Chad's spot for various thoughts, musings, poetry, ideas and whatnot

Thursday, January 06, 2005

Hard to shake and a good book

As the semester looms near I'm finding this cold hard to shake. It hasn't really been too incapacitating but the symptoms have been annoying with the threat of coughing fits every evening. Cough drops have staved off that issue to date but I'd sure like to be over this thing. The hardest part is knowing how to balance my training with the cold. I don't want to take time off and lose fitness but if I overtrain then it takes longer to get over the darn thing. I ended up taking last night off as I was feeling pretty run down.

I've started reading a new book that is really remarkable. Titled Church in Emerging Culture: Five Perspectives, the book seeks to create a dialogue as to how the church can best reach postmodern culture in America. Five different authors from very different perspectives and traditions look at how best to reach out to those who are disenchanted with mainstream Christianity. The really remarkable thing is that in a particular author's essay the other contributors have inserted comments about what has been written. The author is then allowed a final thought to address those comments. What results is a book that almost sounds like a conversation that helps the reader frame questions about the dialogue. While I've only read Andy Crouch's essay and the associated comments I'm really impressed with the level of the thinking and dialogue. What is just as amazing is that the book allows for differing points of view to interact and doesn't try to draw conclusions for the reader. In all of my reading of Christian material, this is the first time I've ever seen something that allows for the possibility that there is more than just a single author's monolithic point of view. In this way, the book is a huge success. I'll write more as I get further into the book but if you've got the time and ability to do a little philosophical lifting I recommend you pick up a copy and let it get you thinking. Especially if you happen to be in ministry and look out into your congregation and wonder where all the 18 to 34 year olds are.

Anyways, as always, thanks for taking the time to read this.

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