Category: book club

Book reviews, thoughts and reflections

Holy Discontent

I finished Holy Discontent by Bill Hybels last night. A great read and very inspiring. I almost wish it wasn’t over just because I’m still searching, waiting for some direction and clarity when it comes to my own personal Passion Groove and Holy Discontent. Granted I don’t think Hybels is in anyway attempting to tell you what your own personal Holy Discontent or purpose or passion is – I think he’s just encouraging you to find it and dive into it and live it out in your life.
When I left off last time I believe I was just finishing the chapter on feeding your passion. Rather than running from those things that get our blood boiling or give us our passion, we should run straight towards them.
Rather than running away from Goliath, David said, “I’ve had enough! I’m not putting up with this guy putting my God down anymore! Someone has to do something! And if no one else will – I’ve had all I can stand and I can’t stands no more!” He then takes off with his sling and rock and confronts what he sees wrong with the world. God gives him an unbelievable courage and strength and he gets rid of the giant.
When we find our own passions we need to do the same. Live with and spend your time with the poor, the homeless, AIDS victims. Spend time with the lost. Whatever it is that you can’t stand – run towards it so your fire will burn brighter than ever.
Some other great thoughts from the book:

  • “If your holy discontent decides somewhere along the line to morph, my advice to you is to follow it.”
  • After going to a U2 concert, Hybels noted, “… just how devoted Bono is to his holy discontent. If I had to classify it, I’d call his cause dismantling apathy. He just can’t stand apathy!”
  • The number of times Scripture mentions God’s passionate concern fo the poor, the oppressed the windows, the orphans, those who are incarcerated, and those who have no voice is astounding!”
  • Hybels talks next on the idea of the fundamental state and normal state. “In the normal state, you’re almost entirely self-absorbed. You have a reactive approach to life. And you try to maintain the status quo… ‘When we accept the world as it is, we deny our ability to see something better, and hence our ability to be something better. We become what we behold.'”
  • “In the fundamental state, however, people care so much about getting results that they begin to move and breathe in a totally different realm. They operate with intentionality. They act with massive doses of enthusiasm and persistence. They surrender their ego because the cause simply can’t afford their pride. They open themselves up to any and all new ideas and forms of input – regardless of where those suggestions come from… Their creativity kicks up a notch. Their energy soars. Their passion swells.”
  • Hybels recalls the story of Bob and his wife who were living the typical American life when suddenly his church asked him and his wife to move to Australia for three years to work on church plants in the country. “You may want to take note: this is what chasing your holy discontent with all you’ve got can do to you. In the blink of an eye, it’s very possible that you too will wake up one day and find yourself relocated to a place I’ve started calling life’s ‘lunatic fringe,’ and the only thing crazier than the destination itself is how much you enjoy it once you’ve arrived.”
  • “The moral of the story is that a bad day lived from the energy of your holy discontent is far better than the best day lived anywhere else.” – I love that. I look forward to that and desire that.
  • “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves… Defend the rights of the poor and needy, uphold the rights of the oppressed and the destitute and rescue the poor and the helpless.”
  • “Part of what it means to operate in the fundamental state is that you care more about the results you want to create than about getting what you want.”
  • “Can you imagine what might happen in corporations and churches and families all over the world if we all got serious about becoming fundamental-state people?”
  • “Beg him (God) to pump you full of Spirit-inspired-holy-discontent-driven, refuse-to-be-shaken belief!”
  • “When you charge toward your holy discontent with boundless passion, optimism and energy, you become the very best kind of contagious!… Erwin McManus says that it is this context that true greatness gets unleashed.”
  • “Don’t forget that there’s a reason why you grew up the way you did. Why you’ve experienced what you have. Why you’ve traveled where you’ve been. And he is looking for someone just like you to start setting some things right in this world.”
  • “Friends, in what other life are you going to go all out? We all have one shot and one shot only to leave a lasting legacy – a definitive mark on this world that reflects our decision to lean into, not away from, our areas of holy discontent.”
  • Finally I love this challenge, “We steward the only message on planet Earth that can give people what their hearts need most, which is hope.” It reminds me of Mark Batterson’s quote, “The greatest message demands the greatest marketing.” What and how are you going to get out and share that greatest message with the least of these? What drives you nuts to see in the world around you? What is it that you see that you know has to be made right? I’m still searching and praying for clarity on those things in my life. As you can probably tell by reading my blog, my heart is tugged in many number of ways and I’m trusting God to not only point me in the direction he wants me to go, but the direction he wants Laurie and I to go together. I ask that as you seek and search for your passion grove, pray that we find ours as well.

Get your books Netflix style

Here’s a great idea, BookSwim.com, allows you to borrow books similar to Netflix. You pay a monthly fee and they mail you the next book or books in your cue. Once you finish reading them, put the books back in the shipping package, mail it back and you’ll get the next book in the mail.

