Hello blog world. So to catch things up I'm reading this book called The Irresistible Revolution - highly recommended. And while I'm reading this I would love to get feedback and opinions from YOU. It's really cool to see how the human mind works and how people think differently. So here we go. . .

So we start off talking about the difficulty in understanding that Jesus was a person. we've so far commercialized it and making him a fashion statement that it's hard to even believe he really existed. Shane puts it this way "It becomes hard to know who Jesus really is, much less to imagine that Jesus ever laughed, cried, or had poop that smelled" I think that last line is definately worth mentioning. Jesus pooped. Maybe that should be the verse right after John 11:35 "Jesus wept. Then Jesus pooped"

But here we are realizing that jesus really lived, that he still lives, but what do we do about it? Here's a few lines from Shane that got me thinkin: "But then you start to think there must be more to Christianity, more than just lyaing your life and sins at the foot of the cross. I came to realize that preachers were telling me to lay my life at the foot of the cross and weren't giving me anything to pick up. . . Where were the do's?. . . I had become a 'believer,' but had no idea what it means to be a follower. People had taught me what Christians believe, but no one had told me how Christians live."

Now that's hard to swallow. How many times have kids come to me for advice on what to do now, and the answer I give them goes something like this "Um. . . well you know man, keep readin your bible and prayin. . ." I'm not saying there's anything wrong with these things, but it's all for our benefit. And if we live our lives, especially when we've accepted Christ as the head of our lives, completely for our benefit then how much like Jesus are we really being? And isn't that what the word Christian means? To be like Christ. But still we drown ourselves in the Bible until we realize that because there's no outward expression of what we're learning and that all of the things we're reading are just sitting inside our heads and we don't see a whole lot of purpose. We need an out. Somewhere to take the things we learn and apply it. And I think that so many times we give up on it because we're so thirsty for God, but still so suffocated by Christianity.

Because living our lives like we know the Bible tells us to is scary. Mark Twain said "It's not the parts of the Bible I don't understand that scare me, but the parts I do understand." It's when we read and understand the Bible that we really can acknowledge that we know how live our lives. And it's when people became too afraid of having to deal with the fact that Jesus might have actually meant what he said and taught that Christianity became watered down. Our friend Shane says it like this "I began to wonder if anybody sitll believed Jesus meant those things he said. I thought if we just stopped and asked, What if he really meant it? it could turn the world upside-down. It was a shame Christians had become so normal." People like John Wesley who believed that if they did'nt get kicked out of town after he spoke he wondered if he had truly preached the gospel. Where's that gone? It's supposed to be convicting and challenging . . . otherwise it wouldn't be worth it!

So here's Shane getting involved with a charismatic nondenominational congregation and became a jesus freak and lived happily ever after. not really. he's caught up in the excitement of standing on street corners and handing out pamphlets but suddenly realizes he's not getting much fulfillment out of all of it. he says in a side note that "we later referred to this feel-good, emotionally charged christianity as "spiritual masturbation." It feels good but never really gives birth to anything." - provocative? yes. appropriate? whoa, i dunno!

Shane ends up going to a college up north (he's a good ol` boy from the dirty south, so this is a big step) and gets involved with some radical guys with radical ideas. One of them is reading some publishings from Mother Teresa (who from this point on will be referred to as Momma T) and gets this crazy idea to go be with the homeless downtown. so for weeks they go down and talk to the homeless of Philly. But the more and more they go down and sleep on the streets the more and more the bible begins to come alive to them. and they experienced miracles.

Women struggling to get a meal from a late night food van - only to give it away to another homeless woman who wasn't able to fight for the meal herself. She believed it was worth the struggle.

Kids panhandling money and immediately splitting the everything they had with their friends.

Kids aspiring to own grocery stores just so they have the means to do what so many already have the opportunity to do - and never take it. . . to give out food to the hungry people that need it.

Men laying their pack of cigarettes int he offering plate because it was literally all they had that was of any value

Momma T said "in the poor we meet Jesus in his most distressing disguises"

We can meet god. And most of the time it's in the places we least expect it.