* Another opinion...

Recently I was in an email conversation with a bunch of folks. On the subject of "a lack of powerful acts being done by the church" a person had this to say:

"The church does a terrible job of telling the Christians that they are supposed to be reaching their neighbors. Today’s church says come to us. When in reality we are supposed to go to the lost. We have placed Christianity in the four walls of the church. And now we tell people to go to church instead of being the church. The church is not concerned with making disciples as we are supposed to do the church is concerned with making converts. Once they are converted we do a horrible job of helping them see what the Christian life is about and we tell them to go and read their Bible and don’t help them study the Bible. American Christians hardly even know their neighbors let alone are concerned if they know Christ if they were they would be praying for them and intentionally speaking to them about Christ. Until we get concerned about our neighbors and realize that they are lost and the church decides to teach its people how to reach their neighbors nothing will change. Outreach is taught by bringing the people to the church not going out to the people and that needs to change. We are to love our neighbors unconditionally but we would rather complain about them."

I couldn't have said this better myself. What do you think?

* A question for parents

Here's a question I have. Again, referring to Velvet Elvis, pg 80 ("Logos") "...Do you know anybody who grew up in a religious enviromnment, maybe even a christian one, and walked away from faith/church/God when they turned 18 and went to college?..." Essentially what this passage refers to is the first time people's faith are "tested" when they are out of the cocoon. Taking classes, being exposed to different thinkers and teachers.... Rob Bell goes on to talk about how he sees this with countless people. In his words, "...whenever I ask this question to a group of people, almost every hand goes up." For parents - what if this happens to your kid(s)? Is this something you have thought about? What do you think can be done to prevent this? Or do you not want to prevent this?

* Who are the people in your neighborhood?

I have the feeling I'm going to be using Velvet Elvis a lot, but I want to focus on pp166-167. Specifically how"....Jesus commanded us to love our neighbors, and our neighbors can be anybody..." Who are your neighbors? Are they the family next door? Your coworkers who you go to lunch with?