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** Source: http://whchurch.org/blog/5951/non-competitive-suffering
** Speaker: Greg Boyd
** Title: Non-Competitive Suffering
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A personal note from Francis Chan about his personal experiences trusting God with his finances and in other areas of his life. There’s not much better then letting go and letting God take over and direct every area of your life. For us Americans it is easy to want a safety blanket and hold onto what we have ‘in case of emergency’ but there are emergencies everywhere. Emergency doesn’t mean that it’s only an emergency if it affects you or your family. Take a few minutes to listen to this challenge by Francis Chan and see if it will impact how you view God and money.
Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God
How big is your God? How much are you stirred up? This challenge for churches, Christians and everyone to remember that God really is there and that the stories that we heard growing up of what God can do, are still true. They are still real. Don’t let your growing up make you to mature and responsible. Instead, let it all hang out. Let it all go for God. Believe!
Most Christians talk the talk. They know the right words to say and the right clothes to wear. Are you one of them? Many Christians know how to do some of the things that God wants, but how many will really live it? Will you live it?
You have to discover for yourself what your ‘balloon’ is and how you can really live it and prove it. But can you say that you’re willing to try? Willing to step up and make it happen?
Francis Chan gives a great example of the stupidest thing he did in his 16 years of pastoring at a church and it’s a funny story, but he really has a point behind it too.
Francis Chan is challenging Christians to do something with their lives. Too many Christians are living in a way that is just ‘holding on’ and not a beautiful graceful life. With this example of a balance beam, you too can be reminded to step out and do something. Francis Chan did a great job with a visual illustration video.
Do something wonderful with your life!
"Radical: Taking back your faith from the American Dream" by David Platt is not radical at all and would better be titled "Reshaping the American Dream to incorporate your faith" which seems designed to inspire a few extremely wealthy to give out of their abundance and allow everyone else to continue to live the American Dream. This is just one example where a large book publishers uses marketing to co-opt terminology. In this case the new monastic movement has been focusing on separating faith from the American Dream. The problem is that there are no similarities between The New Monastic Movement and David Platt’s mega-church. Multnomah made a large amount of money by using the title and their marketing to grab customers who unknowingly purchase a book that is marketed as being in the same genre as Shane Claiborne and others.
I have seen the same thing happen with dozens of terms of course it is not new to our generation. Constantine saw the advantage to his personal plans of teaming with the church and its growth and instantly a term for years that had been derogatory became culturally acceptable in order to identify with the Roman Emperor. The same thing has happened with very specific terms like "evangelical", "charismatic", "Pentecostal", "fundamental", and more generic terms like "missional" (the sheer number of books published about missional church in the last decade was overwhelming and mostly disappointing), "the way", "Jesus follower", "relational", and many others. The impact of Christian marketing has done a lot of damage cheapening what it means to pursue God, but the impact on our vocabulary is devastating. I have been talking with others who have similar views to mine and no matter how we try to describe and define the good news we want to share, someone takes what we are using and sees a chance to make money publishing a book that does little but corrupt the terms and make things a muddy mess for those who are in a relationship with God and those who are not. "In a relationship with God" is another term that was introduced several decades ago and is now used by dozens of denominations and churches with a variety of meanings.
Rob Bell published Love Wins a controversial book in early 2011 to mixed reviews and significant critiques led by the likes of Reverend Mark Driscoll of Seattle and Pastor John Piper of Minnesota. The Publisher promoted the book with some video that turned viral and caused a stir in Evangelical Christianity. Many pastors and writers voiced their view that Rob Bell was a heretic for embracing Christian Universalism on their websites and from their pulpits.
To see a more complete review see Book Review
Jay Bakker, son of Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker has written another book after his return to Christianity following years of drug and alcohol abuse. Check out Book Review Fall to Grace for complete review of this book.
Jay embraces an extreme form of God’s grace that is offensive to many conservative Christians.
Recently there has been an uproar in Evangelical Christianity over Rob Bell’s newest book called Love Wins. The opponents accuse Bell, the pastor of the growing Mars Hill Church, of heresy. This has caused us to do some research on other Christians who embrace Christian Universalism or Wider Mercy Salvation. Check out the following Book Review If Grace is True Philip Gulley and James Mulholland present a more generous view of Christian Universalism.
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