God Palace

I'm in a blogging mood today...

I have been thinking all week about a conversation I had with a boy named Andrew.  I am not sure how we got on the subject but my wife asked him if he ever had any dreams.  Andrew replied that a few nights prior he had a dream about a Jesus and God palace!  This sounded very interesting to us so we started asking him questions about it. 

"What does the palace look like?", I asked.
"It looks like a human body," he replied.
"Wow, that sounds neat! How do Jesus and God get inside?"
"You just ask them and they go in through your heart!"

I think at this point Andrew got distracted by a noise in the other room.  He is seven years old yet I learn from him nearly every time we get together with his family or see them at church.  He is truly remarkable and I cannot wait to see what God has in store for him.  He is already using him mightily.

~JK

God Palace

Messy Sunday

What would happen if we decided to give up going to church and decided to be the church? Would we find ourselves surrounded by people who look like us, behave like us, believe like us and belong like us? This article on the Emergent Village webpage has me thinking about what it would look like for me. Jared Enyart and his wife for the last two years have given up going to church - unless you consider church breakfast with a dozen or so homeless people under a bridge. They have begun calling what they do, "Messy Sunday." Eating with people who smell like urine, swear, teach children how to throw sand at others is messy, but the Enyarts have realized that kingdom living in the steps of the king gets messy sometimes. Or as Jeff Walling sometimes puts it, "If things didn't get messy, we wouldn't need a Messiah. It's a bold move. One that requires a lot of compassion and faith. It doesn't take a long look at Jesus to realize that sometimes His work is going to require us to roll up our sleeves and get a little bit messy.

~JK

Messy Sunday

A New Kind of Christian

I just finished reading Brian McLaren's A New Kind of Christian. I was not sure what to expect when I picked it up other than the fact the McLaren was rethinking how Christians think about things and sharing his insights with the world. After completing the first of the trilogy following the spiritual journey of Dan and Neo, I feel very similar to how Dan descibed himself at one point - very excited but mildly depressed. I am excited because I feel that McLaren has captured much of my own frustrations and anxieties over the current state of Christianity and the dialogue between Neo and Dan captures many of the questions I have had for some time and allows for dialogue - not necessarily answers - about them. The mild depression I find myself in is the result of a "now what" feeling I am left with. I think I am going to let McLaren's words marinate for a while before trying to move on to the practical side of things. Right now there are certainly more questions than answers.

A New Kind of Christian