Next chunk of Crazy Love

Next chunk of Crazy Love

Great discussion so far. It's been fun to see people with different ideas about the book "Crazy Love" checking in.

On Wednesday, January 28th, we'll be discussing chapters 3-5.

In the meantime, Katdish sent me an article that Catalyst did with Chan called "A Gathering Force."

Here is the intro paragraph. Check out the rest if you get a chance:

Is there any logic in believing that God started His Church as a Spirit-filled, loving body with the intention that it would evolve into entertaining, hour-long services? Was he hoping that one day people would be attracted to the Church not because they care for one another, not because they are devoted to Him, not because the supernatural occurs in their midst, but because of good music and entertainment?

The Stuff Christians Like Book Club - Francis Chan - Crazy Love

The Stuff Christians Like Book Club - Francis Chan - Crazy Love

Today, we're going to talk about the first two chapters of Francis Chan's book, "Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God." If you read it, great. If you didn't, there's still time to join the SCLBC because we won't discuss the next section (chapters 3-5) until Wednesday, January 28th. You can buy the book here at Amazon.com or get it at your local library.

My hope is that this won't be me writing a book review and folks then responding to that book review. I'd rather treat this like a discussion, as if we all got together in someone's living room and just started talking about the book. So let's throw out some questions for each other, be honest about the things we liked, the things we were challenged by, the sections we would challenge etc.

The first chunk of Crazy Love - Pages 1 -52

I'll go first in simple numerical fashion:

1. Did you read the preface and the foreword?

2. I loved that Chan says upfront on page 18, "Don't worry-this isn't another book written to bash churches." I'm pretty tired of the whole "church as a pinata" approach to things.

3. I liked that on page 20, he described his initial church teachings as "incomplete" and not "incorrect." I think about that a lot because I'm afraid that as I mature I'll look back on something I wrote on a blog or a book and say, "Wow, I was really wrong about that." But I think to some degree, the more time we spend with God, the more time we spend in the Bible, the more we mature and hopefully grow passed our initial thoughts.

4. Did you go watch the online videos when the book told you to? I did eventually, but not right away. Sometimes I wasn't near a computer when I was reading it.

5. "God will not be tolerated," a statement on page 28, was really challenging to me.

6. "We don't get to decide who God is," on page 31 rocked me a little. All too often I wake up in the morning and try to dress up God like Mister Potatohead, "OK God, today, you're going to be a super helpful generous God. Here's a wheelbarrow to carry all the gifts you're going to give me." But I don't get to decide who He is.

7. I wanted to side hug the sentence, "Isn’t it a comfort to worship a God we cannot exaggerate?" (Page 31.)

8. I didn't love the soda can/ocean analogy on page 32. I felt like some of the other analogies in the book were a lot stronger.

9. "As much as we want God to explain himself to us, His creation, we are in no place to demand that He give an account to us." (Page 33) Do you ever do that? I do it all the time. "God, why hasn't this job come through yet, why is so and so being such a punk to me, why haven't you rescued me from this situation?" I think it's good to honestly and openly ask God questions, but demanding answers is a whole other thing. What answers do you demand from God?

10. I struggle with worry. I'm getting better at handling stress and worry, but anxiety is still a drug I sometimes try to get high on. Chan's section about worry starting on page 40 was great. From his excuse of "I couldn't really help it that I was the worrying kind" to his thought, "When I am consumed by my problems – stressed out about my life, my family, and my job – I actually convey the belief that I think the circumstances are more important than God's command to always rejoice," I was blown away. Am I the only one that missed that "rejoice" is a command?

11. I liked the movie extra analogy on page 42. I remember sitting on a train going through Italy once and looking out the window at all the villages and people speeding by and thinking, "None of these people know I exist or how important my silly problems and challenges are. Maybe I'm one small person in a much bigger story." Going to the beach always makes me feel like an extra because the grandness of God feels overwhelming there in a good way.

12. I wanted to clap when I read this section on page 45, "If life were stable, I'd never need God's help. Since it's not, I reach out for Him regularly. I am thankful for the unknowns and that I don’t have control, because it makes me run to God." I want to live that way and sometimes I do. But sometimes, I hate the unknowns, and think that if I was a "real Christian," I'd have a better plan for life and would have it all "figured out." Do you ever feel that way or do you embrace the unknowns like Chan?

13. The story of Stan Gerlach on page 46 made me cry, especially the line, "One second he was confessing Jesus; a second later, Jesus was confessing him!"

