Tangible Kingdom

That's the name of the book that Kev and I are reading.

It's pretty much amazing.

Have you ever felt something deeply but didn't even know how to put it into words?
Or have you ever had dreams that you wanted to live out but just weren't sure how or where to live that vision out...or who you could even sell your vision too to live it out with you?

And then you came across a book that finally puts meat on the bones of what you've always felt and dreamed....and you're seeing people actually doing and living that same vision?

Well, that's this book for Kev and I.

It's the reason why - when we were looking to try to pay down our student loans from PBU - I sought out waittressing as opposed to going back to the little Christian school that I have worked at for 8 years.

It's the reason why Kev and I intentionally decided to go to my work Christmas Party at Hollywood Slots last month.....when a year ago I would never have stepped foot in our local casino for fear that someone "might see me" and judge me.

It's the reason why I invite Lew over all the time and don't freak out when he says the D-word in front of my kids.

This book is challenging me.
It's stretching me.
It's growing me.

It is NOT the Bible.
Obviously.
But, it's challenging God's people to rethink how we live life. How we do church. And how we live out our faith to the rest of the world.

Before Lew and before waittressing....before being challenged by the authors....my contact with the outside world was nil. So, my influence TO the outside world was nada. I was happily encased in my safe little Christian bubble of believers. Not to be "tainted," not to be "sullied," and for sure - not to ever hear the D-word or something far worse.

But now - oh man - this book is radical. In a God-thing kind of radical way.

The challenge is to go and "BE" the church to this crazy, post-modern world who - if you asked many of them what they think of church and Christians - would give you a list of things that we DON'T do and things that we stand AGAINST.

The authors' challenge, or stance, if you will - is that no longer is the attractional "Come to Us" approach working. For some it is, for sure. And there will always be a place for this. But more and more the need is for us to go and BE the church to people.

I heard a pastor preach just yesterday: "The church is not to be a "WHAT." It needs to be a "WHO." We are the church. And we need to live it out where others can see it and want it.

And thus....the waittressing thing has been birthed. And it has become SO much more than trying to earn a couple of bucks to pay down our student loans. And as a family, we're talking and we're praying. We're seeking God's face in what He would have us to do and how He would have us to live out that incarnational way that He lived out when He walked this earth.

We're not sure where this is heading. But we see God at work, and we know that He is moving. It's crazy. And it's a little scary. But it's right for us.

More to come.......