Barna's 'Revolution'

I recently read this book (Revolution by George Barna) for myself and am struggling with why some of my peers are saying that Barna, the writer, calls for all church members to abandon the contemporary church, period. I didn't get that from the book. I did get a feeling that Barna, like myself, senses both by intiuition and statistics, that disciples are not necessarily being made in our current 'church' culture. In fact, the church, as a whole, is losing membership at an alarming rate - partly due to the fact that our culture has shifted in many different ways such as postmodernism, globalization, isolation, etc. As our culture has shifted, the church has not made appropriate changes. Barna talks about broadening our picture of what church should be by including valuable movements like home churches, smaller churches and other non-traditional discipleship methods. I personally liked his approach - the church in the New Testament did meet in larger groups, but, more often, they met in homes and focused on loving God and loving each other - it wasn't a big show each meeting with a 30-40 minute sermon by a designated 'preacher' with everyone staring at a stage as if it were a theater - passive onlookers, etc. Somehow we've got a church 'culture' that is all about the show, and thus, as Dallas Willard calls it, we've got a bunch of consumer Christians who shop for the best show. It's about becoming disciples of Christ who can make disciples...nice work Barna.

Emma's Baptism

It's been brewing in my head and heart to journal about this, and, since it's been so crazy this Summer, I'm just now getting to it - ouch! Emma-Anne, my 10 year old daughter, was baptized into Christ on Monday, August 14th in the Bumping River at the Indian Flatt campground. That was an amazing evening. Many friends from our church were there and I was confident Emma knew what she was doing, why she needed Christ, and understood what baptism was for. Really, she preceeded my own baptism, in age, by 4 or so years. It is a humbling experience being used by God to bring others into His kingdom, and that evening was very, very special. I must mention that the evening was made even more special by the fact that some other dear friends Tim & Heather were baptized after Emma - what a night! God was and IS moving in hearts young and old. Sometimes it takes longer for some, shorter for others to decide to jump in with God, but, when it happens - AWESOME!