Durham is cool

I've lived in Durham for about 7 months now. It's kind of hard to believe. But I came from Southern California, the place on the cutting edge, the place where everything is always happening. And yet, I've found that in a few short months here in Durham, NC that maybe SoCal isn't quite as cutting edge as it wants to be. I guess what I mean by that is that there is a lot going on here, way more than I expected there to be. Let me give some examples. In these seven months I have had the opportunity to see Donald Miller (author, Blue Like Jazz), Shane Claiborne (author, Irresistible Revolution and Jesus for President), Mark Driscoll (church planter, author - Vintage Jesus), and this week Ed Stetzer (church planting guru, author Planting Missional Churches). And all of this has been within 15-20 minutes of my house. I guess it comes with living in a University saturated area. But it's awesome.

As a church planter, it's pretty cool that this area is booming with those on the cutting edge of planting churches. There's a monthly forum about 10 minutes from my house led by Summit Church called SendRDU. This is where this week I got to hear Ed Stetzer talk about the pitfalls of church planting. Oh yeah, and every one of these things I've been able to do so far have been free. Can't beat that.

In June there will be a national conference for church planters and those interested in moving the church forward. Where is it? Oh, it's in Durham. So while hundreds of people will fly in from all over the country, I'll sleep in my bed, get up late, and drive to the conference.

All this to say - SoCal is still cool. And while it can boast of Disneyland and the beach and In-N-Out, at least I have trees and seasons and Shane Claiborne. It's a pretty good trade.

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Reading Binge

I'm going through this phase right now where I am reading a ton. I like these times. I just finished Rob Bell's newest book which is called Jesus Wants to Save Christians. Now I'm back to Shane Claiborne, and his latest Jesus for President. A couple of people commented before about Shane's book, so I'm looking forward to getting into this more and maybe seeing what kind of dialogue we can get going. Anyone read Bell's latest yet? I'd love to hear your thoughts. I'll share mine soon.

What about you, what are you reading?

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Acts

I've been reading through the book of Acts. I figured that's it a good thing to be doing seeing as how we're trying to start a church here in Durham. It's amazing to me the way things were happening in the early church. Entire paradigms were being shifted. There is the shift from Old covenant to New, the extension of God's grace from the Jewish people to include even Gentiles. There's the shift in dietary rules, the movement of the Holy Spirit, a well known terrorist becoming one of the apostles. Wow. Why do we tend to think that all the cool stuff happened way back then? I mean seriously - is God still moving and active or isn't He? Didn't Jesus say that the gates of hell would not be able to hold back the church? Didn't Jesus say that we would do even greater things that He did? It sure doesn't feel like it most of the time does it? I want to believe that Jesus meant those things. I want to believe that its possible for a church to exist that is literally transforming the culture around it through the power of the gospel.

Along with Acts, I've been reading Shane Claiborne's Irresistible Revolution. You need to read it. I'm warning you though. Don't read it unless you are willing to have some of your foundations rocked. You won't be able to read it and continue on with life as usual - let's put it that way. I'll give a more full review of it in a couple of days. I'm still digesting and wrestling with it. The cool thing is that Shane will be in Durham in January to speak at Duke's chapel. So I'm looking forward to that.

It's been interesting to read about the early church, and then read one person's perspective on where we've gone wrong between then and now. Shane is living out the kingdom like no one else I've heard of and there is such power in it. It's the kind of power that makes you really believe the things Jesus said.

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