BookSwim is the first online BOOK RENTAL LIBRARY CLUB lending you paperbacks and hardcovers directly to your house WITHOUT THE NEED TO PURCHASE! Whether it’s New Releases, Bestsellers, or Classics, we’ve got 150,000 titles to choose from, with FREE SHIPPING BOTH WAYS! Read your books as long as you want. — no late fees! Even choose to purchase and keep the titles you love!

I tried the site the other day and it was pretty much down due to the huge surge in traffic they’ve been getting from the media publicity – they were also looking for investors – probably to increase their server capacity.
I hope to take a look at it and see if it’s worth the investment for the books I normally read – because as I’ve mentioned before, the Waxahachie Library never has anything I’m looking for.
Of course the downside is, you’re borrowing the books and not keeping them so my habit of underlining and making notes may have to end – I always have trouble with that anytime I borrow a book from someone else.

God’s plan for you life

My good buddy Rick Reynolds from my Lighthouse 21 days (“This is Jerry Jones“) has packed up and moved to Reno to “get away from the buckle of the Bible belt.” Those may not be his exact words but he’s moved to Reno to focus more on ministering to the lost and is doing counseling now at a drug and rehab center.
He’s shared a message he gave last week on “God’s plan for your life.”
It’s about 30 minutes or so in length so I haven’t had a chance to watch the whole thing – but what I have watched has been good.
Check it out….
It’s interesting that he focused on that. I see myself spending more and more time thinking and praying about that over the last couple years, and now months and weeks.
I can’t wait till I hear, see and/or feel what God has really called me to.
In the mean time I’m just trying to be patient and follow Him whenever and wherever He places me.
In that line of thought, here are some great thoughts on our Holy Discontent (or Passion Groove as we call it at encounter) from Bill Hybels’ book of the same name:

  • “What is it that motivates people to work where they work, volunteer their time to the groups they serve, and donate money to the causes they support? Simply put, why do people do what they do?”
  • “‘That’s all I can stands, and I can’t stands no more!’ – Popeye… What happens when we reach the point where we can’t ‘stands no more?’… What is is that you ‘can’t stands no more?'”
  • “The trouble with contentedness is that, when lived out in isolation, it can be lethal! If you’re not careful, you will become lulled into a state of satisfaction, safety and serenity, and you’ll altogether neglect needs in the world that should elicit deep discontent when you see them going unmet.”
  • “‘I refuse to accept the idea that the ‘is-ness’ of man’s present nature makes him morally incapable of reaching up for the eternal ‘ought-ness’ that forever confronts him.” (- Martin Luther King, Jr) Friends, this is what it looks like to live from a place of holy discontent – where ought-ness simply overtakes is-ness.”
  • On MLK: “The holy discontent that had taken up residence inside him simply wouldn’t allow him to give anything less than his entire life.”
  • “Have you ever wondered why, when you turn your life over to God, you don’t get express-freighted right to heaven? Or, to put it a little more crassly, if you’re so heaven-bound, then why are you still sucking air down here?” — I love that question. It really makes you question why we’re here. What is it that God has placed us here for.
  • Eph. 2:10 says that “we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
  • “If you’re alive and kicking today, then there is a specific work that you are expected to do. There is a set of tasks with your name on it that God has given you to accomplish.”
  • “The goal is to cultivate your soul’s soil so that this doing-of-good-works process can unfold in your life.”
  • “None of your tears or anguish will be wasted; I (God) plan to use every ounce of what you’ve been through for good in this specific area.” — can I make that first part any bigger. Go back and read that one again. Think on it. Trust in it. Believe in it. That’s one of God’s greatest promises to me and one that I hold to day in an day out.
  • How will you know when your one thing shows up? “It will be the pesky preoccupation that vies for your undivided attention during the day and keeps you wide-eyed at night as is captures your heart and ignites your imagination. It will be the thing to force you to the floor, heaving sorrowful tears the whole way down. It will be the thing kicking and screaming inside of you, squawking for all it’s worth to be addressed.”
  • “My applecart got completely overturned by the thought of seekers going to hell simply because Christians refused to break out of their holy huddles long enough to embrace them… Seekers matter! And people far from God deserve better local church options that the ones available to them today!”
  • “When you find your holy discontent, feed it!” — don’t run from it. Move toward it. If poverty is your holy discontent, don’t move to the suburbs to avoid it – move to the inner city where you can see everyday and night how it affects people until your blood simply boils over.
  • “The pastor described how gut-wrenching an experience it had been to be told blatantly who mattered and who didn’t at church … and then to realize that his family was part of the ‘who didn’t’ category… racism in churches is not acceptable.”

Well that’s all I have for now – hey, I’m only halfway through the book. I just started it on Saturday night. 🙂
What is your holy discontent? What is the injustice or problem you see around you that makes your blood boil, makes your hair stand on ends and makes you say, “That’s all I can stands, and I can’t stands no more!”? What are you doing about it?

