From Sampler to Sower

I (along with I suspect a healthy number of fellow Christians thanks to some brilliant pre-release publicity from John Piper) recently read Rob Bell’s new book, Love Wins.  Unlike some other prognosticators, who apparently understand Bell’s reasoning so well they can respond to it before it’s even published, I’ve decided to take some time to think, read, pray, eat and love before chiming in.

Having spent a decent amount of time the last two weeks doing those very things (especially eating…) I think I’m going to start here.

It’s probably an understatement to say that much of what Bell suggests run counter to the faith as it was handed down to me. While Bell isn’t the first to suggest things like the possibility of post-mortem repentance and the idea that maybe, just maybe, God is good enough to save all humanity through faith in Christ (not by at least 17 centuries), suffice it to say there haven’t been many voices in my ecclesial neck of the woods advocating such views.

And that’s what makes Bell’s book such a good thing.

Let me explain.
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Weekend Teaching Series: You Decide

Weekend Scale of Difficulty: 10 of 10, For the same reasons as the Junior High service, this was a difficult night.  Fortunately, by the time the teaching time came around in the service, the Excedrin I’d been taking all day finally began to kick in.  I really did think, going into this service, that there was a chance I’d have to cut the teaching short.  But God is good.

Message Summary: We’re in the fourth week of our You Decide series in which we’ve been answering the questions students ask. As I’ve mentioned for the past three weeks, we’re using a  Poll Everywhere poll to collect the questions teens have and I’m choosing the best to answer at Water’s Edge.  This weeks top questions included “Who is Legion?” “What’s the difference between the Old and New Testament?” and “Will all dogs really go to heaven?”

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