Disclaimer: In my creating this blog-thingy I inadvertantly created two accounts and this is the post from the other blog (which no longer exists, thanks to my beautiful and smart wife).
Thanks to my friend, Keith from work, I have again found the love for reading. I don't think I even knew that i had lost it, but after reading the first chapter of "The Church on the Other Side", I remember how excited I used to get. I think this is McLaren's 2nd book and is about 8 years old but it's still pretty good. I wanted to post a few thoughts I have had while reading the first chapter.1. I love to read. As I stated earlier, reading is fun. In the middle of the chapter I went to Amazon and ordered two books that I've read but have lost: New kind of Christian and A Generous Orthodoxy. I'm going to let our room mate Hilary read NKofC because I think she'll like it.2. What do I want church to be? I had an interview tonight on the phone for this men's retreat I'm going on. (I'm not excited about it. In fact I'm nervous I'll hate it. But this "interview" made me think maybe it won't be as awful as I'd thought). But the guy, Bob, was asking me about things that I want to "work on" while I'm on the retreat. He didn't mean like a craft I found out but instead meant "emotionally". This made me nervous of course but I told him I wanted to wade through some of my discontent and skepticism aout the Church. So he asked me what would I like to see change within the church. I said I would like to see the Church become and authentic community where people's ideas are valued and celebrated. After I had said that I remembered readin in their brochure that they believe that when we are critical about something that it is ussually something we dislike in ourselves. I don't know if I believe that, but maybe in this instance it is true. In what ways am I un-authentic or disingenuous? (I'm thinking right now). Aaah. I want people to think I am all about social justice but when it comes down to it, I do just as little as anybody else. In fact, I hate this about myself and have tried to change it. I think this woudl take a radical life change. Most of my life has been about meetings with people and spending time hanging out. (Maybe there isn't anything wrong with this). I wonder how much of this I would need to give up? What do I need to sacrifice to prove to myself (and if I'm honest, prove to others) that I care about bringing God's justice to Earth?I actually had more thoughts than these, but wanted to highlite things I found telling and meaningful. I'll try to write more tomorrow.
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3 comments:
i think i'm just discovering this whole issue of social justice myself. It's always angered when people are treated poorly, demeaned, and taken advantage of. While i've always stepped up when this happened to people around me, i've never really thought how i could contribute on a larger scale. i too feel that now is the time to find ways to do this as a community of believers.
How do you think we should do this? If you could come up with a plan, I think i'd like to try and follow it. Let me know.
i think we still need to follow our giftings and passion when it comes to doing social justice. Of course there are some things we just need to do because it simply needs to be done.
i think the whole "RED" tag thing is a cool idea, and a way that really fits into everyday life. i think we also need to go outside ourselves and use our time, money, and sevice to meet people's needs as well. We need to start with the basics, like food/shelter/clothing and move to skills training and community building, meeting relational needs and such. i guess there's a lot that could be done, but i do think it is more effective in groups and larger numbers pooling together, rather than as individuals giving a bit here and a bit there.
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