It’s an imagi-nation.
“The time has come,” Jesus said. “The Kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the Good News!”
I had always understood the “Good News” as summed up in the life, death, resurrection, ascension, and promised return of Jesus. After reading this almost innocuously short passage, I started wondering. What was the Good News Jesus was referring to all those years before his death, burial, and resurrection? Could it be that the Good News Jesus talked about was less a call to believe in the things that happened to him or would happen to and through him and more an invitation into Kingdom Life?
Great book! I like that you basically walked through a week with this gathering. It wasn’t a bunch of “how to’s” but more of a “this is what we do, maybe you can shape it for you” kind of thing.
This book basically follows the life of Solomon’s Porch. If you haven’t heard of this church, it is pretty cutting edge in the Organic Missional movement. They don’t appear to follow the traditional church pattern. There pastor, Doug Pagitt, takes you on an insider’s journey of the community. What is cool is that so much seems to revolve around “normal” life activites like meals, yoga, and community.
I have heard this guy speak at Mars Hill and have enjoyed his messages. He can be a little controversial in some cirlces. But, his holistic appraoch to faith captures me.
Doug argues that “many Christians find that their fellow congregants play no more crucial a role in their daily lives than the people they walk past in teh grocery store.” This has become more and more clear to me in the past few months. I believe that it was out of this longing for a deeper community that SP gots its mission. From it they were set on the path of “becoming people who are concerned with more than our own salvataion – people bent on practicing a Christian faith that is useful in the world.”
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