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Like the first-century Pharisees, we've reduced Christianity to a set of propositional beliefs. Truth is, we've gotten away from what it really means to be a Christian. In The Jesus of Suburbia, Mike Erre reveals that we've created a Jesus in our own image. In a fresh, startling manner, Erre helps us understand that the real Jesus is calling us to live, act, and think in ways that overturn the status quo. "Expect no sugar-coated sweetness about 'felt needs' and in-church coffee bars from Erre, pastor of teaching at Rock Harbor Church in Costa Mesa, Calif. Expect instead compelling discussion of how the Christian church has lost sight of the revolutionary teaching and love of Jesus. 'Much of the message of American Christianity presents Jesus as the purveyor of the American Dream,' he says. American Christians, he claims, have reduced Jesus to a study of risk management; we want him to be 'predictable and safe.' Erre also uses the adjectives 'insecure, threatened, naive, simplistic, mean and shortsighted' to describe many of today's churches. He lambastes our love of theology instead of Jesus, our contentment with 'simply knowing about him instead of knowing him.' While this protest continues in the vein of other recent books that take a hard look at Jesus and the church (Jesus Mean and Wild; Out of Your Comfort Zone), it offers a fresh look at how the American church must begin 'demonstrating the message of Christ,' not merely explaining it. After all, says Erre, 'if you follow Jesus, you follow the most radical man who ever existed.'"--Publishers Weekly
Rick Warren famously wrote, “It’s not about you.” But much of the Western church seems to disagree, having settled for a self-centered message of personal fulfillment. With incisiveness and a passionate love for the church, pastor and author Byron Forrest Yawn offers a compelling call away from narcissism and back to the powerful and transforming gospel of Jesus. He shows the difference between... Sunday-morning life coaches selling self-help seminars, and preachers proclaiming God’s redemptive work through Christ promises of prosperity and comfort, and a realistic and helpful perspective on suffering escape from unbelievers and their godless world, and redemptive engagement with people As Byron exposes the false gospel of “suburbianity,” he offers readers a better alternative: to look beyond themselves and embrace God’s call to be His image-bearers and ambassadors, partnering with Him as He restores people and all creation to His original design.
From one of the most daring and sensuous young writers in America, Jesus Saves, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, is a suburban gothic that explores the sources of evil, confronts the dynamic shifts within theology, and traces the consequences of suburban alienation. Set in the modern launch pads of adolescent ritual, the strip malls and duplexes on the back side of suburbia, it’s the story of two girls: Ginger, a troubled minister’s daughter; and Sandy Patrick, who has been abducted from summer camp and now smiles from missing-child posters all over town. Layering the dreamscapes of Alice in Wonderland with the subculture of River’s Edge, Darcey Steinke’s Jesus Saves is an unforgettable passage through the depths of the literary imagination.
Winner of the Whitbread Prize for Best First Novel "There was one copy going round our school like contraband. I read it in one sitting ... I'd never read a book about anyone remotely like me before."-- Zadie Smith "My name is Karim Amir, and I am an Englishman born and bred, almost..." The hero of Hanif Kureishi's debut novel is dreamy teenager Karim, desperate to escape suburban South London and experience the forbidden fruits which the 1970s seem to offer. When the unlikely opportunity of a life in the theatre announces itself, Karim starts to win the sort of attention he has been craving - albeit with some rude and raucous results. With the publication of Buddha of Suburbia, Hanif Kureishi landed into the literary landscape as a distinct new voice and a fearless taboo-breaking writer. The novel inspired a ground-breaking BBC series featuring a soundtrack by David Bowie.
