Thoughts on Shane Claiborne's thoughts.

Tonight I had the privilege of hearing a lecture from Shane Claiborne, author of The Irresistible Revolution and Jesus for President.

He touched on a lot of different topics in 45 minutes, but the thing he kept coming back to, even during the Q&A section, was the radical way Jesus lived.

Jesus challenged the pattern of the world when he lived on earth. And he bids us the same. Shane listed a few of the patterns we tend to follow today. Our natural reaction to crime and suffering is to move away from it, into the suburbs. Our natural reaction to a bad economy is to stockpile our money in an effort for financial security. He had a lot to say about this pattern (or I just took more notes during this section).

Americans constitute 5% of the world's population and consume half of the world's material goods. We try to fill the void inside of us with stuff. But it just ends up controlling us. Some of the freest people in the world hold onto stuff the loosest.
Mother Teresa said "the best thing to do with the best things in life is to give them away." Shane goes as far as saying that the more that we have the less we become.

In general, we all stockpile things and over-consume, (yes, even Christians). We live in a world where over-consumption of food is literally killing some of us. One out of three adult Americans are obese. Thousands will die this year from complications from being overweight, while thousands of people die every day from starvation.

Jesus constantly challenged the norm. Shane does the same, and evokes a feeling of fascination that leave you wondering if there are ways you can challenge the norm in your own life.

You may not agree with Shane's radical ways, but at least he believes in what he believes in 100%. I didn't come away from Shane's lecture wanting to buy his newest book or gush about how great he is to my friends. I left wanting to know Jesus more, and to consider what patterns of the world I was conforming to that I wasn't aware of.

From Talk To Action

One of the overarching themes of the last year or two of my life has been discovering the true meaning of the Gospel. I'm sure that I will continue to learn about it for the rest of my life, as I'll never fully understand how it works and why God designed life this way.

Lately I've come to a much deeper understanding of the Gospel; it's more than a one-time prayer that I know I should pray. The Gospel affects our lives in eternity, but is also life-changing while we are on this earth.

Under this overarching theme lies another issue that has consumed much of my thinking: good deeds.



Just by reading the accounts of Jesus interacting with people in the Gospels, one can see that He wasn't only about truth, and He wasn't only about good deeds. He had a unique balance. The Great Commission and The Great Commandment were both important to Him, and they should both be important to us.

Why do we shy away from helping others when we see they are in need? Why do we justify our lack of action? Why do we make the excuse that they may use this money I'm giving them for booze!

"When a Christian sees someone who is physically hungry, a Christian feeds the hungry person. Why? Because hungry people can’t understand the plan of salvation? No. Simply because that person is hungry. That’s what Christians do. And if a person is spiritually hungry, a Christian becomes “one beggar telling another beggar where he or she found bread.” Why? Because that’s what Christians do" (Steve Brown).

Books like Crazy Love and The Irresistible Revolution have also fed my interest in this area, along with many articles from Relevant Magazine and Worldwide Challenge.

Nancy Ortberg was recently quoted about this in an online Relevant article: "Many churches I come in contact with have all kinds of programs for banquets, and teas, and Bible studies, which in and of themselves are not bad, but there is not an equal amount of serving the poor, and getting our hands dirty, and coming alongside people in need. The Church has to go to them. Many people started clamoring around Jesus initially because He was healing people, and then when they got close enough, they began to hear His message. And His message was, “The Kingdom of God is available right now.”

Shane Claiborne is also quoted in the same article: "People are hungry, I think, for a Gospel that embodies a social, political alternative to the patterns of our world. To me, that is the very essence of what spread within the early Church— they were caring for the poor, preaching another Kingdom and another emperor than Caesar’s. And it was absolutely magnetic because the faith people had placed in Rome was at an all-time low, so when they were saying, “We’ve got another Kingdom,” people were like, “Yes, we’re ready, because the world as we’ve experienced it is not working.” The beautiful thing is, people are saying the same thing now."

How much more credible are our lives when people see our loving actions, then hear about the love that motivates us?

Now that I know this, what do I do about it?

What action steps can I take this week, this month, this year, to move toward a better balance?

Darkness and Fire.

From The Irresistible Revolution- Shane Claiborne:


"When the darkness of our world, and all of the fears we hold in that darkness, are pierced by the light of God's love and by the possibility that God has other ideas in mind for how we are to live, something liberating happens. But there is also the danger of our becoming mesmerized by the dazzle of the light. It can be quite comfortable, like a campfire. We can crawl up into the hands of God and fall asleep in the sweet aroma and cozy warmth. And so much of the world lies in the cold, clammy darkness of human suffering, oppression, inequality. My friend John Francis Maher sings a beautiful song that whispers to the groaning masses, 'Don't let your eyes adjust to the dark.' Perhaps we could also add for those by the fire, 'Don't fall asleep in the light.'

