Review: Plan B

What do you do when a shattered dream or an unmet expectation causes you to turn to Plan B?

We don’t get that job.

We get test results we weren’t expecting.

We are unable to have children.

We attend a funeral and ask “why at such a young age?”

“God wants to live inside the questions” says Wilson, and then reminds us that “the cross is proof that He does not always change the circumstance but that He always has a purpose in every circumstance. He will never let go of us. He will hold us and His cross will be an anchor for us.”

I was pretty excited to get my hands on Pete Wilson’s first book, Plan B: What Do You Do When God Doesn’t Show Up the Way You Thought He Would?. I even encountered a “Plan B” of my own while reading this book to review on this site, but I’m happy to say I finally finished it, and happier still with its message.

Pete is the lead pastor at Cross Point Church in Nashville, and I’ve followed his blog for years. As he does on his blog, Pete comes across in this book as a person you can relate to, someone you could have an everyday conversation with in a coffee shop as if you’ve been friends for a very long time. In other words, he’s real.

And unlike the last couple of books I’ve read (Love Wins, Discovering the God Imagination), Plan B is a very easy read. There is no wrestling or paradigm shifting. There is simply a comforting reassurance in knowing that you’re not the only person that deals with “Plan B’s” and that there will always be questions surrounding them. Questions we simply cannot answer. Some of my favorite parts in the book are when Pete simply says “I don’t know.” Pete acknowledges that there are great mysteries in our lives, but that our hope lies in the knowledge that God knows our struggles, and will absolutely make the most out of them. We must trust in His process, and in His promises.

Plan B is a pretty easy recommendation because whether you’re in one at the moment or not, we will all experience Plan B’s in our lives.

4 out of 5 stars

You can follow Pete on his blog here,
or downland a sample chapter of his book here.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program.

Filed under: Books, Reviews

What About The People In India?

Once again a podcast I’m listening to during a run has been quite timely.

Fresh off of reading the first chapter of Love Wins, and the subsequent discussion over on Shane’s blog, I just so happen to have Erwin McManus’s 2006 lesson titled Is Jesus the Only Way qued up for my seven mile run on Wednesday. Purely “coincidental” to be honest. I simply started listening through a series of his for my Wednesday runs, and this was the one scheduled for yesterday. I love it when that happens.

So in this podcast Erwin takes this question straight on. Where Rob Bell is currently more interested in getting people to question their blind belief systems and embrace the grayness that surrounds our spiritual lives (an exercise I highly encourage myself), Erwin is drawing a line in the sand and making a compelling case that, yes, Jesus is the only way.

Is Jesus the Only Way? by Erwin McManus

Download Mp3

Here are a few of my favorite lines:

• Do people care more about humanity than God?

• Freedom is required for love.

• The driving principle of the Kingdom of God is Love.

• You ask, “How can Jesus be the only way?” You should be happy there is a way. That somebody actually loves us enough to sacrifice on your behalf, and mine.

• You are not taking Jesus to the world. Jesus has been there a long time. He’s been waiting for you to show up.

For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. —Romans 1:20

• Creation is evidence of the existence of God.

• All around you is evidence of God.

• So what about the people in India? I didn’t know you were so concerned about the people in India. When are you going to India?

• You are questioning the character of God. You basically asked, “Does God love people more than me?”

• God placed us where we are for a reason. It’s not because he loves the person in Georgia more than he loves the person in Georgia.

• I know it’s hard for us to believe that a person might have a better chance of finding God as a Muslim or Hindu than as a Presbyterian or a Baptist. But I’ve met enough Presbyterian and Baptist to know that there are people who are Buddhist and Hindu who are closer on their journey to finding God than the others.

• All of creation is designed by God to pursue you with his love.

This entire line of thinking reminded me of the spiritual awakening I had a few years back while reading David Crowder’s book Praise Habit: Finding God in Sunsets and Sushi (incidentally? the song that came on after the podcast was a Crowder tune from his Sunsets and Sushi remix album).

Also, during the podcast I was reminded of this great video that relates perfectly to the question “What about the people in India?”

A Thousand Questions from ProlifikFilms on Vimeo

I really do think we miss the point (self included) when we question whether or not God cares about those people in other countries, or even in our backyards. I think the answer has been with us the whole time.

The answer is us.

Filed under: Jesus

Rob Bell Fatigue

Late last week I was beginning to feel the effects of a little Rob Bell fatigue. I have consumed so much of the dialogue surrounding the brouhaha that I was beginning to look for something else to occupy my mind.

But now two things have me interested once again:

1. My buddy Shane has started a Love Wins book discussion on his blog. His first entry has me highly anticipating my copy of the book, which arrives tomorrow.

2. I just finished reading this response by Brian McLaren to a recent critique of Rob Bell which contains some outstanding points, one of which I’ve been struggling with for some time now. He talks about how all of our versions of the bible are human interpretations, and human interpretations of the original message are not exactly the same thing as the original message, and…

…if you say that’s all overcome by good scholarship or the Holy Spirit, you still have a problem, since so many people who sincerely seek to follow the principles of good scholarship and/or the promptings of the Spirit come up with such wildly different versions of Christianity.

Yes!

I have often thought to myself that if a pastor is God-ordained, and he disagrees with another pastor that is God-ordained, which is correct? The one that agrees with us?

So now this conversation has now moved from “Is there a Hell?” to (using Rob Bell’s latest terminology) “How wide is the stream of interpretation?”

Count me in on this conversation!