New reading

We picked up a couple new books at Mardels today (as if I really need more books to finish :-)). I feel like I’m reading four books right now – which is pretty close to the truth. I read different ones at different points of the day.
Laurie wanted to get Don Miller’s book, Searching for God Knows What and I was hoping to get Rob Bell’s latest book, Sex God.
We didn’t find Sex God but I got Bill Hybel’s book, Holy Discontent, which Brian’s been reading lately. I’m looking forward to reading both.
In the meantime, I think I’ll throw out a couple tags…
I want to know what Michael Robinson is reading, my mom, my dad, Thomas and Walker. So tag – you five are it.

community 2.0

We’re working on something exciting at encounter involving small groups and community. For now, the working title is community 2.0. We want to re-learn and re-focus and re-new our thoughts on what community means in the church body.
After reading more from Blue Like Jazz the other night and considering what our plans are, I wrote my thoughts down but haven’t had a chance to fully complete it. Hey – it was 2:30 in the morning and I was getting a little to sleepy for me to continue.
Either way I want to share my beginnings and get your thoughts…
Well I only thought I was wrapping up and going to bed. I just had to get up and write more. I really wish I had a passion for writing my day-to-day stuff at the paper that made me want to get up at 2:20 a.m. and write.
But on to my current thoughts.
We’re getting ready to start a new push for small groups at encounter and I’m excited to see where this will lead us. I’ve had a couple meetings with Brian over the last week or so and we’re looking at a six week, church wide campaign studying community.
So I thought it was interesting that I read some of Don Miller’s thoughts on community tonight before I got ready to head to bed.
I’ve been reading Miller’s book Blue Like Jazz for a couple weeks now. It’s a great read. But it’s also been a struggle for me to read. I’m not sure why. Every time I pick it up to read I’ve read two or three chapters and then I have to force myself to put the book down and move on to other pressing matters (usually sleep since I read before bed).
Miller tackles both loneliness and community in the two chapters I read tonight.
He begins by saying that love is a lot like heaven. As someone getting ready to be married in less than three months (WHOOO!) I have to agree.

When I was in love I hardly thought of myself; I thought of her and how beautiful she looked and whether or not she was cold and how I could make her laugh. It was wonderful because I forgot my problems. I owned her problems instead, and her problems seemed romantic and beautiful. When I was in love there was somebody in the world who was more important than me, and that, given all that happened at the fall of man, is a miracle, like something God forgot to curse.

Miller said he used to believe that loneliness was the opposite of being in love but now views it as an opposite. He said when he is lonely there are other things he craves, like community, like friendship, like family.

I think our society puts too much pressure on being romantic love and that is why so many relationships fail. Romance can’t possibly carry all that we want it to.

Miller adds that his friend says the words alone, lonely and loneliness are three of the most powerful words in the English language. They are words that say we are human.
Think about that.
Miller admits that he’s a bit of a recluse by nature and that after living alone for some time it was hard to be around other people.

I would leave parties early. I would leave church before worship was over so I didn’t have to stand around and talk. The presence of people would agitate me. I was so used to being able to daydream and keep myself company that other people were an intrusion. It was terribly unhealthy.

Miller’s friend once told him about a story she wanted to write. The story was about an astronaut working on the space station in space. Suddenly there was an accident and the astronaut is thrown out into space spiraling around the earth in orbit. His space suit is able to keep him alive by recycling his fluids so he lives on in orbit around the earth. Everyone on earth thinks he is gone and dead but he remains in orbit — alone — for the rest of his life. Miller’s friend said she believed the astronaut’s story was a lot like hell. A place where a person is completely alone, without others and without God.
After hearing the story, Miller can’t sleep. He keeps imagining himself as the astronaut, orbiting the earth as his hair grows longer and longer and eventually blocks his view in his space suit. Naturally he can’t move his hair out of his view because the shield on his helmet prevents him from doing so.

After I thought about Stacy’s story, I lay there in bed wanting to be touched, wanting to be talked to. I had the terrifying thought that something like that might happen to me.

Many times that can happen to us. We get so caught up in our problems, in our despair, in our loneliness that we might as well be an astronaut floating around the earth in orbit for the rest of our life.
God made us to desire community. We thrive when we’re truly in community.

Loneliness is something that happens to us, but I think it is something we can move ourselves out of. I think a person who is lonely should dig into community, give himself to community, humble himself before his friends, initiate community, teach people to care for each other, love each other. Jesus does not want us floating through space or sitting in front of our televisions. Jesus wants us interacting, eating together, laughing together, praying together.

Miller finishes his thoughts on community by recalling the time he spent living in community with five other men in Portland.
He had to struggle to make things work after living by himself for four years.
He didn’t like them and he didn’t believe they liked him.
While Miller struggled to get past his dislike for roommates and community… (z…z..Z…Z…Z…Z…Z)