Sunday, January 11, 2009

Rob Bell: Lent--not what's in your dryer vent!

Happy overcast, PDX!

We're under that January pall for sure. I remember a couple of springs like that in Nebraska when I was in high school. Didn't warm up forever. Didn't see the sun forever. Country roads were without a bottom. Mud everywhere. Could just about do a person's spirit in for good. Not here to talk about that though.

Here to talk about Rob Bell. If he and some of his ilk are the future spokespersons and visionaries of those who follow Christ, then we have indeed emerged from a long spiritual pall. And thank God! Just when I was about to asphyxiate, breath comes along. Perhaps that's why he calls his series of monologues NOOMA. That's Anglicization of pneuma, the Greek word for spirit, or breath.

Bell looks straight at the camera and talks like a person who lives in the real world. He asks the questions I've asked for years. He knows that following Christ is not about spending decades of your life trying to get your belief system right before you ever take a step. It's about living in the world where God works and is already at work, proceeding without having much of anything figured out. But proceeding anyway.

That's why I'm so pleased that a little group of Lutherans out in the Woodstock/Eastmoreland area of SE Portland have decided to throw open the doors on six Wedesday evenings, starting February 11 at 7:00 PM. A different Rob Bell video (10-13 minutes) will kick off the evening. Then we'll talk over coffee and cookies for 45 minutes or so. We'll just talk honestly and see where the NOOMA and the pneuma lead us. All questions and comments are fair game if they are spoken in honesty. Really!

Yup! Starting February 11, 2009, 7:00 PM. 7220 SE 39th Avenue, Portland.

Spread the word. Bring friends. It's our way of doing Lent. Which is not what's in your dryer vent.

In succeeding posts I'll give you a preview of where we'll go with Rob. Hard to choose only six of these gems from the 23 he's done so far.

Shalom!

Pastor Roger

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