What my church might learn about this chapter: week 10

Peter Rollins: Chapter 3.
"God is nor revealed via our words but rather via the life of the transformed individual." This is something that might seems obvious and even be preached in most churches today. Why is it that we don't change our practices of evangelism then? I love that idea that being the salt should be more about leaving the other thirsty. Our way of living, individually and as a church, should be creating that wordless space in which God is able to speak of himself, a question without answer in which God only can be discovered. It reminds me of that saying by Luther I think: "share God with your neighbors and if needed use words."

Peter Rollins: Chapter 4.

The idea that we are all created with a Go-shaped hole inside of us is a view that I was holding untill recently and that I think many people in the Church hold. With that view, we attempt to bring God to other as the answer, as the one who fill the hole. IN the contrary if we consider God as the one creating the hole, the desire, we will be open to being evangelized by the other, christian or non christian. I think that it is a key view that the church should consider in its approach to "the world". What if instead as considering the other as the outsider, we would consider ourselves as the outsiders, as the one who have to learn from the other?

Peter Rollins: Chapter 5.

In the chapter, Peter talks about ethic and love. Ethic is a set of moral values drown from the text or the teaching, love is what goes beyond the ethic, the 3 miles as he illustrates it. If ever the teaching of Jesus to carry the package of a Roman for 2 miles when asked for one become a rule, Jesus would ask to carry it for 3 miles instead of 2. Love is the lense through which we ought to read everything. I think that my church as understand that in some ways by their 'ethical frame' idea. There is no rule that can be applied to all situation, but there are different situation from which will emane different rule in the light of Love.

Peter Rollins: Part 2. Service 1.
In this chapter, Peter describe a service about Holy Saturday that they set up at Ikon. The theme of the absence of God is at the center of the service and they attempt to bring different interpretations of that absence on the night that Jesus died. This service could be useful to my church in the sense that it give a good example of a service that mix different media, means of expression etc... My pastor asked me to think about different ways to do church when I go back for my internship and I think that this part of the book is gonna bring me new ideas to develop and appropriate.

Peter Rollins: Part 2. Other services.

Those example are gonna be really useful for me when I go back to my church. Not that they are guides to follow step by step, but because they open a lot of thoughts about how to lead a service in a "non-classical" way. I don't think that all those ideas would apply to my context. Personally I would try to make the services more participative. In a "open-mic" kind of way.
This book in general has been literally tranformative for me in my view of the church, evangelism, faith and our conceptions of God. It opened a lot of new insight and leads me on a new journey of questioning and living my faith.