Blue Like Jazz

I have been reading Blue Like Jazz, by Don Miller, it is my newest favoite book. I highly recomend it. It is one of those "relevant Christianity" books that looks at Christian spirituality for a "non-religious" point of view. As I have been reading the book I have been challenged and provked to think about my faith in new ways. I ahve also been concerned about the what I will call "the 20 something attitude" which thinks that they are pioneering a new type of faith, when really they are rehashing ancient thoughts on faith that seem to need to be remembered every 20 years or so because they are radical enough that we easily let them syphone off out of our consciencenesses. There really is "nothing new under the sun," as good ol' Soloman used to say.

Recently, though I have been really challenged by two chapters, one is called: Alone - 50 years in space, and the other is called: Community - Living with freaks . Alone deals with our tendency, since Adam & Eve to isolate ourselves. He says that the desire to be alone is akin to mental illness. God did not create us to be alone. Hence his statement in Genesis 2:18, "It is not good for the man to be alone."

The chapter on community goes on to talk about hos good it is for us to be living in community. You know that what a family is? It is a community. Small basic community. Just like God is a being in community, our families reflect that aspect of God's nature. But, what about the single person. They need community as well. That is where community houses & of course the church come in to play. We can learn to be in community and not isolate ourselves.

I have noticed a tendency among students, at least at WSU, to slowly over there time here to isolate themselves and live alone. i don't think that is healthy. I encourage people to read the chapters in Blue Like Jazz on Aloneness and Community and make some comments to me.

Rev. Steve's Cougar Blog

Well, I was just thinking about what it means to be relevant as a follower of Jesus in our world today. Can we truly be "relevant?" Is that just a catch word for being "of the world?" or is is a way of saying that my desire is to make Jesus known to a lost world in a way that they can understand? I'm sure that it can mean both, but what I want it to mean is the latter. Obviously the gospel is relevant, human beings have not changed that much over the last 2000 years. But, our way of defining truth has. We have invented more ways of denying God's existence and our need for him, but we have not outgrown our actual need.

To be relevant means that we need to speak their language, not change the content of the message. When I was in Haiti last summer, it was difficult to share my faith with Haitians, because I didn't speak Creole, not because the concepts were difficult to understand. When I had an interpreter it was much easier. But, even when I did have an interpreter I was at time culturally ignorant. So relevance is more than just understanding language it is understnding how people percieve the world around them.>