If Jesus taught to be the greatest we must become the least then why do we work so hard to be the greatest?

Jesus taught a logic that doesn’t compute with the patterns of the world, that are taught.

Sometimes we promise the world a life after death, but people are looking for life now. We must connect our faith to the world that we live in. 

We should read the bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other. - Karl Barth

If you find your life you need to give it away. 

Calcutta’s are everywhere if we only have eyes to see. - Mother Teresa 

[The Parable of the Great Banquet]

He said also to the man who had invited him, “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.” 

When one of those who reclined at table with him heard these things, he said to him, “Blessed is everyone who will eat bread in the kingdom of God!” But he said to him, “A man once gave a great banquet and invited many. And at the time for the banquet he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come, for everything is now ready.’ But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to him, ‘I have bought a field, and I must go out and see it. Please have me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to examine them. Please have me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’ So the servant came and reported these things to his master. Then the master of the house became angry and said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame.’ And the servant said, ‘Sir, what you commanded has been done, and still there is room.’ And the master said to the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled. For I tell you, none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.’” 

(Luke 14:12-24 ESV)

If we don’t have some sort of collision with the world that we are living in, are we actually imagining the kingdom of God and the way of JEsus in this world. 

The Jesus I know is “anything but safe. But He is good.” 

What if Jesus really meant the stuff that He said. What if we took Him at His word. 

Jesus on the cross is the perfect example of love that stares evil in the face and says, “I love them.” 

You didn’t invent Christianity in America, you just domesticated it. - Iraqi Bishop

The question is whether or not we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be. We will be either for hatred or for love.

The world is longing to see Christians that are extremists for grace and love and are filled with the fruit of the Spirit. 

Q&A:

Do you feel like it’s absolutely necessary to live the way you do as a follower of Jesus? Jesus was more radical than me. I make followers of Jesus not followers of me. Everyone looks different. Each of us gets to ask the question what is God doing in me? How do I not conform to the world, but conform to the kingdom of God. Whatever we do we should do it differently than the patterns of this world. Non-conformity is not uniformity. Following Jesus will look different for each of us.

There may not be any more dangerous of a place for there to be, as Christians, than to be safe and comfortable. - Shane Claiborne’s Mom

Surround yourself with those you want to be like. 

How would you describe true community and blondness? What does that look like? Part of the good news is that we’re not alone. 

Reporter: Mother Teresa, I wouldn’t do what you do for a million dollars.
Mother Teresa: I wouldn’t either. I do it because I’m made for it. 

The Next Christians by Gabe Lyons is an honest look at Christianity and it’s place within modern cand ulture society. It examines it’s past and points to it’s future with the rise of a new generation of believers Lyons calls “The Next Christians”. This is a generation that for the most part doesn’t want to be called Christian. It’s not out of a rejection of Jesus that they say this. The Next Christians are not ashamed of Jesus. They are ashamed of what Christianity has become. They are ashamed of the baggage that it brings. They view “Christianity”, in it’s current form as more of a brand than a relationship with Jesus. They want nothing to do with brands. They want Jesus.

For quite some time now I’ve been reading the gospel of John. As I read the words of Jesus and look deeper into how He teaches us to live… I see less and less of modern Christianity. I’ve blogged and written much about this in previous posts. The Next Christians by Gabe Lyons is a refreshing look into this new generation who has had enough of dragging Jesus through the dirt. They are a generation seeking His face and His face alone.

Gabe Lyons, like me, is a graduate of Liberty University in Lynchburg, VA. He went to high school at the school started by Thomas Road Baptist Church, the church where I now pastor on the middle school staff. This is a culture in which it’s easy to become part of the “Christian” culture. It’s easy to be comfortable around loads of other Christians. It’s easy to have zero idea of the world around you in an area like this. Gabe wasn’t content with that. He wanted to follow Jesus. Not the culture, Jesus.

Lyons cites the “death of Christian America” as a falling on May 15, 2007. The day Jerry Falwell, the pastor/founder of Thomas Road Baptist Church/Liberty University/The Moral Majority, died. I remember that day clearly. I had been on staff since December of 2006. I was just out of college and had many opportunities to interact with Dr. Falwell, or “Doc”, as we called him around the church. It was a dark day indeed. Lyons cites this day as “emblematic of a passing era”. 

The era arising is one where pluralism and post modernism lead way to a larger post-Christian nation in which the general populous is spiritual and seeking God, yet the god they seek on a given day can change based on their needs. The Next Christians see this is an opportunity to show the love of Christ. The see opportunity in the midst of a nation slipping away from the God who loves it so. 

The Next Christians follows this generation’s characteristics. It looks at the life of Jesus and finds this generation trying more than ever to be the light of Jesus and to share the gospel with so much more than words. They are our brightest hope we have for restoration.

This video segment is from a talk Gabe Lyons gave at the leadership conference, Catalyst, in 2010 on The NEXT Christians. Enjoy. 

I received this copy of THE NEXT CHRISTIANS by Gabe Lyons for free from Waterbrook Multnomah Press’ Blogging For Books Program in exchange for a fair and honest review.