Tony Campolo recently spoke at Desert Vineyard in California and shared how the power of love and forgiveness can bring even lifelong enemies together.
I’m sharing the story below, but watching/hearing it on the video (starts around 28 minutes in) brought me to tears. So feel free to watch it instead.
…the call to transcend and include is a call that comes from the Holy Spirit, in whom all of us live, move and have our being. So we cannot escape. We can throw a temper tantrum. We can sit in the corner and pout. We can cower in the closet in fear. But then we hear music from another room playing faintly. Gradually, eventually, we are enticed and magnatized by the Spirit’s jazz, and we have to come out of our closet and dance, to join in the unending improvisation and lively rhythm of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
-Brian McLaren, A New Kind of Christianity
Received a preview copy of Mark Batterson’s latest book, “Wild Goose Chase” on Saturday. Loving it.
I’ll post an extended review once I finish the book (which should be before the book’s release date on Aug 19th).
But I thought I’d post some initial thoughts/quotes that really stood out to me – thus far.
The idea/title of the book comes from the name the Celtic Christians had for the Holy Spirit – An Geadh-Glas or “the Wild Goose.” It may seem strange calling the Holy Spirit the Wild Goose – especially when you consider what we typically mean when we say, “a wild goose chase.” But if you really think about following the Holy Spirit – that’s what it’s really like. You have no idea where you’re heading. It may seem pointless when you follow The Wild Goose. “But rest assured, God is working His plan.”
“I wonder if churches do to people what zoos do to animals.” We’re caged by so many things in our modern versions of “faith.” Batterson spends the rest of the book looking at six different cages we find ourselves in and comparing these cages to different people/stories we read about in Scripture. As I read about these cages I can see bits and pieces of me living in each of them. Some are stronger cages than others – but each of them keep me from the adventure The Wild Goose is calling me to follow Him on. “You cannot simultaneously live by faith and be bored.”
“We start dying when we have nothing worth living for. And we don’t really start living until we find something worth dying for.”
“When God puts a passion in your heart, whether it be relieving starvation in Africa or educating children in the inner city or making movies with redemptive messages, that God-ordained passion becomes your responsibility. And you have a choice to make. Are you going to be irresponsibly responsible or responsibly irresponsible?”
“Supernatural sadness and righteous indignation often reveal our God-ordained passions… if something causes you to weep and mourn and fast and pray for days on end, it is a good indication that God wants you to take personal responsibility and do something about it. Anything less or anything else is irresponsible responsibility… If you want to discover your God-ordained passions, then you need to identify what makes you sad, mad, or glad… God-ordained passions often break our hearts. And they can seem like an overwhelming burden to bear. But pushing our passions is the key to living a fruitful and fulfilling life.”
“One of the great mistakes we make is asking God to do for us what God wants us to do for Him. We confuse portfolios. For example, we try to convict people around us of sin. But that is the Holy Spirit’s responsibility, not ours. And when we play God, we not only do a poor job at it, but it is always counterproductive.”
“When Christianity turns into a noun, it becomes a turnoff. Christianity is always intended to be a verb. And more specifically an action verb.”
Batterson talks a lot about the cage of routine in chp 3. Excellent stuff.
“When God wants us to experience a change in perspective, He often does it via a change in scenery… where you are geographically affects where you are spiritually…
change of pace + change of pace = change of perspective
“We do things without thinking about them. And if we aren’t careful, we pray without thinking, take Communion without thinking, and worship without thinking… ‘These people say they are mine,’ God complained. ‘They honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. And their worship of me is nothing but man-made rules learned by rote.’ … We need new words, new postures, new thoughts and new feelings.”
related ::
Mark Batterson’s blog
SSL :: quotes of the day
SSL :: more from batterson
SSL :: marketing or action
SSL :: goals for 2008
SSL :: church goals
Frank Viola (Pagan Christianity) has a great article on the gifts of the Holy Spirit in the latest Next-Wave Ezine.
“To my mind, the Holy Spirit has but one job. It’s to reveal, to make known, to magnify, to glorify, to make central and supreme the Lord Jesus Christ…
If you wish to determine if a person is full of the Holy Spirit, listen to his words and watch his life. As far as his words go, he will have but one obsession. It will be Christ. And his life will match his words. He won’t be perfect by any means. Nor will he be above making mistakes. But he will exhibit a spirit of kindness, honesty, and an inclusive openness to all of God’s children . . . the outstanding marks of Christ’s character.”
Mark Driscoll said recently that Jesus is the example of how we must live and the Holy Spirit is the enabler.
I believe the Holy Spirit also helps us gain our focus on Christ. Its as if we view our life through a Mag Light and as we yield to the Spirit the beam becomes smaller and more focused on the mission God’s given us.
What are your thoughts?
re: Health & Wealth/Prosperity Theology
“…if you simply have enough faith you won’t be like Jesus and be poor and suffer. it is bizarre to say ‘if you have enough faith in Jesus you wouldn’t be like him.”
Mark Driscoll
Related ::
Podcast :: Doctrine of the Holy Spirit in Luke and Acts
Wikipedia :: Prosperity Doctrine