100th Post

My little blog has reached its first milestone. This is my 100th post on Spiritual Reboot. It seems that I had a thing or two to say about life, the universe and everything. Perhaps I'll have more to say in the future.

Stay tuned.

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Book Recommendation: Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell

Rob Bell is my hero. I saw him at his last Everything is Spiritual show in December and I've been listening to his Mars Hill teachings online a lot lately. I love this guy.

For those who don't know, Rob Bell is the teacher at Mars Hill Bible Church in Grandville, Michigan. I attended Mars Hill twice last Summer, but he was on tour with Everything is Spiritual at that time, so I still haven't been able to experience the visual aspect of his teachings yet. I'd like to sometime soon, though.

Bell is an excellent and charismatic teacher with a lot of theological knowledge. But it's practical knowledge, not just the intellectual stuff that gets people on a pedestal. Although Mars Hill has a congregation of about 10,000 and would be considered a "mega-church", what draws me to him and that place is the compassion and the heart that they have for their community. To Bell and Mars Hill, caring for people in need and sacrificing your time and services for them is much of what being a Christian is all about. The belief here is that evangelism is not just about telling people the message of Christ, it's about living it too.

Velvet Elvis mirrors a lot of this. I read this book as a once-a-week devotion and it never ceased to stir something within me. Bell highlights many different subjects from church doctrine to what it means to be a disciple of Jesus to the story of how Mars Hill got started. And through every subject in this book (and every weekly teaching as well), there is one common theme.

God is everywhere. He is involved in every aspect of our lives. He is that "something" that holds everything together, and he takes joy in being involved in our lives.

I used like Mars Hill because I thought it was emergent. Now I like it because I know that it's not. It's not anything. It's simply Christian. Bell isn't concerned with titles or status, in fact, he's pretty humble about his growing fame. He cares about what is real. He's constantly breaking through barriers of churchiness and traditionalism that has plagued Christianity for so long and shadowed the reality of what being a Christian really means. But at the same time, he rejects the bitterness toward these things, which is something I've been going through, personally. He loves God, and he loves people.

This book is awesome. I have never met a person who has read it that has said otherwise. I highly recommend reading it. Hopefully it will stir something up in you as well.

Happenings and Thoughts

It's been a while since I've last blogged, partially because I've been busy with classes and work and partially because I've felt rather uninspired as of late. Actually, unmotivated would be a better term for it. I have ideas of things I want to blog about, but I don't. I just don't.

I finished my first class of the Summer and didn't do so well, and two days later I started my second class. Meanwhile, I look around and realise that we're already halfway through Summer. I've been tired a lot lately and a bit apathetic too. After getting pretty stressed and burnt out over my first class, I don't really have much motivation for my present one. I'm still doing the homework, but I've become a lot more laid back about it, for better or for worse.

I moved over the weekend. I now live on campus again, for better or worse. Right now, cardboard boxes loaded up with all my belongings are strewn throughout the place. I also don't have the Internet on my computer yet. I'm currently writing this post from the XP office, as it is my closest source of unfettered Internet access.

The new place doesn't really feel like home to me yet. And even though I know that it will eventually feel like home and it will be awesome having a roommate come late August, I'm not completely enjoying the place yet. It smells of cigarette smoke and there are a lot of hoops to jump through with Western's staff in order to get anything done. Again...I don't have the Internet yet. Mostly, I don't have time to get anything done. All of Western's offices close at five and I get off work at 4:30. It takes fifteen minutes to get home. Go figure.

I complain, but it's probably a good thing that I don't have constant Internet access yet. I spend way too much time Googling random things and looking at Youtube videos when I do. Probably more time than is healthy.

And while I'm still on the subject of WMU staff, I feel the need to remark on an observation I made the other day. While driving around campus, I noticed that campus police cars are a heck of a lot nicer than Kalamazoo and Portage police cars. The campus police "nazis" are notorious for writing parking tickets and leaving them on the cars of poor college students simply because they wanted a convenient place to park, rather than parking in the issued spots on the edges of campus, behind staff parking, so I'm not really surprised at the quality of their vehicles. I just thought it was an interesting thing to note.

What Every Christian Should Know #7

Here is #7 of Keith Giles' monthly series, TOP 10 THINGS EVERY CHRISTIAN SHOULD KNOW (But Probably Doesn't). I haven't had a lot of trouble with this particular subject in any of the churches I grew up in, but I know that this can be a real issue some times. It's worth checking out.

Here's a snippet:

Number 7- "Work" Is Not A Bad Word

There is a pervasive mind-set within the American Christian community that to do works is somehow in opposition to the Gospel. If you've ever heard a pastor or a well-meaning Christian chastise someone for acts of service by saying, "That's works, brother" then you know what I'm talking about.

It's easy to understand how this idea has crept into the Church here in America. We've equated the idea of doing good works with Liberal Theology, or cultic misunderstandings of the gift of salvation. By doing so, we've defined service to others out of existence, and in some cases we've even made people feel guilty for acting out their faith in any overt way.

Our mantra has become, "Salvation is a free gift! You can't do anything to earn it, and you don't need to do anything to keep from losing it." Therefore, we've concluded by inference, or by direct argumentation, that works of any kind must be in opposition to the concept of the free gift of salvation offered to us by the work of Christ on our behalf upon the cross of Calvary.

However, this idea of works being against the Law of Grace is a twisted concept. Paul the Apostle never teaches this, Peter never teaches it, and Jesus certainly doesn't ever suggest that doing good works is against the will of God. Far from it. The fact is, Jesus and the writers of the New Testament all agree that to be a follower of Christ is to be a doer of good works.