you've heard what's been happening. If not just got to cnn.com.

Hope you guys are well. : )

J MO

has everyone got the book yet? since there were no posts last week, let's do chapter 2 again this week. cool?

Yes Adam Yes

I got excited reading you email. I resonate with all you said about the rich and poor, our role, God's role, and humility. It's interesting that you use quotes from Irresistable revelation. We're talking about that in my spirituality class right now. Specifically we're talking about the spirituality of the poor. Anyhow, I won't go into that but here's what I took away from the first chapter and thoughts on Irresistable Rev:

Like prophets before (including Dr. Dorsett : )), it comes back to counting the cost.
"Narrow is the way and few are those who chose to follow" (as used all the time by Dr. Dorsett). When seeking the narrow way the biggest issues for me are issues with comfort, security, and finances. Remember the rich young ruler? i don't want to be him. This first chapter in Everything Must Change made me think that it boils down to the narrow way.

Anyhow, short but sweet.


Reminder, this week we're on chapter 2 of the book. Let's be better at posting our thoughts for this chapter. : )

Why? How? What?

Hey all,

This is awesome. Just got done reading through the first chapter of the book, and I'm very hopeful about what we're embarking on here. I'm looking forward to reading through McLaren's thoughts, challenges, and ideas, but even more so, I'm looking forward to hearing and learning from all of your perspectives, emotions, and leadings.

To continue on the from the comment I left on Beth's post, I thought I'd throw out some ideas that both Beth's words and the first chapter of the book brought-up for me.

Why? How? What? Three questions that I think we're all going to being asking (somewhat rhetorically) a lot more as we work through the book (and life in general). And as we try to sort through this mess of questions and confusion in search of solutions and justice, I think Beth rightly feels led to look at the root of the problems, to see the interconnectedness of these systemic sins, rather than only at the isolated cases of injustice. In the course of this search, we come across fantastic organizations & initiatives like KIVA, D.A.T.A. & the ONE Campaign, UNDP, Ashoka, etc., and I often get really excited as I learn about these budding innovations that are gaining momentum in addressing these incredibly complex situations which move beyond non-progressive "band-aid" actions. Yet, as I recently mentioned to the guys on our 519 blog, I've also found myself getting carried away in the sheer challenge of addressing these problems, subconsciously subordinating my faith in Jesus to my faith in the ability of man... or to say it another way, I start to get so caught-up in the rally of human efforts to feed mouths, eradicate diseases, and build economies that I've found it easy to lose sight of our conviction that the freedom of love found in Jesus is the true hope of the world. Not that these pursuits aren't worth the dedication of our lives and careers (because they certainly are), but it's a good reminder for me to know that true justice and healing will come from the expansion of the Kingdom rather than simply from increased giving from the developed world... and I'm constantly shown that the expansion of the Kingdom starts with change in my own life. (sorry, that was a lot of rambling, and I'm not even sure if it makes sense...)

All of that to say that I'm looking forward to seeing how McLaren sets-up what he calls the "framing story" for viewing the crises of our generation from a Christ-following perspective. I have hopes that the ideas that we discuss here will somehow shape the direction that Tara and I will take with our [growing!] family in the coming months. As we grapple with potentially moving and looking for a new job, I've found myself mulling-over the following quotes from Shane Claiborne's Irresistible Revolution quite a bit lately:

"We can admire and worship Jesus without doing what he did. We can applaud what he preached and stood for without caring about the same things. We can adore his cross without taking up ours. I had come to see that the great tragedy in the church is not that rich Christians do not care about the poor but that rich Christians do not know the poor. " (113)

"It’s no wonder that the footsteps of Jesus lead from the tax collectors to the lepers. I truly believe that when the poor meet the rich, riches will have no meaning. And when the rich meet the poor, we will see poverty come to an end." (114)