14. 1 Corinthians 3:15 is a tough verse to swallow: "If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames." I've never thought about the idea that I could lead a quiet Christian life and end up "as one escaping through the flames." Have you?

Those are the things I would say if I were sitting on a flowered hand me down couch in my living room.

Did you like the first two chapters? Was there anything you loved or hated?

Introduce yourself if you don’t mind with your first comment. First name and city, state, country. (If you’re comfortable with that)

I’m Jon and I live in Alpharetta, Georgia which is in the United States.

Let's talk about the book.

The car crash, the note, the beauty of things that don't make sense.

The car crash, the note, the beauty of things that don't make sense.

There are a few reasons I love what pastor Shaun King wrote about a car crash he was in:

1. The title of his post was "I experienced a miracle and I'm not a loon."

2. It contains these words:
"Knowing that I would not be able to talk once they started operating on my face (while I was awake), I began to beg nurses to write a note on my chest that said,

"I still believe in the Goodness of the Lord"

After begging two nurses to write the note and trying to tell them that I wasn't crazy, the third nurse wrote the note and placed it on my chest. I asked her to not let anyone remove the note and pointed to it every chance I got. It is on my chest with my blood on it in this photo.

3. It reminds me that God is big and wild and unexplainable.

Click here to read the story

Everybody is somebody.

Everybody is somebody.

"Imagine if you didn't have a home life. Imagine if everybody had pretty much given up on you. Now imagine what it would mean for hundreds of people to suddenly believe in you."

That's a quote from an article a friend sent me the other day. A high school football coach decided to cheer for the other team, a group of players currently serving jail time. In essence, when the world told them they were nobody, this coach showed them that everybody is somebody in God's eyes.

It's a beautiful example of what it means to love your neighbor.

Check it out if you get a chance.

How much?

A friend in Australia sent me this clip. In it, Penn, of the comic duo "Penn & Teller" asks a really bold question after a stranger gives him a Bible. His explanation of why we desperately need to witness to people completely caught me off guard.

two words, one lie

two words, one lie

The devil is more than willing, and very able, to tell you what a Christian should be.

A Christian should feel happy all the time.
A Christian should be rich.
A Christian should never doubt.
A Christian should know more Bible by now.
A real Christian should never have a marriage that is broken, a child that is run away or a hope that feels small and extinguished.
A real Christian should never be hurt or lonely or sad or angry or stressed or depressed or confused.

Painting a picture of what a Christian should be is perhaps the devil's favorite activity.

But, he will never be able to tell you what a Christian can be.

He cannot plumb the depths of God's love within us.
He cannot fathom the might of God's power within us.
He cannot comprehend the relentless pursuit of God's grace within us.

He cannot tell you what a Christian can be, but he will whisper aggressively what a Christian should be.

The challenge is not to confuse those two words, can and should. Because one produces shame and condemnation, attempting to put limits on a God that is limitless. The other, shines a light on a God in which all things are possible.

Can and should.

Which one do you hear most?

Which one are you listening to?

Awake and asleep.

Awake and asleep.

I read an article in last month’s Men’s Journal about some coal miners that died in a tragic accident. While trapped miles under the earth, with their oxygen running out and death coming quickly, the men decided to write some notes to the people they loved.

One note said:

“It wasn’t bad. I just went to sleep.”

That is a gift,

if you are dying.

That is the only thing you can give your family and the people that love you. That was a kindness, a man letting his family know that he did not suffer. I was overwhelmed by the selflessness of that action. With only a few short breaths left, that man did not focus on the pain he was in, but instead used his last energy to do everything he could to ease the pain of the people he loved.

But if you are alive,

if you still have years ahead of you, if you are still above ground, breathing and living, that note is note a gift.

It is a curse.

It is a note that I wrote to describe my own life for many, many years.

“It wasn’t bad. I just went to sleep.”

Things weren’t horrible, I just went to sleep. I stopped caring about anyone but me. I stopped giving and focused on taking. I let go of risk and settled into a nice, safe, comfortable life.

“It wasn’t bad. I just went to sleep.”

I am tired of living that way. Tired of writing that note. Tired of being those words.

I don’t know if you’re like me and it’s easy for you to fall asleep. Easy to focus on the wrong things. Easy to miss the love and the life and the joy God keeps whispering in the corners of your day.

Wake up.

Wake up.

Wake up.

That is my prayer for 2009. That I would not sleep. That I would not live a life that is really not all that alive. That I would remember Revelation 16:15, “blessed is he who stays awake.”

What kind of note will you write this year?