Adventures in Missing the Point

This morning I spoke at an incredible church in Atlanta.  The momentum and synergy that is coming from the content of the book is encouraging.  People were hungry to get a copy at the end of service.  Teams of people are being formed to partner with us in getting the word out.  If you have read it, help us to make it viral.  Tell someone about it and tell them to pick up a copy.  Only give your copy away to an unchurched or once churched person.  The ball is rolling…

There is some pent up anxiety that surrounds the launch of the book and the beginning of the book tour.  Jason and I will meet up on Saturday and begin a whirlwind few months where we will be coming to a city near you.   We are excited and are still reflective of how we got to this place.  We didn’t set out to be authors.  We unknowingly committed to observing the obvious, writing about it, then sitting back to see what happens.  We saw two things that were consistent:  Jesus loves people in the midst of their madness and had forgotten it and there were a whole lot of people who were majoring on the minors. The second group is the hardest to make headway.

So many people are caught up in the micro-level management of other people’s lives (as if their life is not enough to manage).  While thinking they are focused on the things of God, they have missed the point all together.  Jesus said to advocate for injustice.  They judge.  Jesus said to love your neighbor and they ignore their neighbor unless their neighbor sees the world like they see it.  Jesus came to fulfill the law, they proliferate the rules and regulations within the law.

A few years ago, Brian McClaren and Tony Compolo wrote a book called Adventures in Missing the Point.  In it, they describe how evangelicals have managed their way into completely voiding the message of the New Testament gospel.  Many dismissed the book as Emergent Theology.  As I read it, there were portions that I didn’t agree with.  But their book was a written challenge, a conversation, which tackled taboo subjects that stirred me and other readers to get back to the basics; Jesus’ mission of reaching hurting people. 

What would happen if we loved our neighbor as ourselves?  What would happen if we were willing to be the least of them?  What would happen if we were to defer serve, rather than to be served?  What if we modeled love instead of just spoke of it. 

I am thinking the point would come back into a clearer focus.

Until then,

Craig

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