Just in time!

Hey friends. :)

My literary adventure continues, and just in time for my two-books-a-month goal, I finished reading Brian McLaren's A New Kind of Christian. Personally, I thought it was great. The book is set up as the account of a friendship between a pastor named Dan and his daughter's soccer coach/science teacher Neo. Now Dan and Neo are fictional characters, but the ideas are legit. Through a series of conversations, emails, and a sermon or two, we see pastor Dan (has anybody ever seen Raising Helen?), with Neo's help, basically redefine the way he views the church and our responsibilities as members of it. You really should read it, as my description probably isn't the best, but here are a few of my favorite snippets:

In one chapter Neo and Dan are on a walk discussing biblical interpretation and McLaren (through Neo) writes: "'What if instead of reading the Bible, you let the Bible read you'" (56) Shortly before this point in their conversation, Neo makes an interesting analogy regarding faith:

"'What if faith isn't best compared to a building, but rather to a spiderweb? Instead of one foundation, it has several anchor points. Those points might be spiritual experiences, exemplary people and institutions whom one has come to trust, that sort of thing. ... [the Bible] could be seen as one of the anchor points. Or perhaps every passage in the Bible that has affected your life could be seen as an anchor point. Or perhaps the Bible isn't only in the anchor points. Perhaps it is part of every thread of the web.'" (54)

Not sure what the hornet getting eaten has to do with the analogy,
but this is the only spider picture I have!

A hundred pages later, Neo is explaining that mission would be a major part of his ideal seminary. He/McLaren writes: 

"...more spiritual formation takes place in a weekend retreat than in six months of weekly meetings and...more spiritual formation takes place in a week of summer camp than in a year of weekly meetings. It strikes me that a retreat is simply a short-term monastic experience. It's intense--and intensity is an undervalued key to spiritual growth--and it's holistic: it's not a matter of just adding some Bible onto a busy, fragmented life." (150)

And lastly in my little chunks to share, Neo talks about churches:

"In my thinking, church doesn't exist for the benefit of its members. It exists to equip its members for the benefit of the world. To do that, it is about three things: community, spirituality, and mission--kind of a triangle, where each point is connected to the other two." (155)

No surprise, I suppose, that the last one there stuck out to me in the middle of my YAV year. 

Today the roommates and I headed to McKays, a used book store, and I found a few more of the books on my list. I think Anne Lamott's Traveling Mercies will be next for me. Stay tuned for thoughts on that one.

Love,

Allison