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Supriya’s got me in another book club with her. this weekly daytime affair is going through Searching for God Knows What by Donald Miller. I like it but I don’t think I’m enjoying it as much as the others.
He is kind of humorous in his writing but it seems a bit juvenile to me, too. (I found one sentence stretched out to a quater of the page) And in this last section of reading, chapters 3-5, he’s bashing our old way of doing church (lists and charts) too much. He’s making an argument for seeing it all as a story. But to those who created the lists and charts they saw it as a story too. The dispensationalist charts for example were to lay out a story on a grand scale. And just because you know longer, or never did, buy into it doesn’t mean you have to bash it. The creators of that meathod were mostly well-intentioned.
The problem with the lists and charts era that we are just coming out of is that while it was seeking to tell the story in a simple meathod for the masses it restricted the story too much. It painted the walls on too thickly. The story was no longer allowed the space to speak to the reader as it was supposed to. (Mostly because the listener felt no need to read the texts themselves thereby giving the lists and chart makers too much authority) And other meanings were added that distorted things… (not unlike religion did in Jesus’ time) There were problems looming for this era, that’s for sure.
But if we go too far in bashing the past then we are doomed to go too far the other way. We need to be reasonable and balanced. We need to be honest. We need to say: when I read this I think of… it occurred to me that…. maybe this could even be seen as… some have seen it this way, some this way, where I am right now I think….
The problem wasn’t the charts and graphs- it was the “You’re wrong/ I’m right” or “You’re out/ I’m in ” christianity that was the problem. Once we let go of the notion that God wants us all to believe some perfect systematic theology the more we free God to speak to us however He wants at any given moment. Then we can be a part of the story God is writing. The charts and graphs weren’t the problem- it was human user error.
PS- As I’ve continued reading it was a perfectly fine book. It brings up a lot of good points and actually if very balanced.
Sebastien asks: Mom, do you like Spider-man or Batman better?
I say: I really haven’t given it much thought- which do you like better?
Sebastien says: I’m not sure either but there’s this kid in my class who doesn’t like Spider-man.
I say: REALLY?
Sebastien says: Yheah. And he has a Spider-man backpack, a Spider-man winter coat and Spider-man runners… He says his mom HATES him!
That’s when I turned around so I could conceal that I was tearing up from suppressed laughter.
