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I’m working on a friends book at a restaurant down in San Diego, and, even as I type there’s a young woman sitting at the table next to me who is talking to another woman who seems to be her mentor. The younger woman is mentally challenged. She speaks in loud, straight sentences that mostly communicate facts: this coco is hot. This floor is scratched. I like the sunshine. I’m fascinated, though. I’m loving it, actually. I know I’m wrong to be listening in on somebody else’s conversation, but how can I not? I appreciate the simplicity and even the beauty of her awareness of herself, of what she likes, of what is good, and even of what isn’t. She thinks decaf coffee is dumb. And it is, isn’t it? What got me, though, was when she started talking about relationships. She told her mentor about a girl who didn’t like her. She said this girl had hurt her feelings. When the mentor asked why, what it was that hurt her feelings, the young woman didn’t accuse the girl of maliciousness or justify her anger or even repeat whatever the comment was that caused the pain. The young woman just [...]

The church in America is led by scholars. Essentially, the church is a robust school system created around a framework of lectures and discussions and study. We assume this is the way its supposed to be because this is all we have ever known. I think the scholars have done a good job, but they’ve also recreated the church in their own image. Churches are essentially schools. They look like schools with lecture halls, classrooms, cafeterias and each new church program is basically a teaching program. The first disciples were not teachers, they were fishermen, tax collectors and at least one was a Zealot. We don’t know the occupation of the others, but Jesus did not charge educators with the great commission, he chose laborers. And those laborers took the gospel and created Christian communities that worked, that did things and met in homes and were active. They made speeches, for sure, but so do businessmen and politicians and leaders in any number of other professions. Educators make speeches and do little else, except study for their next lecture. I wonder what the first disciples would think if they could see our system of schools, our million lectures, our billion [...]