2. I wish Palin was the one running for president. From what little I’ve read about her record, she’s actually taken measures as a mayor (reducing property taxes by 60%) and as governor (selling the governor’s jet on ebay) to actually shrink government and its ridiculous expenditures. In other words–she seems like a doer. We need a president who is a doer.

3. I wish the media would cover more Ron Paul stuff. For that matter, I wish we saw more coverage of other parties and their platforms.

My big critique of the book is what, at the very least, feels like over the top language designed to seem biblically objective while ultimately pigeon holing the readers into their conclusions. Perhaps my biggest disagreement with the authors comes from their recommendation on p. 5 when addressing what people should do that find themselves frustrated with their church’s pagan practices:

“Either leave your church quietly, refusing to cause division, or be at peace with it. There is a vast gulf between rebellion and taking a stand for what is true.”

This seems quite contrary to the Spirit of the living God who knits the body together as he sees fit and for the purpose of building it up in truth and love.  Beyond that, in Viola’s follow up book Reimagining Church, he argues for communities that stay together despite differences so that they can work those out under the headship of Christ. These two pieces of advice seem conflicting in ways that leave the reader and potential practitioners scratching their heads.

Outside of those basic critiques, I think the value in the book is that it pushes us to ask questions that we may not otherwise think about asking. It is here that I’ve really enjoyed the books layout and information. Questions that it makes you ask:

• Why has discipleship become programmatic rather than relational?
• Why do we have church buildings?
• Where did our order of worship come from?
• Why is the sermon the central way of teaching God’s people?
• How did communion become a shot of grape juice and a shard of cracker?
• Why do we do systematic theology rather than biblical narrative theology?

There are plenty of other questions to ask, I’m sure, but those are some of the ones on my radar that I think this book offers some assistance in thinking through.  I’d recommend you grab up the book and find some folks to talk about some of this stuff with. Or, talk about it here. Either way…

“For Paul, the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth is the heart of the gospel (not to the exclusion of the cross, of course, but not least as the event which gives the cross its meaning); it is the object of faith, the ground of justification, the basis for obedient Christian living, the motivation for unity, and, not least, the challenge to the principalities and powers. It is the event that declares that there is ‘another king’, and summons human beings to allegiance, and thereby to a different way of life, in fulfilment of the Jewish scriptures and in expectation of the final new world which began at Easter and which will be completed when the night is finally gone and the day has fully dawned.”

Paul makes such an idea clear when he talks to the Corinthian church about the first importance of the gospel: “Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures..”

If you want to know the future details of God’s will of decree, you don’t want a renewed mind, you want a crystal ball. This is not called transformation and obedience; it’s called divination, soothsaying.

I know others in my life are experiencing similar struggles and I hope that can be an encouraging word to you as well.

Check out the full story, but here is a snippet:

CHICAGO (AP) — A 1909 Honus Wagner baseball card was sold for $1.62 million at a memorabilia auction in Chicago, a sports auction company said Saturday…Rogers has collected baseball cards since he was 6. When he was in the second grade, he said he cut out a copy of a Wagner card and carried it around in his pocket.

“Since I was 8 years old, I’ve hoped and dreamed that one day I’d be able to get one,” Rogers said.

I wonder how much of his career decisions centered around having enough loot to pull that off. Whew.

The thinking behind this has caused us to commit the worst treason possible against heaven—self-preservation. Why is self-preservation so bad, aren’t there worse things a church can do? Self-preservation is nothing short of blasphemy, it is taking into our own hands the function of Deity. It is playing God, plain and simple. That is the problem. As a consequence, literally tens of thousands of Christians and churches are deceived into a “churchianity” that is carried out by men, for men, under the name of God. I wonder if God likes getting the credit for all of the crap we do.

–Neil Cole

God’s future redeemed world and universe is depicted as a ‘city’. Abraham sought the city ‘whose builder and maker is God’ (Hebrews 11.10). Revelation 21 describes and depicts the apex of God’s redemption, as a city! His redemption is building us a city - the new Jerusalem.

In fact, when we look at the New Jerusalem, we discover something strange. In the midst of the city is a crystal river, and on each side of the river is the Tree of Life, bearing fruit and leaves which heal the nations of all their wounds and the effects of the divine covenant curse. This city is the Garden of Eden, remade. The City is the fulfilment of the purposes of the Eden of God. We began in a garden but will end in a city; God’s purpose for humanity is urban! Why? So the city is God’s invention and design, not just a sociological phenomenon or invention of humankind.

While I respect those who are obedient to any calling toward the city and have often weighed this out myself, I’m happy to know I’m not alone in having a sense of the need for the suburbs to be redeemed and not forsaken. Not yet anyway. Joe Thorn and Steve McCoy have started a new site called sub-text to address topics related to living the gospel in the burbs.

I’m asking myself questions these days about what it looks like to seek the kingdom where I’m at instead using my location as an excuse for apathy toward the mission of making disciples.  I’m also thinking about the dynamics that exist in the Metro Detroit area between the city and the suburbs and how it will take both to really redeem the region.

-Chuck Colson

I have driven slow,
three miles an hour or so,
through Highland Park, Heidelberg, and the
Cass Corridor.
I’ve hopped on the Michigan,
and transferred to the Woodward,
and heard the good word blaring from an
a.m. radio.
I love the worn-through tracks of trolley
trains breaking through their
concrete vaults,
As I ride the Fort Street or the Baker,
just making my way home.

I sneak through an iron gate, and fish
rock bass out of the strait,
watching the mail boat with
its tugboat gait,
hauling words I’ll never know.
The water letter carrier,
bringing prose to lonely sailors,
treading the big lakes with their trailers,
floats in blue green chopping waters,
above long-lost sunken failures,
awaiting exhumation iron whalers,
holding gold we’ll never know.

I’ve slid on Belle Isle,
and rowed inside of it for miles.
Seeing white deer running alongside
While I glide, in a canoe.
I’ve walked down Caniff holding a glass
Atlas root beer bottle in my hands
And I’ve entered closets of coney islands
early in the morning too.
I’ve taken malt from Stroh’s and Sanders,
felt the black powder of abandoned
embers,
And smelled the sawdust from wood cut
to rehabilitate the fallen edifice.
I’ve walked to the rhythm of mariachis,
down junctions and back alleys,
Breathing fresh-baked fumes of culture
nurtured of the Latin and the
Middle East.
I’ve fallen down on public ice,
and skated in my own delight,
and slid again on metal crutches
into trafficked avenues.

Three motors moved us forward,
Leaving smaller engines to wither,
the aluminum, and torpedo,
Monuments to unclaimed dreaming.
Foundry’s piston tempest captured,
Forward pushing workers raptured,
Frescoed families strife fractured,
Encased by factory’s glass ceiling.

Detroit, you hold what one’s been seeking,
Holding off the coward-armies weakling,
Always rising from the ashes
not returning to the earth.

I so love your heart that burns
That in your people’s body yearns
To perpetuate,
and permeate,
the lonely dream that does encapsulate,
Your spirit, that God insulates,
With courageous dream’s concern.