I once heard Steve Chalke, a church leader and minister in the UK, describe a little kid stumbling across a raging house fire. As he looks around, he notices a water hose, which he quickly grabs, but then, as he frantically goes to put out the fire, he notices something else, something peculiar. All around him are fire engines with firefighters on them, but all of the firefighters are sound asleep. Now the little boy is left with a decision. He can attempt the hopeless task of trying to put out the fire by himself, or he can take that water hose and begin spraying down all of the firefighters.

The choice seems pretty clear when we see how large the inferno is in our world and how small each of our hands are. The darkness of our world will try to smother the light, so we have to surround ourselves with people who make us shine brighter."

Another Church Myth?

This post is one of those topics that old coworkers of mine loved to talk about, and one in which I usually defer to other Christians to settle. It's also something I'm thinking about lately upon finishing 'The Irresistible Revolution' by Shane Claiborne.

I've never considered exactly what a church should do with their tithes/offerings. I could dig up my current church's budget information and take a look at that. But I wouldn't even know how much should go to whom.

So I am unsure what to do with Shane's opinions and research on tithes and offerings in the Scriptures. In his words, he discovered tithes and offerings as "unmistakably intended to be used for redistributing resources to the poor and not to go toward buildings and staff for the church."

"An average of 85% of the church offering is used internally, primarily for staff and buildings and stuff to meet our own needs...no wonder most church going Christians give only less than 3 percent of their income to the church and find other ways of giving money to the poor."

I think my current giving to my church, four single female missionaries and a child-sponsorship program is appropriate considering my income level. But I struggle with giving to the homeless and poor in my community, due to many things- I don't see the need in my day to day life, I am not challenged to give to this segment of society, etc. To be honest, sometimes I feel like it's not my responsibility as a Christian to give- can't the government get their act together and do something?

These excuses are not valid, but they are there nonetheless. When I do feel moved to give to the poor in my community, I don't give to my church. There are local organizations that help the homeless that I've given to in the past. And there are other churches in Vermillion that offer tangible help to those who need it, so I give my time and organization skills to help once in awhile.

I understand the need for churches to spend their money on their own programs and staff. Support for their denomination...I'm not sure how I feel about that yet, because I don't know much about it. I'm not satisfied with what Claiborne wrote, or my own presumptions on the topic of giving to the poor and church tithes. Look for more posts on this in the future.

The Church's "Multiplication Myth"

Sometimes multiplication can divide and subtract instead of the ultimate goal of extensive addition.

We want the Body of Christ to be reaching out and multiplying their faith. But as we grow larger, we divide into subgroups and become introspective. We divide over politics and ways to 'do church' and end up subtracting from the Body. Our goal is to add in such large numbers that we multiply and grow exponentially.

But that doesn't always happen. Shane Claiborne writes about this problem in his book, The Irresistible Revolution. It has been very thought-provoking, and has really challenged the stereotypes that I believe, and those that surround the Christian sub-culture today.

Near the end of his book, Shane explains what he calls the 'myth of multiplication.' "The pervasive myth is that as we grow larger, we can do more good. But there is little evidence that this is ever realized. My own research and experience would suggest that as congregations grow in terms of staff and property, their giving to causes outside of operating expenses decreases dramatically, especially money given directly to the poor. (A recent study shows that) rich people are significantly less generous (proportionately) than poor people, and that large congregations give proportionately far less to people in poverty than do small ones...as we build our buildings, human temples are being destroyed by hunger and homelessness."

I've seen a lot of things in the Body of Christ that don't make sense. Typically I just go along with the crowd because I assume other people know better than I do. I'm starting to question more and more motives and actions in the Church and Christian circles today, due in part to hanging out with a lot of non-Christians. For the first several months at my part-time job in college, I avoided discussing church and other religious topics because I considered myself to be above my coworkers.

But after a few months, I started to really listen to them. Their opinions became really important to me; I tried to dispel the untrue beliefs they had about the church. But after awhile I started to realize that maybe they were right. They weren't persuading me to change my beliefs, but they had a lot more experience in dealing with Christians and the Church. They were legitimate concerns and hurt feelings underneath all of the blown-out-of-proportion opinions.

"Amid all the super-sizing, I want to make a modest suggestion: our goal should be not to get larger and larger but to get smaller and smaller. I think of the Kingdom of God as bubbling up from the bottom rather than trickling down from the top," writes Clairborne. I don't exactly know what this means, or how to go about this as one person in the Body of Christ, but I like the idea. And I'll keep thinking about it until I figure it out.