Grilled Goodness - The Sequel

So, my spidey-sense was right - regular grilled cheese is a thing of the past. I had to make not one "Super Deluxe Ooey Gooey Goodness Grilled Cheese" today, but THREE!

Guess I'll have to think about how to raise the bar next week. Running out of cheese, though...

Have a favorite cheese?

The Shack - Book Review

The Problem of Evil - reconciling the coexistence of a perfectly good and all-powerful God with the terrible evil and suffering in the world - has long confounded the human race. In fact, the Bible dedicates a whole book to the subject. Many scholars believe the Book of Job to be one of the earliest canonized Scriptures written, if not THE first. Job, we are told, "was blameless and upright; he feared God and shunned evil" (Job 1:1).

In other words, Job was God's man. Yet God allowed him to suffer at the hand of Satan beyond both his and our understanding. It confronts head on one of life's greatest mysteries: why do bad things happen to good people? This is a question that everyone, Christ-follower or not, wrestles with sooner than later in this fallen world. By the way, God's answer to Job? "I am God and you are not."

Job, meet Mackenzie "Mack" Philips.

William P. Young's The Shack has been a popular foray into not only the Problem of Evil, but the character and nature of the triune God - Father, Spirit, and Son. One major mind-bending philosophical/theological reality at a time, please! The two realities are intertwined and explored around the life of Mack, a complex character who deals with his Great Sadness as tragedy strikes his life and shakes his often flawed understanding of who God is and how He works.

The book's popularity has not come without controversy, namely over some portrayals of the nature of God as well as some of the themes that are born out of Young's upbringing as a missionary kid among the Dani tribe in New Guinea. Many reviews and rebuttals have even made their way to Youtube and countless websites and blogs. Even prominent leaders are weighing in on it because of its popularity.

Lost in all the fuss is an important feature of the book - its genre. Most detractors stand on theological ground about God's nature, yet The Shack is not a theological work. In fact, it is at the very least a work of fiction, arguably an allegory. Some negative reviews I came across admitted to not even reading the book in its entirety; they were just taking aim at the most widely circulated theological complaints. I believe you need to 1. fully investigate (i.e. read cover to cover) something you harshly criticize, and 2. understand and judge it by its literary style and purpose.

I understand their criticisms from a theological perspective, and it does need to be read with discretion, but I can't help but to feel that some people have missed the forest for the trees. The main source of contention? Young gets in trouble for not-so-subtly challenging our preconceived notions that God is a bearded, grandfatherly figure who floats on clouds wearing a blazing white robe and reigns over creation by hurling bolts of lightning not unlike the Greek king of gods, Zeus. Without spoiling too much of the story, let's just say that God (as Father, Spirit, and Son) is humanized in a rather unorthodox way!

In doing so, he apparently did some "sacred cow" tipping. Young demonstrates that God's true nature is not that we merely know about Him, stuffing Him into our finite systematic theologies that mean little to nothing in the midst of a tragedy, but that we personally know Him as intimately as He knows us. You see, I think we all are guilty of casting our own graven, humanized images of God that, at the end of the day, fall woefully short of grasping who He truly is.

I'm theologically conservative, and I was not at all offended by The Shack. It blew fresh wind into the sails of my relationship with God and caused me to consider it in a new light. I believe it would do the same for you. I would recommend it without reservation, yet as with any fiction work (i.e. Left Behind series, Frank Peretti's works, etc.), I would caution you to read with discretion and not take it as a theological authority.

Does Young rattle the cage a little? Sure. Does he have good reason? You betcha. I'm I closer to God for reading it? Absolutely.

Will I put it on the shelf next to Wayne Grudem's Systematic Theology or The C. S. Lewis' The Great Divorce?

I'll give you one guess...

Purgatory...

If I believed in it, Chuck E. Cheese would be the personification of it.

Filthy rodent.

Grilled Goodness

So, my girls asked if they could have grilled cheese yesterday for lunch. Being the generous, selfless dad I am, I said, "Sure, but let me make mine first." So, I set about my masterpiece.

Oh, what a masterpiece it was!

Two slices of Arnold's Oat Nut bread (100% whole grain no less) buttered with Country Crock Churn Style encasing a melty mound consisting of a slice of American cheese, a generous layer of shredded mozzarella, an equally generous layer of shredded Mexican blend (four cheeses), and another slice of American for good measure, grilled to a golden brown on each side with a ooey-gooey center.

Good golly, it was cheeserific. (That's a blend of "cheese" and "terrific" for those of you wondering...)

I kept getting dirty looks from the girls. I have a weird feeling those garden variety grilled cheeses won't cut it anymore...

Who Stole My Church? - Book Review

A lot of people feel like their church is being stolen by a new generation, church movement, or both. Their tithes built it, their sweat equity resides in virtually every square inch, and they'll be darned if those new young people are gonna steal it out from under them. At least not without a fight...

Problem is, it was never their church to begin with. It's not the others' either.

Whether they want to acknowledge it or not, countless well-established churches across the nation are at a crossroads. Many will continue to "do church" as they have for the past 50 years and scratch their heads as they ponder why their church is quite literally dying. Then, one day, they will do what was unthinkable in their hey day when their vision was fresh, their excitement was contagious, and their methodologies for reaching people with the Good News were radically innovative - they will shut their doors. The stats show it happens every day.

