book review vol. seven: Revolution
I came across this trendy looking book while browsing through my friend’s bookshelf the other day. I took the liberty of leaving his house with it and reading it over the past few days. Now you guys will reap the benefit of that which you did not sow.
The general idea of this book, written by George Barna, research masta‘ (yes, masta‘), is that there is a growing group of people within American Christianity today who are, quote, “Revolutionaries.” (Side note: if you do read this book, you’ll never want to hear that trendy word again - save Shane Claiborne’s Irresistible Revolution - because he certainly has a way of beating it to the ground.) These are the kind of people who have an unquenchable desire to know Jesus and to better serve Him, and anything that gets in their way of doing that, well it’s going to have to go. The “revolutionaries” are passionate about intimate worship, faith-based conversations, intentional spiritual growth, servanthood, resource investment, spiritual friendships, and family faith. One of the things Barna addresses as a hindrance to their sanctification is, ironically, the local church.
As any of you who’ve ever seen any Barna stats before know, they don’t say anything positive about the current state of the American church. That, however, is not a new idea. It shouldn’t surprise anybody (especially my generation, which Barna deems the Busters, born 1965 to 1983) that the American church isn’t coming close to living up to its full potential. In my opinion, we have written quite enough books about how the church is struggling, while there is a huge void in the area of books (or teachings) that help us fix the problem.
Barna does, to some degree, go beyond stating the problem by offering a solution. It’s real novel: follow Jesus. That’s what these “revolutionaries” are doing, and as Barna states, many of them are finding that their churches won’t fully stand behind their strivings after Him, which sounds terrible, and probably most of us go to churches that would allow it, but I can totally see it being true. Some of these believers, Barna says, will seek to find like-minded “revolutionaries” and start meeting with them in house churches of sorts. I don’t have a problem with that, assuming they’re still under a Biblical authority. That gets into a whole lot of other stuff that I could certainly go into, but nobody would read because the post would be too long, which for some it may be already.
In closing, this book offers a tangible look at the current state of the church (if you still need that) and presents a view of church that, though Biblical, seems to butt heats with a lot of today’s religious leaders. It was challenging, informative, yet I still don’t know that I’d recommend it. Scale of 1 to 5: I give it a 3.
the verdict: part one
For those of you who won’t be able to sleep tonight until you find out which pair of shoes I chose to wear to my interview, well wait no longer: I wore the Chacos (as if there was ever any real chance that I wouldn’t). I wore the Chacos and went up to that REI, and had the first real job interview I’ve had since my first job ever, which was Six Flags Over Texas.
Needless to say, this interview was far more enjoyable than was the one I had eight years ago in North Arlington. I feel like it went about as well as it could have gone, and now I’m back to praying that the Lord’ll hook me up with that job if He’s ok with it. I’m supposed to hear back on October 7th, hence this verdict only being part one… part two will be the real party… or lamenting.
I learned lots of stuff about REI the past few days that I really like, one of which is pictured above. This is one of their two Green Buildings they have built. This one is in Portland. That’s in Oregon. That’s north of California and south of Washington. You can read all about the Green Buildings here… maybe someday I’ll have my pic on the REI site.
what to wear??
Every day we affluent Weserterners are faced with a whole lot of decisions that most of the rest of the world needn’t worry about making.
Which bathroom to use?
Which specific meal to eat?
Which specialist doctor to go see?
Which company to pursue getting a job with?
Well tomorrow, Tuesday the 26th, at 4:00pm, I will be making a choice I wouldn’t have thought twice about had my father not called me today. You see, I have a job interview at REI tomorrow (praise Jesus!) and was told, regarding the attire, “… and it’s casual, you don’t have to show up in a suit or anything” - after which I laughed, told her I didn’t own a suit, and she answered back with laughter.
The real issue at hand here, as you may have guessed, is not what outfit to wear to said interview at one of the nation’s largest outdoor gear retailers, but what pair of shoes?
I had full intentions of wearing my beloved Chaco’s, but my dad politely recommended that I do otherwise. I followed up with a well-thought out rebuttal, but I’ll save you from reading that. Given the facts you’ve received already, including the quote from the interviewer, knowledge of what kind of store REI is, and the picture of my entire shoe collection (save climbing shoes, which aren’t an option), what pair ought I wear?
