Blogging "The Irresistible Revolution"

In September, I was at the Royal Oak public library and seemingly randomly picked up and checked out The Irresistible Revolution, by Shane Claiborne, who's 2 years younger than me. I hadn't heard of the book before, but have seen its impact on others since, which always makes one start to realize something's happening.

And something is happening. Claiborne's book throws down the gauntlet for young evangelicals to... well, I'm only about four chapters in, so I can't put it concisely yet. But what I aim to do here is look at it - in community. This book is impacting our generation and it's wise for us Alliance folk to interact with it. If you already have and have written about it somewhere, let me know. My aim is to listen to Claiborne, interact, and you can jump in or follow along as you like.

One more thing: I am sympathetic to a major concern of his- living as neighbors with "the least of these". Lisa and I got involved with an inner-city church in a diverse and struggling neighborhood of Chicago, moved into the area, and started a family there. We knew we needed to be neighbors in order to serve. I can't say enough about the heart for the lost and the needy Pastor Jim and Sharon Larkin have; we had (and I'm sure they're still doing this without us) a soup kitchen ministry every Sunday night, and still felt like we needed to do more. We worked teaching Enlgish to refugees and immigrants, doing what we could to help peoples' material needs and sharing the Jesus story along the way. Life was busy but not complete struggleville compared to many of our friends there. 5.5 years in the city, and we still just felt like we scratched the surface, and really, that's all we did. My living and giving wasn't as extensive or as sacrificial as Claiborne's, I'm sure. And Albany Park isn't as 'urban abandoned' as Kensington, Philly sounds. So let's just say I can visualize the context and can empathize with at least a little bit of experience. So that's where I'm coming from.

I'd like to go chapter-by-chapter. Author's note and Chapter 1 either tomorrow or Sunday, God willing.