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Having Right Theology Does not Mean You Know God
May 20th 2010
If it’s harder for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get to heaven, it’s harder for an elephant to thread that needle than for a person who has right theology to not get arrogant. How many people do you know who have read one John Calvin book and threw it down in a spiral while doing a touchdown dance as though they’d accomplished something themselves?
Five years after releasing my third book, Searching for God Knows What, the publisher came to me and asked if they could reprint the book. The book has sold strong for all those years, and they wanted to bump it into a second life. As a writer, I was excited about the idea. Before Million Miles, Searching was the book I was most proud of, so I agreed to put a new cover on it and write some extra material.
The two main components I added to the book are a new introduction in which I argue that right theology has no redemptive power at all, that redemptive power only comes through a relationship with Jesus. I explain why right theology has become a false idol, and [...] -
Could Your Church Survive if There Were no Sermons?
May 19th 2010
I’d intended to promote the re-release of Searching for God Knows What this week, but haven’t gotten around to it because I’ve been thinking a lot about church. And apparently so have you considering the number of comments on yesterdays blog. Essentially, I asked if modern churches were mostly educational communities, spiritual community colleges, seminars or schools, and whether there was room for churches to diversify the learning experience without leaning so heavily on the lecture model. Your responses were terrific, eye-opening for me and remarkably objective. I couldn’t just let the conversation hang. I’m wondering if we can dream for a bit. I think a number of pastors and leaders might get a great deal out of this conversation, if we could just take it one step further. So that step involves this question:
If a church decided to go a period of time without a sermon, a sunday school teaching or a seminar or “traditional” Bible teaching of any kind (sitting down to study the book in a classroom style) how would you teach people about God and how would you teach them right theology?
I have a couple suggestions that I’ll throw out as examples of the sort of [...] -
Does Your Church Cultivate all Leaders, or Just Church Leaders?
May 18th 2010
Two close friends of mine don’t attend church. Actually, more than two, but the two I am thinking of are interesting because, quite frankly, they are the two most influential people I know. I won’t get into what they are doing with their lives, but they are literally positively affecting thousands. And when I say positively affecting, I mean feeding them, getting them water, setting them free from slavery and so forth. And I seem to meet these guys all the time, people who love Jesus, love other people and are visionary leaders with no shortage of passion. And they don’t go to church.
It got me wondering, and I am hoping you can share your opinion. A recent survey we did on this site showed that the majority of readers attend church, and many people who read this blog actually work at churches. So I am guessing you’ll have an opinion.
Forgive me if I step on toes, also. I don’t know how to ask these questions without offending some of you. But to me, the landscape of church in America feels like this:
1. Leadership in church has to do with teaching and administrating mostly centered around education. Sunday morning is [...] -
Want to Get to Know Somebody? Understand Their Story
May 17th 2010
The first conversation we have with somebody can be awkward. We don’t know them, so the first thing we do is make connections, how do you know so and so if we are at a party or a wedding is a routine question. If we are both married with kids, we might ask about that, too. We just find common ground, essentially asking the question What do we have in common so I can understand you through the lens of my own experience? Or, perhaps more crudely How are you like me, and so how are you human? From there we tend to ask what they do, where they work. That’s not a bad question, because work often encompasses our passions and even our education, but it also rings of you are your work.
We are much more than our work and even our family. These formulaic questions evolved from the need to make conversation more than the desire to get know somebody. What results is we begin to think that people are fairly boring. But it’s not the case.
After writing Million Miles, I realized every person has a story. And I started asking different questions when I met strangers. And [...] -
Sunday Morning Music, Rodrigo y Gabriela
May 16th 2010
This Sunday morning I thought we’d get some latin flavor. Here is a new favorite, Rodrigo y Gabriela. Hope you are having a great Sunday morning!
The Blogger
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Don Miller
86 posts
Donald Miller grew up in Houston, Texas, where he left at the age of twenty-one to cross the country with a friend in a Volkswagen van. The stuff of that trip would later become his first book, Through Painted Deserts. A couple years after releasing Through Painted Deserts, Don released Blue Like Jazz, a spiritual memoir about finding Christian faith in a post-Christian culture. Blue would slowly become a bestseller, and spend more than forty-weeks on the New York Times Bestsellers List. Don’s next book was Searching for God Knows What, followed by To Own a Dragon, a book he wrote about growing up without a father. To Own a Dragon also served as the motivation to start The Belmont Foundation, a not-for-profit equipping local churches to start mentoring programs.