I've been travelling a lot lately - which is why there has been little action on the blog. Townsville (twice), Sydney (twice) and Brisbance in the past 3 weeks. Also I've had a week of intensive study on Research Methods for my DMin.
All the travel has given me lots of time to read.
Among the many books I've partially read is Exiles by Mike Frost. Just released in July it is Frosty's (i think I can call him that - I spoken with him twice) latest.
It includes a lot of stories and thoughts I've heard Mike speak of at conferences previously but it is well written and engaging. Heere is a quote from page 63 that particularly resopnated with me.
"If I'm busy several nights a week and all weekend with my church activities, how can I possibly develop a commitment to such frequent proximity? Our churches, under the guise of doing work for Christ, are inadvertently sucking us away from the very people that Jesus would want us to hang out with. . . Exiles have figured out that churches don't value people who won't turn up for every meeting, attend every event, and locate all their significant friendships within the congregation. They have decided to slip away from the ever-spiraling vortex of so-called Christian fellowship. It sucks you in, demanding everything of you, leaving you completely socially disconnected from your neighbours, your community. . . Exiles, having read the dangerous stories of Jesus, have decided that the best way to do the Lord's work is to follow him out into the third places in their community."
2 comments:
I like that. I definitely like to keep a lot of my close friendships outside the church and be invovled in the world, but hopefully not of it. It's inmportant to be invovled in and connected to your fellowshipping community, but not to the point where you lose all your other connections. It isn't the only important connection. I get sad when I see people lose all their non-christian friends.
When I was at school most of my friends were non-Christians, but not anymore. This is fairly common, but once you leave school you lose touch with people and drift apart.
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