Michael Frost on the Power of Stories
So just to mix things up a bit, I thought I would post a series of quotes by Michael Frost. For those of you who don’t know Michael, he along with Alan Hirsch have been pushing leaders, churches, and movements to leave their comfortable lives and engage on God’s mission. What follows is a series of quotes from his message at Exponential East this year, as recounted by Matt Hill on his website, Matthill.org. I hope you enjoy!
People aren’t primarily moved or changed by bullet points or sermons. They are changed when you give them a different story to live into.
and
God captures not by force, but by the imagination of his fallen creatures.
and finally…
Encoded into the DNA of suburban American is “be safe”, “build houses,” “renovate your kitchen,” “send your kids to the best schools.” Left to their own devices they will be sucked into the American dream. The only thing that will draw them out is story….Stop only telling people that Jesus died on the cross for their sins. Tell them what it could look like if they lived like Jesus. Tell them the story of God and what it could look like if they saw heaven.
The Knowledge of the Holy: A Follow Up (Part III)
My wife’s copy of “The Knowledge of the Holy.” It was already kind of in bad condition. Our series made it worse (err…more loved).
If you’ve been following along, we just finished a 23-day series reading through A.W. Tozer’s book, “The Knowledge of the Holy.” I mentioned in the first follow up post that several readers wrote in during the last few days of the series with some comments that I thought were helpful follow ups to the journey we went on. My hope to day is to highlight a few of those comments that readers might not have seen if they aren’t “into” reading the comment section.
First up is “riversflowdown” who writes in and says: “My favorite thought in the book is not found in the chapters but the Preface. In the fourth paragraph is a statement that I have been pondering for about 4 months. “Be still, and know that I am God.” I have a thought that i will not quickly move from. Knowing God can never be grasped from any other position that that of being still!”
I love this comment and I think one of my mistakes I made as I did this series was I didn’t give a day to the preface. It was great and if you haven’t read it and get a chance to, you should go back and do it. Also, I know that the idea expressed here, that God can be known only as we quiet our hearts is true to Tozer’s experience (as well as Scripture) because Tozer was known for being a lover of the mystic writers (he quotes them a number of times in the book) and for having developed his own discipline of waiting on the Lord.
Next up is fellow blogger David Bolton who wrote in: “During this time I was also able to listen to the audiobook, A Passion for God – The Spiritual Journey of A.W. Tozer by Lyle Dorsett. This was a great background read to this series. I would recommend it to anyone who would like to know more about this profoundly spiritual, yet still very human, modern-day prophet.” If you’re interested in following up with David’s suggestion, you can find A Passion for God by clicking on the link.
There were also a lot of good comments by others who shared their thoughts along the way. Feel free to look through the series and discover what others were saying. Tomorrow I’ll spend some time talking about how the series changed our readership a bit and try an exercise to get to know some of our new readers.
The Knowledge of the Holy: A Follow Up (Part II)
If you’ve been following along, you know we just concluded a 23 day series reading A.W. Tozer’s “The Knowledge of the Holy. One of the things I’ve noticed on my journey has been that when believers take some concentrated time to study God’s attributes, they don’t like stopping. This can be good or bad, depending on what is going on in the heart of each individual believer.
“Bad? How can it be bad?” you ask. Well, the answer is that if all we ever do is study the attributes of God, we can slowly give our hearts over to the subtle lie that having more information is the same thing as knowing God. In our Western, consumer-driven, data-focused culture knowing the facts about God can pretty much convince most people that they actually have a relationship with Him.
The truth is, knowledge inflates us with pride, but love builds the church. If understanding God’s nature increases our love for Him, then our study is a success because the church is built up as individuals draw nearer to Christ. But if we grow in our head knowledge but never bend our knee, surrender our heart, or draw close to God’s burning heart, then we have only become more like the Pharisees. We must guard ourselves from these tendencies. And we have to ask ourselves, “How Much Input Do You Need?”
With that said, reading more than one book isn’t a bad thing. So for those of you who have enjoyed our study in “The Knowledge of the Holy,” I thought I would point you to a few more resources that I hope will be helpful if you find yourself wanting to go deeper in these areas.
This is a great study written by A.W. Pink (don’t ask me why two guys with the initials A.W. wrote books on the nature of God). Pink was a pastor and a theologian who wrote a number of books and claims Dr. Martyn Lloyd Jones as one of the people who learned from him. While he wrote a number of books, this one in particular focuses in on the nature of God through the lens of His attributes in a very similar way as “The Knowledge of the Holy.”
The Existence and Attributes of God
This book is written by Stephen Charnock, a puritan who lived in 17th Century England. He was a minister who preached to several different congregations during his life. His claim to fame is this book, which was assembled from a series of addresses that were given prior to his death. Charnock was never able to finish the addresses, but what was completed can be found here. When people at my Bible college gained a hunger for knowing more of God from “The Knowledge of the Holy,” they inevitably bought a copy of this book. But I warn you: This book is a mammoth book and is not for the faint of heart.
I thought this book might be a good follow up, not because it covers the same ideas as “The Knowledge of the Holy,” but because it is Tozer writing about what is required of the man who wants to pursue God. In a way, for the person who is firm in God’s nature but wants to put into practice what he or she understands, The Pursuit of God is a practical help to encourage hearts to truly encounter Jesus. I would highly encourage you to pick this book up.
Also, remember, I don’t endorse everything I endorse….
Cluster Map
Pursuing Glory 