Sabbatical Journal Week 2: The Road Home and Back Again

Home is an interesting concept.

I have a “home” in western Kentucky, but I feel like a stranger there. I enjoyed visiting this week, but I really am like a man from another time and place.

I have a “home” in eastern Kentucky, but it’s very fragile. A few bumps in the road and difficulties, and I’m feeling “homeless.”

I have a home with my family, but with the kids gone, it’s a changed place, too. With recent changes in the spiritual directions Denise and I are traveling, it feels different as well.Continue reading “Sabbatical Journal Week 2: The Road Home and Back Again”

Recommendation and Review: My Beautiful Idol by Pete Gall

Matthew 6:31 “So don’t worry about these things, saying, ‘What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?’ 32 These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs. 33 Seek the Kingdom of God* above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.

If those sound like some appropriate life verses for your journey, then you will like Pete Gall’s new book.

Before I talk about Pete Gall’s book, My Beautiful Idol, I want to say a couple of things about Donald Miller’s Blue Like Jazz.Continue reading “Recommendation and Review: My Beautiful Idol by Pete Gall”

Riffs: A Meme On What You Can’t Say Around Christians

(Thanks to all of you who are already supporting Jesus Shaped Spirituality, or JSS.)

We probably need a new category around here: “Words As I Ride Into The Sunset.”

Catholic blogger extraordinaire Amy Welborn has been studying me for a couple of years now, and she knows what’s red meat to my post evangelical soul.

So this morning, she sent me two examples (1, 2) of a “meme” we’ll call “What Is Something You Feel You Can’t Say Around Other Christians (or in Church?)”Continue reading “Riffs: A Meme On What You Can’t Say Around Christians”

Jesus Shaped Spirituality Has A Home (temporarily)

UPDATE: The new post at JSS is “God is Jesus.”

I have started blogging at Jesus Shaped Spirituality or JesusShaped.wordpress.com. The actual domain JesusShaped.com won’t be up for a while, so this is my temporary home.

If you are an IM reader, PLEASE help me make this transition.

Tell others. Update your RSS feed. Stop by both sites and get an idea of what the transition is going to look like. I’ll be asking for some help organizing some of the IM material on thematic pages later on, so that in the future IM will be podcasts and archives.

I’m off for Sabbatical Week 2. I’ll check in later.

Missional Street Cred: The Conversation Continues

Somewhere between Mark Driscoll, David Fitch, Bill Kinnon and Jared Wilson there’s a discussion about the validity of missional/emerging church claims to know what they are doing/talking about….which I’m not part of, but one of them asks for my thoughts. Big mistake 🙂 (OK….it was Kinnon.)

First, my own missional cred.

My community has professing converts. About 25 this past year. Several Chinese students. One Muslim at least. We baptized that many; I’d guess there’s several more that didn’t ask for baptism. Ill treat them as Christians until I have a major reason to do otherwise.Continue reading “Missional Street Cred: The Conversation Continues”

The Jonah 4 Club

Here’s a useful question for me right now. (Maybe it will be useful to you, or maybe not.)

Can you find places in scripture where someone had to drastically revise their idea of God in order to know and follow the true God? If so, why and how?

I’m not asking for places where people just needed to learn some new information. No, I am talking about those in the Biblical story who had to radically revise, even abandon, the kind of God they believed in in order to take hold of the true and living God?Continue reading “The Jonah 4 Club”

A Must Have Book on Jesus

Because you have a real life, maybe you can only read one book about Jesus scholarship this year. What’s it going to be?

I love N.T. Wright’s Jesus and The Victory of God, but unless you are used to scholarly exegesis and discussion, you need something aimed more at the non-academic, but not short-changing you on any of the benefits of scholarly study.

The book you’ve been waiting for is Recovering Jesus, by Thomas Yoder Neufeld, the finest “undergraduate” level survey of the current scholarly study of Jesus I’ve ever seen, and a book that will warmly enhance your faith as a Christian.Continue reading “A Must Have Book on Jesus”

Sabbatical Journal + Book Recommendation for my Offended Readers

I’m completing my first week of sabbatical here in lovely Louisville, Kentucky. I want to thank all of you who made suggestions of things to do. I’ve visited many places that you recommended.

I’ve stayed at the Legacy Center on the Campus of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Accommodations are outstanding. Great bookstore, coffee shop, cafeteria, library and health center all right here on campus.Continue reading “Sabbatical Journal + Book Recommendation for my Offended Readers”