For others, they will successfully (and necessarily) jettison obsolete strategies and programs that no longer serve the purpose they once did. Yet in doing so, they will ignore their heritage instead of celebrate it and dishonor the faith heroes that have paved the way for success for God's Kingdom to that point. In doing so, they will cast entire generations aside in their fervor to see the church achieve its mission.

Unfortunately, more often than not, churches are ripped apart as a civil war erupts over hot-button issues. Whether it's so-called "worship wars," transitioning Sunday School on site to small groups in homes, or installing technology in our houses of worship, generations are waging war against each other in ways that make Christ's defining characteristic of His followers - our love for one another (John 13:35) - laughable. The carnage is unsightly, but the real victims are the millions of people who live in our spheres of influence that remain apart from God as people quarrel over turf.

Gordon MacDonald, a pastor of 40+ years, creatively and proactively drives us into the crossroads in his fiction work Who Stole My Church?. MacDonald is firmly planted in the generation of Builders and Boomers (generally those born between 1930 and 1960) which is often at the center of this controversy. More often than not, it is people from these generations that are asking the question, "Who stole my church?"

Gordon's work is unique in that he and his wife, Gail, are factual characters in a fictional church with fictional people, yet the issues they face together are uncomfortably familiar and undeniably real. In the story, he has been pastoring a church in Massachusetts for three years, during which many changes have started to come about. A business-meeting-gone-bad causes some underlying issues within the Builders and Boomers to rise to the surface, yet "Pastor Mac" is able to seize the moment and what ensues is quite unexpected. By God's grace, he and a "Discovery Group" of 15 or so disgruntleds enter in to a period of honest dialog, Bible study, historical and sociological survey, and personal growth. What results is indeed a miracle.

But miracles don't have to be confined to fictional stories. They can happen in churches that are facing the dilemma of embracing the 21st Century or the inevitable onset of missional rigor mortis. Pastor Mac demonstrates that while we don't always have easy answers to hard questions, carelessness and laziness should never prevail as we pursue change. Leading a church through change is hard work, but loving people is sometimes even harder; however, if countless churches are going to advance God's Kingdom in the 21st Century and beyond, they must take seriously the charge to "above all, love each other deeply..." (1 Peter 4:8).

At its core, Who Stole My Church? is a story of redemption. Through of a group of flawed humans (who at times you feel like you already know personally or have attended church with), God is able to do great things. Having grown up and served in established church settings, many of the scenes that played out resonated with something deep within my soul. MacDonald has allowed me to finally put words to things I've often thought and felt but never known how to express.

If your church is going through a season of change (and who isn't?), and particularly if you are a Builder or Boomer, I would highly recommend this book. I think it has the potential to be the catalyst for an awakening as you seek to understand what is happening in the 21st Century Church. No matter your generation or perspective, it's worth reading with an open heart as you pursue what role God would have you play in His Body.

Books-A-Million

One of the great things about being in this "period of transition" (aside from the blessing of being home with my children) is the time it affords me to do things that are otherwise difficult to do. Even simple things.

Like read a book.

Seriously, for as long as I can remember, I've been made to read. Aside from Marvel comics I collected when I was growing up (mostly X-Men and various Spider-Man series), the most I read was an occasional Choose-Your-Own-Adventure or Sugar Creek Gang book from the church library. The childhood book I remember with the most fondness is A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle. I just may read it again to rediscover some of that childhood magic.

But mostly I was made to read for academic reasons. I was never one of those kids that took to the joy of reading (like my oldest sister "Gwiddle" who could always be found curled up on her bed reading a book). I think the only book I cover-to-cover in high school was The Great Gatsby - easily less than 200 small pages. Why? Because it was really short. Shorter than, say...the almost 500 page phonebookesque, high-schooler-spirit-crushing novel The Grapes of Wrath? Fuggedaboutit. Curse that Steinbeck guy...

For most of my college experience, I was reading a different kind of literature (while riding a piano bench), and a lot of it. That was certainly more joyous than reading my psychology or accounting textbooks, even when I was tangled up in some of Bach's mind-boggling fugues and worn down by some of Liszt's hammer-hand techniques.

During my graduate studies, however, I experienced the second recorded Great Flood of history - God's personal judgment against me for all those books I sin-skimmed in high school and college. I had to read an average of probably 10-12 books a semester. You see, for me this was uncharted waters, drowning in a true flood of, at times, some very lifeless stuff. Worse yet, I had to pay for them all out of my pocket. There's something to be said for the stereotype of a "poor seminary student."

I came across a lot of great books, and am thankful for that, but I'm really enjoying this season where I can pick and choose what I want to read. It helps that my wife is working as an assistant manager at a bookstore; she keeps the suggestions coming. In fact, I attribute this reading renaissance I'm experiencing largely to her. Thanks, Renelu.

I've read several books, am reading a couple right now, and have a couple more in the queue. I hope to give little reports on each of them over the next few posts. Maybe you'll find one that will impact or speak to you the way it has me. Or maybe we can find something to argue about. That would be fun. I only get to argue with preteens and preschoolers, and that gets old sometimes.

Stay tuned...

PS - Sorry for the delay between posts - I've been too busy reading!