Revolution!?

I am currently reading the book Revolution by George Barna. It is an interesting book that reflects on a Christian movement in which people are coming to Christ and living as Disciples through routes other than the local church. He writes about churches that come out of family groups, home school circles and other groups. His critics claim that the book spends a lot of time bashing established local churches. I don't think Barna is slamming local churches, but he does question the role that local churches play in one's faithfulness to living a life of Christ.

For example he talks about "people who are growing as Christians and passionate about their faith have come to recognize that the local church is not--and need not be--the epicenter of their spiritual journey." (p. 58) Really?!?

Their are many mainline Christian denominations that are struggling for membership. Since the 1968 merger that created the United Methodist Church, our overall membership has gone down every year. Why?

This book raises a lot of questions, and does not necessarily provide the answers. Barna points out that there is a movement of revolutionaries who are growing in faith and living Christ-like lives that do not see the need of a local church to do so.

His book raises a lot of questions:

• Is the local church relevant anymore?
• Is there something that we should be doing that we are not doing?
• Does change require some sacrifice as to what we hold as tradition?
• Just because someone is a member of the local church, does that make them a true disciple of Jesus Christ?
• Are we willing to look at what is working in some of these small group environments and implement them in our churches?

If any of this interests you, I recommend you check the book out. Otherwise, I'll be using a few quotes from the book in my sermon on Sunday. It's definitely gets you thinking about the role of the church in being a disciple of Christ.

unChristian

I just finished reading the book unChristian. I found it to be a fascinating book, and I found it a book that really got me thinking about the role that I play in: (1) helping to make disciples of Christ for the transformation of the world and (2) how do I help the perception of Christians.

This book interviewed non-Christians to get a sense of what their perceptions were of Christianity. They took the major themes and wrote about them. The major perceptions are:

1. Hypocritical - Christians say one thing but live something entirely different.
2. Get Saved! - Christians are insincere and concerned only with converting others.
3. Antihomosexual - Christians show contempt for gays and lesbians.
4. Sheltered - Christians are boding, unintelligent, old-fashioned, and out of touch with reality.
5. Too Political - Christians are primarily motivated by a political agenda and promote right-wing politics.
6. Judgmental - Christians are prideful and quick to find fault in others.

Although painful to admit, many of these perceptions are dead on. And any Christian should read this so they get a sense of where we are right now as a religion. We have lost our way and need to figure out how to change. If we want to reach out to a younger generation, this is a must read.

Rick Warren, when asked where he'd like to see Christianity in 30 years says, "My dream is that thirty years from now, the church will be known more by what it is for than what it is against For some time now now, the hands and feet of the body of Christ have been amputated, and we've been pretty much reduced to a big mouth. We talk far more than we do. It's time to reattach the limbs and let the church be the church in the twenty-first century.".

Amen.