I've been reading Irresistible Revolution by Shane Clairborne. It's not a book where you read it and set it down and say 'Yeah, that was good stuff.' Well... I guess.... it could be. But what I mean to say is that it's definitely important stuff. That's for sure. And convicting. A couple excerpts:

(This also is the same story brought up by Jim in the comments of my last post. Fancy that)

"I heard one of the teaching pastors at Willow Creek speak on the rich young ruler text that Rich [Mullins] had talked about in Wheaton's chapel. The teaching pastor said, "Now this doesn't mean you have to go sell your rollerblades and golf clubs," and he went on to "contextualize" the teaching to show that we just need to be careful not to make idols of our things. I wasn't so sure about that. Jesus doesn't tell the man to be a better steward, or to treat his workers fairly, or not to make money an idol. He tells this highly educated and devoutly religious young man that he lacks one thing: giving up everything he owns to give to the poor. Rich Mullins used to say that's because there are a lot of people coming to the Banquet, and God doesn't want all the luggage to deal with."



Shane did a survey, wherein he asked Christians about what he called their (mis)conceptions of Jesus.

"I asked participants who claimed to be "strong followers of Jesus" whether Jesus spent time with the poor. Nearly 80 percent said yes. Later in the survey, I sneaked in another question. I asked this same group of strong followers whether they spent time with the poor, and less than 2 percent said they did. I learned a powerful lesson: We can admire and worship Jesus without doing what he did. We can applaud what he preached and stood for without caring about the same things. We can adore his cross without taking up ours. I had come to see that the great tragedy in the church is not that rich Christians do not care about the poor but that rich Christians do not know the poor."

Wow. Good... uhh... I mean, important stuff. Convicting stuff. He ended the chapter with:

"I truly believe that when the poor meet the rich, riches will have no meaning. And when the rich meet the poor, we will see poverty come to an end."

Yesterday I was just thinking:

'What are my words worth if I don't live them?'