Here on the Christian Book Club we are finishing up our reading of “Velvet Elvis”. I think it has been an interesting book. Some of the reviews on the book were a little rough. I never felt threatened by the ideas that Bell tossed out. I appreciated his willingness to discuss and talk through the ideas presented in scripture. I also really enjoyed how he related things back to Jewish culture. We miss so much of the meaning of the Bible because we don’t have an understanding of the culture in which most of the Bible was written.

I also enjoyed his discussion of the church on page 165. I agree with Bell that the church is at its best when it is giving itself away. When the church becomes a blessing to the world by serving the world it has a great potential to impact the world. I look forward to your comments as you wrap up your reading of the book.

I have decided to make a change in the order of our reading. I have had a lot of requests for us to read “The Shack”. The book has really stirred up some excitement so we are going to push the book up from February to November. We will just push the other books back one month. People either seem to love “The Shack” or really not love it. If you don’t have a copy of “The Shack” go ahead and get it ordered. It has been so popular you can probably borrow a copy from someone. Tell them about the Christian Book Club and maybe they will join us for the discussion. I will put a link for “The Shack” on this page for your convenience.

The Shack

This month on Christian Book Club Online we will be reading Rob Bell’s Velvet Elvis. I have done a quick look through and I am looking forward to reading and commenting on the book. It looks like it should read pretty quickly, which should be helpful for everyone with a full schedule. Let’s read the book in the following format:

Week 1 - Movement One Jump, Movement Two Yoke

Week 2 - Movement Three True, Movement Four Tassels

Week 3 - Movement Five Dust, Movement Six New

Week 4 - Movement Seven Good, Epilogue

I will include a link to the book in this post in case you don’t have your copy yet. I thin what Bell wrote on the back of the book is interesting.

“We have to test everything. I thank God for anybody anywhere who is pointing people to the mysteries of God. But those people would all tell you to think long and hard about what they are saying and doing and creating. Test it. Probe it. Do that to this book. Don’t swallow it uncritically. Think about it. Wrestle with it. Just because I’m a Christian and I’m trying to articulate a Christian worldview doesn’t mean I’ve got it nailed. I’m contributing to the discussion. God has spoken, and the rest is commentary, right?”

It looks like it should be an interesting read!

Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith By Rob Bell

This month on Christian Book Club we are reading “Breakthrough” by Derek Morphew. As we enter Week 3 we will be reading; The Messianic Banquet, The Kingdom and the Church, ‘Already - Not Yet’ people, The End of Cessationism, and Healing.

This weeks chapters hold some of my favorite concepts about the Kingdom of God. An excellent description of the differnce between the Church and the Kingdom is given on page 150. The chapter on the ‘Already - Not Yet’, (which Ladd refers to as the Now and Not Yet) will help to explain the tension that exists between so many scriptures. The Kingdom is here and yet not fully here. Jesus inaugurated the Kingdom in His first coming, When He come back again He will consumate the Kingdom. We live in this tension,, and it is in this tension that we find our Messiah King!

I did a lot of teaching on the Kingdom of God over the last year. I am going to include the first in a series of teaching I did here. If you would like to watch more of them you can follow the video back to the rest of them.

Online Videos by Veoh.com

Please pray for all the people who were impacted by Hurricane Ike in Texas, Louisiana, Cuba, and the Caribbean. The storm went to the South of us here in the Florida Keys, but we know first hand how difficult the after math of a hurricane is. If you are interested in Hurricanes, you may want to check out Hurricane Tracking Sites, which not only has links to the top hurricane sites, it also includes information about hurricanes and their impacts.