Rumors of God: Experience the Kind of Faith You’ve Only Heard About

I kept hearing about Rumors of God, the new book by Jon Tyson & Darren Whitehead, on twitter and blogs and finally decide to pick it up. I was not disappointed. This book will easily make the 10 best books I’ve read in 2011 list.

The book covers how faith is lived out and seen in our dreams, generosity, love, grace, freedom, commitment, community, justice and hope. It is a great picture of what faith can and should be. I found myself getting wrapped up in the stories that Jon & Darren shared from their churches. It reminded me of many of the stories I’m beginning to hear from our missional communities at Revolution.

At the beginning they shared a quote from C.S. Lewis that embodies the goal of the book, “That is precisely what Christianity is about. The world is a great sculptor’s shop. We are the statues and there is a rumor going round the shop that some of us are some day going to come to life.”

Here are a few things that jumped out:

• When the entire culture is dreaming the same thing, imagination has been taken captive. An alternative dream requires animation by a different narrative.
• How do we see more of the reality and presence of God in our lives? We must prioritize seeking God – we will not accidentally drift into it. We must intentionally, deliberately, earnestly make seeking God a priority in the way we spend our time.
• Money flows effortlessly to that which is its God.
• The difference between Christianity and other religions is grace.
• No one knows how truly bad he is until he has tried very hard to be good.
• Grace creates the conditions for faith; faith does not create the conditions for grace.
• Everyone says forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive.

Here’s the trailer for the book with the authors:

The Next Step of Revolution

We are in the middle of our Christmas offering at Revolution. It has been awesome to see how God is moving in the hearts of Revolutionaries. This is the video we showed a few weeks ago when we kicked off our Christmas offering.

If you aren’t familiar with it, here is what it is and what it is going to.

Why we Need the Gospel

These words sum up the angst of an entire generation and show our great need for the gospel:

We are beautiful little creatures who were all supposed to have been part of a fairy tale but who got lost along the way. -Douglas Copeland, quoted in Rumors of God

Christmas Series at Revolution Starts December 10

As we head into the Christmas season at Revolution Church, we will be spending 3 weeks going through the book of Jude. Because we are celebrating the birth of Christ, Jude is a great book to look at. The reason is that Jude calls followers of Jesus to contend for the faith, to persevere and live differently because of what Jesus did.

One of the main themes of Jude, a book that takes up one page in the Bible, is that it is easy for our culture and sin to pervert our belief. This is seen most clearly in the month of December, as we near Christmas. Followers of Jesus say Scripture calls us to be generous, to be humble, to live a pure lifestyle (which is true), but we don’t always see that. We see followers of Jesus being stingy, greedy, spending thousands of dollars at Christmas.

What Jude shows us is how we live shows if the gospel has changed us, if we’ve been truly saved. 

Here’s what December looks like at Revolution:

• December 10: The Darkest Darkness (Jude 1 – 16)
• December 17: Bearing the Light (Jude 17 – 23)
• December 24: Hero (Jude 24 – 25)

Music Monday 11.28.11: Drew Grow and the Pastors’ Wives, Kelli Schaeffer and The Head and the Heart

Part One:

Part Two:

HT: Holiday at the Sea

Six Myths about Forgiveness

There are 6 myths when it comes to forgiveness (from Rumors of God by Darren Whitehead & Jon Tyson):

1. Forgiving is the same as forgetting.
2. Forgiving is the same as reconciling.
3. Forgiving is the same as excusing.
4. Forgiving will make you weak.
5. Forgiving is a simple act or decision.
6. Forgiving depends on the perpetrator admitting wrong.

Links of the Week

1. Introverts in the church. I haven’t read this book yet, but as an introvert, I’m grateful people are talking about this.
2. 7 negative effects of porn.
3. Scott Thomas on What pastors can learn from the Penn State scandal.
4. Is there a megachurch bubble?
5. Mike Breen on what the American church will look like in 10 years.
6. Gospel Coalition on importan female voices in the church.
7. Andy Stanley on Creating a come and see culture.