Category: faith

Acid trips and Jesus

The Jesus Revolution
The Jesus Revolution | Time Magazine Cover (June 21, 1971)

I found a great video interview with God’s Squad Christian Motorcycle Club and Concern Australia/Global Concern founder John Smith (via The Work of the People) on Vimeo the other day and then found this second video in which he chats about the influence of the Jesus Movement over the church.

“God met that generation of freaks in the middle of their Acid trips because the church was not listening to their heart…”

“So have I got hope? Man I’ve lived through seeing when they all said God was dead and then seeing God reach hippies in the middle of the Adirondacks – sure I’ve got hope!”

What I find interesting about this interview is that John Smith seems to touch on the idea that people come to God in all sorts of ways — with, or without the church — something Rob Bell also spent a chapter discussing in Love Wins.

My family had a discussion on this same topic over lunch Easter Sunday, discussing how they recently heard a missionary sharing dreams are becoming a big deal in the Middle East. According to the missionary, a number of people he’s met are seeing Jesus appear to them in dreams and they’re starting to follow him based not on a clear sermon from the pulpit, not from a missionary coming from overseas — but based on a dream or series of dreams. Fascinating!

What do you think?

When you look at the Church are you more hope-filled or hope-less?

BONUS: Here’s the 1st video:

Resurrection (Rob Bell)

At the heart of the historical Jesus story is the provocative, compelling, subversive, beautiful insistence that nothing can ever be the same again, not after resurrection.

What we do with our lives matters…

Do you believe this?

May the our lives be living proof that Jesus is alive.

Grace isn’t fair

From The Work of the People

Grace isn’t fair – but it’s what God’s Kingdom is all about…

God’s kingdom is like an estate manager who went out early in the morning to hire workers for his vineyard. They agreed on a wage of a dollar a day, and went to work. Later, about nine o’clock, the manager saw some other men hanging around the town square unemployed. He told them to go to work in his vineyard and he would pay them a fair wage. They went.

He did the same thing at noon, and again at three o’clock. At five o’clock he went back and found still others standing around. He said, “Why are you standing around all day doing nothing?”

They said, “Because no one hired us.”

He told them to go to work in his vineyard.

When the day’s work was over, the owner of the vineyard instructed his foreman, “Call the workers in and pay them their wages. Start with the last hired and go on to the first.”

Those hired at five o’clock came up and were each given a dollar. When those who were hired first saw that, they assumed they would get far more. But they got the same, each of them one dollar. Taking the dollar, they groused angrily to the manager, “These last workers put in only one easy hour, and you just made them equal to us, who slaved all day under a scorching sun.”

He replied to the one speaking for the rest, “Friend, I haven’t been unfair. We agreed on the wage of a dollar, didn’t we? So take it and go. I decided to give to the one who came last the same as you. Can’t I do what I want with my own money? Are you going to get stingy because I am generous?”

Here it is again, the Great Reversal: many of the first ending up last, and the last first.

HT Jonathan Brink

Therefore let us love

Martin Luther King Jr
Martin Luther King Jr - Wikimedia Commons

When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I am not speaking of that force which is just emotional bosh. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. This Hindu-Muslim-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist belief about ultimate — ultimate reality is beautifully summed up in the first epistle of Saint John: “Let us love one another, for love is God. And every one that loveth is born of God and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God, for God is love.” “If we love one another, God dwelleth in us and his love is perfected in us.” Let us hope that this spirit will become the order of the day.

We can no longer afford to worship the god of hate or bow before the altar of retaliation. The oceans of history are made turbulent by the ever-rising tides of hate. And history is cluttered with the wreckage of nations and individuals that pursued this self-defeating path of hate. As Arnold Toynbee says:

Love is the ultimate force that makes for the saving choice of life and good against the damning choice of death and evil. Therefore the first hope in our inventory must be the hope that love is going to have the last word.

– Martin Luther King, Jr

Rob Bell, Love Wins, and what Bell isn’t saying

The rapture in Dallas
The rapture in Dallas | Via boingboing.com

With Rob Bell’s book, Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person who Ever Lived (available in hardcover, Kindle, audio version) creating such a stir, and pastors across the country rushing to warn their congregations about the book, I thought it would be worthwhile to take a look at some of the major accusations I’ve heard and give a little insight into what I believe Bell is really saying.

(You may want to read my first post – Rob Bell, Love Wins and why I hope he’s right before continuing.)

Now, I’ll be the first to admit that this isn’t a full scope of what Bell is or isn’t saying — but perhaps it will encourage those of you who are getting over your certainty to take the time to read the book for yourself and make your own opinions about what’s inside it.
Continue reading Rob Bell, Love Wins, and what Bell isn’t saying