The season is not the only thing that's changing

When I started in ministry in 1968 it was a completely different world, but even then people were struggling with the institutional side of Christianity. Some great ministries came out of those struggles. On my college campus the “anti-church” crowd met in a near by park. As attendance swelled into the hundreds and the Southern California winter rains began to fall they had to move indoors. Which meant they had to gather funds, rent a building and organize who did what so they could continue their “anti-church” sentiment….in a building! Another group used a drive in theater to hold services without getting out of your car and another catered to the barefoot beach crowd! Today those groups of change ARE the institutional church and the barefoot beach boys are a huge denomination. (Calvary Chapel if you’re wondering). Anyway the winds of change are beginning to howl again, but this time it is NOT anti institutional church. It is more fundamental than that. It is anti-Christian-life-style-as-commonly-practiced-today. The Christian life style as painted in the scriptures is not the loosey-goosey anything goes radical grace NOR is it the Lethal-Legal tow the line painted on Mask either. Jesus saw his followers as flawed people who lived in relationship, first with Him and then with each other. His single command was to Love one another as HE loved us. That’s what this new wind of change is trying to accomplish. There is a million ways to do it, inside of a church, alongside of a church and even outside of a church. The ways are so varied they cannot be (and really should not be) defined or copied but to some degree they can be described. At least we can get an idea of what it would FEEL LIKE if as we approach this new kind of Christian Life style that actually delivers what Jesus promised. That’s what I like about the new book, Bo’s Café. It is not a recipe for a new kind of church, it is a description of how the Christian live can be lived. ANYONE can do it, within or without a local church. I think it is a great step in the right direction. The Shack woke millions of people up to the fact that God really loves them. Bo’s Café creates the setting for how we can/should/must live together in that love. You can pick up a copy at Walmart or Barns and Nobel or get it on line. Just click here> www.boscafe.com and I will take you there myself. (and in the intrest of the new internet rules imposed by congress, NO I am not being paid in any way, shape or form for this referal, it is from my heart. It seems to me after 40+ years of ministery, this is the movement of the winds of the Spirit)

Bo's Cafe, The shack study guide