Month: June 2011

Not a Fan by Kyle Idleman

As a fan of the Colorado Rockies, I’ve learned to live with the feast and famine cycle of the team. When things are going well for the team, as they do for varying lengths of time, there’s nothing better than a game on the radio while working in the garden. On the other hand, as the Rox endure one of their all-too-frequent slumps, the ease with which I can go days without a thought about the team makes me wonder why I invested so much time in them in the first place. Fans come and go.

When author Kyle Idleman throws down the challenge-fan or follower-he sets our sights on something much more significant, Jesus Christ. One who defines the relationship with Him as one of being a fan finds that Jesus is great when things are going well. When life turns difficult, the relationship becomes much more tenuous. For the fan, turning to other sources for answers, comfort and guidance is easy. They’ll get back to Him when everything turns around.

For the follower, there is no option.

The follower sees the relationship in a much different way than the fan. Good times or bad, Jesus is their shepherd and all of their trust is vested in Him. Follower, Idleman rightly teaches, is the only correct attitude when it comes to Jesus, though he acknowledges that our churches are filled with fans. Through the pages of Not a Fan, he walks the reader through the nature of a biblical relationship with Christ, one in which He is Lord more than friend, Shepherd more than guidance counselor.

Idleman does an excellent job of providing the necessary reflective tools to enable the reader to judge the nature of their relationship with Christ. In chapters dealing with legalism, lack of personal relationship, commitment or the lack thereof, etc., he brings the reader face to face with the areas which tend to plague modern Christianity. Throughout, you are encouraged to DTR (define the relationship). Only when you have done so can you effectively understand the invitation to become a follower and all that that means that follows.

Not a Fan is a much-needed book in the Church today. Though there is a small-group or Sunday school curriculum associated with the book, I encourage individual believers to approach the book on their own first. Allow the Spirit to illuminate the specifics of your relationship with Christ in the quiet, free from the distraction of how He is influencing others in the group or class.

I’m grateful to Zondervan who provided this copy for review.

Not a Fan – Zondervan

www.notafan.com

Damaris Zehner, carrying on Michael Spencer’s Internet Monk blog, wrote this about new mission opportunities…

Have you ever thought you might have a calling to missions?  I have a suggestion for you.

I won’t try to convince you that this new field is more deserving or better or more desperate than a hundred others.  All mission fields are important.  People might get competitive about missions, but how can God compete with himself?  He calls different people to different jobs, and it could be that one of you might find your calling here.

“Here” is in rural and small-town America.  But don’t come to do vacation Bible school or build a picnic shelter or even start a church.

Most small towns have a church and VBS, and we can build our own picnic shelter.  What we need is a grocery store.  A doctor’s office.  A hardware store.  A co-op to package and sell locally grown produce.  We need the necessities of life and meaningful employment in a place that feels like home.

 

My family and I live outside a town of a thousand people in western Indiana.  A hundred years ago our town still had a thousand people, but it also had a theater, a grocery store, a general store, two hotels, a high school, an elementary school, a grain terminal, a Carnegie library, and a hardware store.  The last four remain.  A few years ago the state tried to shut down the little library, but our petition drive was at least temporarily effective.  The grain terminal will stay in business, I guess, and so will the elementary school – although several nearby have shut and some children now spend an hour each way on the bus.  But our wonderful hardware store, that smells of old wood and nails and oil and paint, with the window display of 19^th-century implements and the mannequin legs sticking out of the claw-footed bathtub – it may close when the proprietor gets old.

Read the entire post..

My days are like the evening shadow; I wither away like grass.

But you, Lord, sit enthroned forever; your renown endures through all generations. Ps 102:11-12

Contrast; an easy concept to define and understand. Placing one thing aside another so that the differences become apparent. As the psalter continually reminds us, no greater contrast exists than the gulf between God and man.

Man…created in the very image of God, privileged to be imbued with His Spirit and yet starkly different. Given domain over the Earth as caretakers of creation, humanity aspires to go beyond, to grasp the divinity that belongs only to the Creator. Brokenness of character marks our souls forever.

In the beginning you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands.

They will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment. (vv 25-26)

We lament our condition, fragile and brief as it is in contrast to the eternal nature of God. Life passes by in an instant, sometimes filled with joy while other moments are marked by despair. Permanence is sought and found only in one place, at the base of the throne of God. Our quest for eternity is satisfied only here, hand and hand with the Creator of all.

Grace and peace to you.

image .indigo.