Today I was surfing through the adventure of Youtube. For a while I’ve been listening and reading the ideas and teachings of a guy named Rob Bell. The way this guy speaks and the ideas he shares, for some reason they really connect with me. I find myself going back to his church’s website to find out what he spoke on the previous week. This guy is a Christian pastor/speaker. Maybe what I like about his teachings is that he digs back into the history and the context of what he’s speaking on. And for some people, some Conservative Fundamentalist Christians, this is a problem. They view him as a heretic, someone who is leading people away from God and preaching Universalism.
Here’s a video of a Christian outside of Rob Bell’s speaking tours SCREAMING at the top of his lungs…
It’s really long so I don’t imagine you watching the entire thing. But I want you to get the idea of the response this Rob guy brings out.
My problem is how angry these Christians are getting. I guess it could be seen as what Jesus said and did with the religious leaders of his time but I don’t see any love coming from this video. If nothing else, this guy would completely turn me off of anything doing with Christianity.
From my understanding, the church is supposed to act like Jesus. And from what Jesus did, helping the poor, showing and teaching about how to connect with God; I don’t see this guy (if he represents the church) doing that. I see the the Christian church taking care of their own. “If you’re a Christian, you’ll feel safe in this place with us.” This is the way I see churches behaving.
If I were to be part of a church whose purpose is to show the world Jesus, then I would want to be out and showing those who don’t know Jesus who he is. I would want a church to be a place for anyone to check it out and not feel awful for dressing, smelling, looking, different.
I want to be part of a group that will get off their seats and use their energy to change the world.
I think people like Rob Bell and a few other groups are getting it. I want to be part of that movement.
I’ve missed a couple days writing here. In fact, it’s gotten really bad. This was supposed to be a daily blog. Having a ruined computer at work and at least six novels waiting to be read at home don’t help the situation. Priorities man!!!
Now that the complaining is out of the way…today is Father’s Day! My day consisted of going to church, eating a fine lunch (at home and not in a restaurant), and trying to call my dad. He wasn’t able to come to the phone. But I wished him a happy one anyway.
Maybe I should write my thoughts out on paper before trying to come up with something on the fly while staring at this computer screen.
I had another two dreams last night. This is becoming a ritual: where I only remember two dreams.
The first dealt with a church service I attended. It seems like it wasn’t in a church building but in some conference room. And instead of your typical service, there were three musical groups (bands) who performed. For some reason I was very angry at the pastor for having these three groups perform instead of having a normal church service. I remember being all huffy and out of breath because I was so upset. I ended up storming out of the room.
The second dream involved me helping set up a room for some speaker. It was very vague. He must have been some kind of master Q & A guy who gave great answers to life’s questions. I remember setting up two long tables so it looked like an “L” on the main floor of the room. While we were waiting for the event to begin, I was sitting by this guy and decided to ask him a few questions of my own. I don’t remember what my first question was, but he took out this thick book and said, “Well let me look up the answer to that and then I’ll be able to put it in your context.” I was baffled! This guy had a book that gave him the answers to, what seemed to be, any question. His trick was just to look up the generic answer and contextualize it.
Two dreams that seem to have no connection whatsoever but which happened in the same night.
