The definition of "Disposable Income"

Especially the intro screen - talk about effective marketing! This was forwarded to me by an old college friend.

http://www.cleanishappy.com/

I found myself bored and played "which butt belongs to which person?" Stellar use of my life.

Review of Velvet Elvis

I have been trying to put together occasional book reviews, since I'm kind of addicted to reading. Below is a review of The Velvet Elvis which I penned some time ago. Enjoy.

Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith

Rob Bell

Zondervan, 2005

$14.99 (paperback)

I have the tendency to immediately reject membership in any movement, Christian or otherwise, which has a name. Terms such as Emergent or Post-Modern already threaten to be the latest and greatest catch-phrases through which to define a generation. Maybe I, like most of “my generation”, just don’t like to be pigeon-holed or placed in a paradigm that would serve to define (read: limit) me. Though the Velvet Elvis has been considered by some to be a work belonging to the Emergent movement, one quickly gathers from Rob Bell that such a movement is not actually a new idea at all.

This book is divided into ideas, simple divisions of thought. It reads much the way a conversation might read between two similarly minded people. Perhaps those having the insight/foresight to recognize a “Christian” paradigm when they spot it. Through the scope of the biggest gun they can find. Then having the courage to pull the trigger and see what happens.

But Bell would argue that this is not new. According to him, this is the way it was always intended to be. Bell compares living the Christian faith to art, to an epic work-in-progress, and as such he argues that we need our space, our room to work. That we must be allowed to wrestle with big questions and, perhaps, even disagree with the answers that someone else, no matter how distinguished, has wrought from his or her journey. As he puts it,

“For thousands of years followers of Jesus, like artists, have understood that we

have to keep going, exploring what it means to live in harmony with God and

each other…Jesus took part in this process by calling people to rethink faith and

the Bible and hope and love and everything else, and by inviting them into the

endless process of working out how to live as God created us to live.” (pg. 11)

I suspect one reason for Velvet Elvis’ growing popularity is simply that Bell is able to succinctly pen the sentiment of frustration and rising indignancy which many now associate with established Christian “culture”. It strikes Bell as offensive that so many have been told not to think, “or if you must, at least think the way WE think”.

Some of the statements within the book can come across as too simplistic, such as when Bell seems to boast of his ministry’s lack of planning and absence of vision statement. It is clear from reading the book that Bell’s ministry does, in fact, have a vision, and a very powerful one. The vision statement could be the book itself.

As mentioned, Bell’s volume is fairly brief, and at $14.99 I would recommend first attempting to borrow a copy from a friend or library. The ideas are not new, but rather reminders of what faith is supposed to be: a work in progress. We must be allowed to paint our own picture. I especially like that Bell emphasizes good hermeneutics and Biblical scholarship as essential pieces of the journey, as otherwise his philosophy could be mistaken for touchy-feely, make-your-own-faith, New Age rubbish. But it is not. It is, it seems to me, founded upon truth, and the desire to search out that truth. To dig Truth out from its lair.

Rob Bell

Last evening, some of us went to see Rob Bell speak in Denver. His topic was "The Gods Aren't Angry", and he went to some pains to detail what he believes is a universal, deep-seeded belief common to all humans that there are forces which must be appeased. These forces are ambivalent, fickle, arbitrary, and above all you never know where you stand with them. And then the God of Abraham enters human history, and begins to reveal the way to Itself - a God who is perfectly fair, and who will let you know exactly where you fit in Its benevolent plan.

It was really his conclusion which impressed me the most. He ended by repeating the phrase, "It doesn't have to be like this", over and over. This phrase, which referred to an earlier story in his message, also stood alone as a striking metaphor of how we *think* things work, and how they actually work in God's system (the "Kingdom").

Since last night, I have found myself thinking of people in my life I'd like to sit down with. I'd like to look in their eyes. And I would pray peace over them. I would tell them, like Rob Bell, that it doesn't have to be like this.

I hope to have some of those conversations really soon.

Hooking Up...?

I have read a multitude of articles lately dealing with the topic of "hooking up", suddenly the media has gotten a hold of this concept that, they are aching to tell me, permeates my age group and those younger.

Most recently, a new book detailing the post-"baby boomer" generation (I guess that's me, I don't think the definition of "baby boomer" was ever all that solid, much less those that come afterwards...) talks about the severe absence of commitment and true relationship, instead focusing on casual hook-ups.

So I'm sitting here thinking about this idea (reality?), and how God's plan involves our coming back into relationship with Him and with one another. I really despise it when Christians or media folks try and simplify the indecision that is clearly so prevalent among my peers.

Many of these articles bemoan the disappearance of "dating". Well, what the hell is dating? No one seems to be able to even define it anymore. I was told in my "young Christian" days that dating was bad anyways, so why are we now so concerned at its disappearance?

No one knows the rules - Lord knows I sure don't. So we struggle through the mire of our need, grasping in the darkness from our innate and most desperate need: to feel connection, any connection, to those around us. We, as a culture, have lots of missing pieces in our relationship skills.

This doesn't make "hooking up" in the sexual arenas right, in fact I feel that this causes us to "miss the mark" with God and one another. But I wish that, while speaking against this behaviour, we would also seek to understand why it is that some choose to hook up. I think I get it.

We as the church must never be naive or dismissive, as the church so often has. How many times I have heard the pithy advice "just turn it over to Jesus". When what Jesus really wants is for us to lead the way back to Him and one another, to get our hands and feet dirty with the work of connecting. It's damn hard work - I have a hard enough time with my own relationships. But I am reminded this week that it is my struggles, my failures and successes with relationships, that are preparing me to lead others to one another.

And wow, do I need that reminder this week...God help us all to CONNECT...