Stay tuned for a picture of the entire outfit I end up picking in the next post tentatively titled: Fashion Universe.
oh the paths my mind takes…
As you all know, I went to Living Hope in college. As I’m sure you’ve heard, Butch Smith is the pastor there at the Hopester. As a small percentage of you know, there are no pictures of anybody on the otherwise awesome new Living Hope website (digitally remastered by Ryan Couch himself). So I had to resort to the age-old, ever faithful solution of Google Images. I believe the afore displayed photograph was number three on the list of results.
I bet you’re wondering why I’m posting about Brother Butch huh? You think I’m going to rip him up because of that thing he said last Sunday? Nope. (I would never do that anyway, but let’s face it, if I did, it wouldn’t be on the Internet). Well what spawned this post was everyone else’s blogs. There is no shortage of LH bloggers out there, and their number is growing constantly, which made me wonder: does Butch Smith read his flock’s blogs? Does he peruse them from time to time? Does he use them in sermon illustrations? Does he even know they exist?? Does he care that his picture isn’t on the website? Would he like it if we put the picture above on his LH page? Would he ever even know?
These are the things I thought about. Thoughts? Hizzie, do what you think ought to be done. I trust you. You too Aaron.
the glory days
Well since I lost that amazing video of Jonny dressed as a pirate, beating up a ninja and replacing it with a ninja bear in Elise’s classroom… this video from college will have to suffice. It is officially my first video ever on the online diary for the masses. We’ll see how it goes, there could very well be more to come in the future.
You will probably want to turn the volume down on the ol’ machine (it was a windy day). Finally, thanks to Jerod Brazeal, my beautiful freshman year roommate who has never seen this blog, for filming.
book review vol. six: The Catcher in the Rye
This is the first of my book reviews in which I’ve attempted to tackle not only a non-Christian book, but a modern day classic in it’s own right. That said, I’m getting in deeper than I have any business getting, so do grant me grace.
The Cather in the Rye was recommended to me by a friend Steve Miller many months back. Having absolutely nothing but time on my hands these days, I opted to give it a read, knowing nothing about the book other than that it was a classic of sorts. Now, having read the book, I have learned a whole lot about it.
It was written in the late 40’s, early 50’s, and it’s simply the story of a teen on his journey from being kicked out of prep school to home. The colloquial language used by Salinger is pretty in-your-face if you will, even today, which makes it hard for me to imagine how it was received at the time of publication.
All throughout the book the protagonist, Holden Caulfield, shares his brutally honest thoughts on events and people in which he comes in contact as he goes through his day. I was able to really identify with Holden in a lot of ways (and not at all in others). He, like me, is extremely opinionated, critical, unconventional, and sometimes hypocritical in his thought. He despises the “phoniness” he sees all around him that, as far as he can tell, goes unnoticed by everyone else.
Holden (hopefully unlike me) comes across as very negative, seemingly hating everything. However when you “get to know him” better (if you can do that with a fictional character), you realize that there are plenty of simple pleasures in which he takes great delight. He genuine loves his sister and his late brother. He enjoys the innocence of children, good books, and honesty in any way that it chooses to display itself.
Essentially, Holden is a kid who would normally get written off without second thought by most people, but because he shares his story with us in a very popular book, people are given the chance to look deeper into him as a person than what they see on the surface, which is always a good thing to do.
There you go. My first, and quite possibly last, review of a modern day classic.
remember when?
Remember back when you would walk in to church with your parents and while they were handed a bulletin you would receive a kids bulletin? You would sit in big church and diligently work on all the activities the kids bulletin offered before the preacher really got into his talk, in which time you slept on mom’s shoulder. Those were good times, no? Well one activity always found its way to these sheets: the ol‘ Find the Difference pictures.
You know, two pictures that at first glance are identical but upon further inspection (which is exactly what the activity calls for) you realize there are five or ten, or some other number, differences between the two pictures. One has extra stuff, or the other is missing stuff. Whichever way you look at it, they aren’t the same.
I’ve taken you on this trip down memory lane to display to you one of my newest forms of art: digital photo editing. I downloaded this very smart freeware for photo editing called GIMP. It’s basically a free (and probably less user-friendly) version of Photo Shop.
I really don’t know how to do much with this program, I’ve still got tons of learning to do, but one thing I have learned, how to take stuff out of pictures. So, pictured above is a shot taken last spring break at Hueco Tanks, and pictured below is the edited version. Something(s) is(are) missing, can you tell me what it(they) are?
