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I’ve heard this little phrase in Christian circles that says “you can be the person God designed you to be.” The implications of the phrase are: 1. You are not the person God designed you to be and 2. The speaker or writer has some sort of formula that is going to help you become who God intended for you to be. Now to be sure, every time I’ve heard this the intentions have been terrific. It’s always the nicest (and for that matter, most God fearing God loving better than my cynical self) people who say these things. If the world were more populated with people like them than people like me the world would be a better place, for sure. God knows they mean well, and they mean well for God and for you. That said, I take issue with the phrase. I don’t believe you and I are going to be the people God intended for us to be until we get to heaven, until we are reunited with the Trinity. Until then, we are the people God never wanted us to be, that is people who are separated from Him. We have access to Him through [...]

If it’s harder for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get to heaven, it’s harder for an elephant to thread that needle than for a person who has right theology to not get arrogant. How many people do you know who have read one John Calvin book and thrown it down in a spiral while doing a touchdown dance as though they’d accomplished something themselves? Five years after releasing my third book, Searching for God Knows What, the publisher came to me and asked if they could reprint the book. The book has sold strong for all those years, and they wanted to bump it into a second life. As a writer, I was excited about the idea. Before Million Miles, Searching was the book I was most proud of, so I agreed to put a new cover on it and write some extra material. The two main components I added to the book are a new introduction in which I argue that right theology has no redemptive power at all, that redemptive power only comes through a relationship with Jesus. I explain why right theology has become a false [...]

I’d intended to promote the re-release of Searching for God Knows What this week, but haven’t gotten around to it because I’ve been thinking a lot about church. And apparently so have you considering the number of comments on yesterdays blog. Essentially, I asked if modern churches were mostly educational communities, spiritual community colleges, seminars or schools, and whether there was room for churches to diversify the learning experience without leaning so heavily on the lecture model. Your responses were terrific, eye-opening for me and remarkably objective. I couldn’t just let the conversation hang. I’m wondering if we can dream for a bit. I think a number of pastors and leaders might get a great deal out of this conversation, if we could just take it one step further. So that step involves this question: If a church decided to go a period of time without a sermon, a sunday school teaching or a seminar or “traditional” Bible teaching of any kind (sitting down to study the book in a classroom style) how would you teach people about God and how would you teach them right theology? I have a couple suggestions that I’ll throw out as examples of the [...]

Two close friends of mine don’t attend church. Actually, more than two, but the two I am thinking of are interesting because, quite frankly, they are the two most influential people I know. I won’t get into what they are doing with their lives, but they are literally positively affecting thousands. And when I say positively affecting, I mean feeding them, getting them water, setting them free from slavery and so forth. And I seem to meet these guys all the time, people who love Jesus, love other people and are visionary leaders with no shortage of passion. And they don’t go to church. It got me wondering, and I am hoping you can share your opinion. A recent survey we did on this site showed that the majority of readers attend church, and many people who read this blog actually work at churches. So I am guessing you’ll have an opinion. Forgive me if I step on toes, also. I don’t know how to ask these questions without offending some of you. But to me, the landscape of church in America feels like this: 1. Leadership in church has to do with teaching and administrating mostly centered around education. [...]