What does it mean to preach the gospel today? How do we shape vibrant congregations? How do we preachers not merely survive, but thrive? For nearly a quarter century, Chris Neufeld-Erdman has preached the gospel--sustaining congregational life and emboldening Christian witness in the midst of this turbulence. He's also taught seminarians and mentored working pastors. His theology and practice of preaching is hammered out on the anvil of real life. It's tested. True. Useful. In this book, a veteran pastor meditates on everything from exegesis and sermon preparation to the way preachers might preach after tsunamis, hurricanes, and earthquakes. He reflects on what it means, for example, to host the text in the midst of what feels like a terminal state of war and violence, both abroad and at home, as well as the task of preaching in the midst of the massive anxiety produced by economic uncertainty and political gridlock. Here's a book that will inspire and guide you as a wise, empowered preacher--an ordinary agent of the extraordinary gospel.
A collection of thought-provoking reflections inviting us to contemplate the events of Good Friday in new ways. The reflections are diverse, from Peter’s clumsy fear to the Seven Last Words.
Examining how materialism and consumerism have made their way into the church, a teaching pastor and author of Jesus of Suburbia reveals how Christians can more effectively demonstrate Christ's presence and how the church can cooperate with Jesus in the world in which they live. Original.
In Astonished, Pastor Mike Erre calls Christians away from simplistic formulas to honest and rugged faith in the mysterious and unpredictable God. God is more about deepening the mystery of faith, not removing it. Jesus should get bigger the longer we walk with him. Life and faith should grow to be more profound and wondrous, not less. In Astonished, you will see how we are far more comfortable with tips, steps and techniques for living, than we are with ruthlessly trusting the mysterious God of the Bible. God asks us to follow him into tension, frustration, and difficulty because he wants our trust, not just our intellectual agreement. He calls us to seek Him even as we live in awe of all that is yet to be known about Him. Astonished is an invitation to question in a culture that wants answers, to wonder in a world with little mystery left, and to believe in what is unseen and find it beautiful.
In an era where church attendance has reached an all-time low, recent polling has shown that Americans are becoming less formally religious and more promiscuous in their religious commitments. Within both mainline and evangelical Christianity in America, it is common to hear of secularizing pressures and increasing competition from nonreligious sources. Yet there is a kind of religious institution that has enjoyed great popularity over the past thirty years: the evangelical megachurch. Evangelical megachurches not only continue to grow in number, but also in cultural, political, and economic influence. To appreciate their appeal is to understand not only how they are innovating, but more crucially, where their innovation is taking place. In this groundbreaking and interdisciplinary study, Justin G. Wilford argues that the success of the megachurch is hinged upon its use of space: its location on the postsuburban fringe of large cities, its fragmented, dispersed structure, and its focus on individualized spaces of intimacy such as small group meetings in homes, which help to interpret suburban life as religiously meaningful and create a sense of belonging. Based on original fieldwork at Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church, one of the largest and most influential megachurches in America, Sacred Subdivisions explains how evangelical megachurches thrive by transforming mundane secular spaces into arenas of religious significance.
“Loss. Fear. Doubt. What does anything mean when your ground of being is stripped away?” Tony met God when he was four years old through the love of his mother. When he was twelve, he realized he had a crush on one of his male friends and grew convinced God would have nothing to do with him. At sixteen, Tony reencountered God who affirmed that nothing stood between them but love. When he was twenty-three, married to the girl of his dreams, and on staff at a church, Tony’s secret came out, and he came close to losing it all. What followed was arduous years of deconstruction, losing everything he thought he knew about God, only to rediscover God in the mystery. This God was not a new God—it was the same one as before, just seen with regenerated faith. This God was more beautiful and restorative than Tony could have ever imagined. Tony’s story is not uncommon in the modern evangelical landscape. Thousands of people throughout the West are experiencing a crisis of faith that is commonly referred to as “deconstruction.” With raw honesty, Tony uses his own story as a starting point for a dialogue on the deconstruction process. Tony unpacks what the deconstruction process is, why it happens, and how the church can help people experiencing a crisis of faith without worsening it along the way. In this memoir, Tony candidly pleads for the church to make a turn: not to a trendier, “progressive” version of Christianity, nor to a stricter form of fundamentalism, but to the revolutionary, Jesus-centered movement that changed the face of the earth. A movement once better known for its society of healing love than its dogma.