Filed under: Love

Permission To Speak Freely

Today, while exchanging emails with a friend, I was reminded of a book by Anne Jackson called Permission To Speak Freely. As I was looking through the books website I ran across the picture above and it resonated enough with me that I wanted to do this blog post about it. To “speak freely” if you will.

I did a post a few years back called The Cynical PK (ironically about a book by the same author), in which I lament about being the son of a preacher man. While all of those things are still there to deal with for a pastor and his family, I’ve really come to a place of contentment despite knowing that most of the time the church isn’t working right because humans are involved.

But the issue still remains, pastors are embarrassingly compensated for what they (and their families) have to deal with on a daily basis. In addition to the low wages, they generally have no health care, and no retirement package. And for all that, they get to be the lightening rod for an entire congregation that has somehow lost access to their long-term memory.

I wouldn’t wish full-time ministry on ANYBODY.

Having said all that, I am supremely blessed that, despite trends to the contrary, our family has been able to stay strong and united despite the many attacks. I am truly blessed to have my mother and father as living examples of a godly marriage, and godly parents. They are both remarkable people, and they don’t hear that enough—from me, or from the rest of the parishioners.

Filed under: Uncategorized

Review: Discovering The God Imagination

Can you do something to make God stop loving you?

In this sweeping new interpretation of the narrative of Christianity, Jonathan Brink explores the remarkable dissonance between our historical understanding of Gospel and what the story in Scripture actually reveals. It offers a compelling possibility for those looking to reconstruct their faith in a whole new way.

Honestly, reading this book gave me a headache. But in a good way. Discovering The God Imagination: Reconstructing A Whole New Christianity by Jonathan Brink is one of those books that you can’t just plow through on your way to the next book. Rather, this is a book you have to read with care, taking time to digest the information being presented. As such, I’ve been chewing on this book since last summer. A classic story comes to mind when thinking about how to describe this book…

A young woman was preparing a ham dinner. After she cut off the end of the ham, she placed it in a pan for baking. Her friend asked her, “Why did you cut off the end of the ham?” And she replied, “I really don’t know but my mother always did, so I thought you were supposed to.”

Later when talking to her mother she asked her why she cut off the end of the ham before baking it, and her mother replied, “I really don’t know, but that’s the way my mom always did it.”

A few weeks later while visiting her grandmother, the young woman asked, “Grandma, why is it that you cut off the end of a ham before you bake it?” Her grandmother replied, “Well dear, otherwise it would never fit into my baking pan.”

Much like the story above, Jonathan isn’t willing to simply take what he’s been told throughout the years without some deeper digging. In Discovering The God Imagination, Jonathan presents a new framing story with which to read God’s history with mankind. In this fresh new take, we find great comfort in the knowledge that at the heart of everything, God really does find us not only good, but very good.

I appreciate Jonathan’s heart, and his perspectives. I may not agree with every single assumption he makes throughout the book (although I’d be hard-pressed to make you a list of where we differ), but we both agree with one thing in the end—love will always prevail. Thanks for blazing a bold new trail Jonathan!

4 out of 5 stars

You can follow Jonathan on his blog here,
or downland a sample chapter of his book here.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received an advanced copy of this book free from Jonathan Brink to review on this blog.

Filed under: Books, Reviews

Love > Hellfire & Brimstone

In the last few years I haven’t made a habit of jumping on this blog and reacting to too many things, although that was one of the things that got this baby started back in its heyday. And I’m not really going to do that now, although I will say that this new Rob Bell “controversy” has produced an enormous amount of really great dialogue which I have found tremendously refreshing. (For some great reading go here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here)

I think questions of heaven and hell, and how a loving god could condemn good people to hell or allow bad things to happen to good people, is at the heart of our faith, and I don’t think these types of questions should be ignored simply because it’s easier to live within our current structures. Courageous people asked questions to challenge status quo to get us to this point (Jesus, for example), and courageous people are going to carry us into the future.

So Wednesday I had a six mile run ahead of me and decided to find a podcast to listen to. Ironically Eric Bryant had a blog post that day that recommended an old series by my favorite speaker and author. I imagine it was purposeful because he only had one of the topics hyperlinked on the post: Is There a Hell? That’s right in my wheelhouse, thanks Eric!

Is There a Hell? by Erwin McManus – September 17, 2006
Download mp3

As usual Erwin makes some great observations, then closes in a deeply emotional prayer which he ends by saying, “May love prevail.”

So immediately after this lesson, in which I’ve been challenged to live life to the fullest, I look up to the beautiful night sky and thank God for all the crystal clear stars above me, as the following song starts up to lead me home for the last mile….

Love Like Rockets — Angels & Aiwaves
I held my head as it left the ground,
The belts grew tight as the blast grew load,
A loving wish whispered in my ear,
Please lead with grace, all the best my dear,
Yeah, It’s like

I held your hand as I pulled you in,
Your lips sealed tight, ready to begin,
I kissed you first, then you kissed my ear,
If I ask you once, will you ask me every year?

Do You Feel Alive? (Imagine, Imagine)
Do You Feel Alive? (Imagine, Imagine)

The Sun it set in the night time sky,
The stars they cast a glow upon my eyes,
The Earth itself a burning ball of light, yeah, it’s like
And our first love was ignited late that night

Do You Feel Alive? (Imagine, Imagine)
Do You Feel Alive? (Imagine, Imagine)

The stars in your eyes light up the sky with thoughts, light and fire and sound
The stars in your eyes light up the sky with thoughts, light and fire and sound
Do You Feel Alive? (Imagine, Imagine)

Filed under: Hell, Love