I’m so hungry!
They say you don’t know what you got til it’s gone (I believe it was Amy Grant, and later the Counting Crows). I think that’s true a lot of times, but not all of the time.
When I was in College Station, I was fully aware of what I had. I had more close friends than I could do justice, and I had a church family that probably loved me more than I loved them, and I loved them a whole stinkin‘ lot. Most, if not all of my readers fall into one or both of said categories, which makes me think you’ll take some interest in this post. If not, just scroll down to the bottom for the cutesy picture (but if you are going to read it, save the picture for the end, for that is how I’ve created this post to work… kinda like Chose Your Own Adventure books).
I realized in a very punch-in-the-face kind of way this morning, that I am so dang hungry for a community of believers that will let me do life with them. The thing I had in College Station: deeply honest friendships with people of all ages (literally zero to however old Bill Magee is), is not just a luxury in life but I truly believe it is a necessity. When I left College Station, there was no question in my mind as to what all I was leaving.
Which brings me to how my hunger punched me in the face this morning. This was my fifth week of visiting churches to find one that I can plug into with everything the Lord’s given me, and I realized that I hate this process. I really hate going to churches where you know nothing (other than what their websites say) about how this church runs. You don’t know the motives of the church leadership, or membership for that matter. You don’t know what the church places value on, or how they spend their money (same thing really). It doesn’t help that I’m one of the most critical people currently living, but really, I never thought this would be so hard (and I knew it would be hard).
Say all that to say that the Christian life is not an easy one, even when the necessary community of believers is physically present. When you are without that community… it’s not that tight. I hope you Living Hope readers realize how dang blessed you are to be a part of that beautiful body.
I don’t want you to leave this post feeling sorry for me or anything, I’m just letting the world (all ten readers) know where I’m at these days. I’m looking for a church and wishing that churches met every other day so I could speed up the seeking process. I guess if I drove by a church with a sign like this one, I’d probably start writing my tithe checks to them. Until then, the tithe pot keeps getting bigger… not big, just bigger.
spellchecks and showers
Remember that list of 75 things I like? I think it was the most crowd-pleasing event on online diary for the masses since the Chinese Haircut piece. Well ever since I made that list public, I’ve been thinking of things that I like even more than those things, and I feel bad that they didn’t make the list. Problem is, I don’t exactly always have the chance to stop what I’m doing (normally taking a shower) and write these thoughts on anything. Things like how much I enjoy it when I click the spellcheck button and a box comes up saying “No Misspelled Words Found.”
Now this post is going to take a turn I wasn’t planning on at first: shower talk. Here we go.
I can’t stand showers with lousy water pressure. I’m all about conserving water, but I don’t think a trickling shower head is the answer. My current shower head emits 2.5 gallons per minute. I think that’s fair.
I can’t understand shower heads that are level with my chest. I haven’t come across many of these in my life, but I have a couple times, and it really baffles me. Who’s idea was it to put a shower head at a ten-year-old’s eye level?
The afore mentioned problem of epiphanies in the shower that somehow stay in the shower, not to be remembered again when I’m actually able to write them down. That kind of stuff always happens either in the shower or while I’m mowing the yard. Neither are good times to write.
Cloth shower curtains: Again I ask, who’s idea was that? Why would we make a shower curtain that absorbs water? It’s beyond me.
I think that’s all for Shower Talk. I sincerely hope that you won’t stop reading my blog now that you’ve experienced what may be the most unorganized, random post in the history of this site.
spectrums and free tunes
There are no shortage of spectrums that we can find ourselves on in this life.
Conservative - Liberal
Calvinism - Armenianism
As popular as the preceeding are, another spectrum that is more popular now than it ever has been is the one of how people view downloading free music off the internet.
Stealing - It’s there, I should be able to have it
Those are kind of the two mindsets I’ve come across. I tend to favor the former and Aaron Hendrick is the poster child for the latter.
The final spectrum, or continuum, that you can find yourself on would be the level of which you enjoy Derek Webb’s music.
Hate it - Love it
This post is to let you know that regardless of where you find yourself on any of the afore mentioned spectrums, Derek Webb has opened up the doors to the masses and allowed them to download his newest album, Mockingbird, for free. All you have to do it click here and enjoy.