Another quality message (10 minutes total time) from Rollins. I really find myself connecting with this guys words the possibilities he dreams and shares.

I hear his words of participation and transformation!

After reading “How (not) to speak of God” I really wanted to dive into more of Rollins works and so I quickly grabbed this gem (thanks to my amazon wishlist from my mother in law) and I was not disappointed. This book is a collection of parables that Peter Rollins has written over the years and used with his ikon community that truly stretch your comfortable concepts of God and the church and the bible.

Rollins uses familiar bible stories in some cases and the twists the endings to bring about a point or something for us to think about, and still in other parables he makes up a fictional world describing a well known moral lesson that we might know from the bible or church and then spinning it on its head as well. Each parable made me think deeply and I am even going to gift this book to a number of friends as I think it really has helped me along in my own journey and could be very helpful with anyone else. I even used one of the parables in a recent church service we put on at the open house.

I am not sure if I would do the review justice by telling you some specific examples, but I will say that for those church planters out there that want to have their view of God stretched and encouraged, and also have a way to bridge some of the culture gaps of today’s society, I highly recommend this as a helpful text that will encourage conversation amongst all types and backgrounds of people. I give this book a 4.5/5 for my unqualified CP ranking.

This book has inspired me to work through some of my own parables that I have written but never completed and possibly using them in the future. Maybe even posting them here. We shall see…

This is the most stimulating, exciting, and reflective book I have read on the church in a long time. Peter Rollins rocks my world, and in the words of Richard Rohr, Peter “names my experience.”

In Part 1 of the book he works out his theology and in essence the churches theology over the past centuries and presents some new ways of understanding God. In Part 2 he details 10 worship experiences in light of these theological ideas. I found my self drawn to the experiences more deeply than I have before, but I also realized during my reading that his context in Belfast makes much more sense for the types of services they plan. With that said, I think there is much to be learned from the thoughts in Part 1 and for them to be practiced in a creative way, similar, but more unique to the context one finds themselves in.

I am going to be leading a book study on How (not) to speak of God this September and I have an opening for 1 more person. Let me know if you are interested, as I think this book will be an important piece of material for my own development and for the the open house in 2010.

Here is a really good talk from Peter Rollins on the emergent church. I find that I really connect with what he is saying here.

And for those of you who scan my ramblings here, or hang out with us at the open house, Jem and I are going to be reading and discussing Rollins book How (Not) to Speak of God – Marks of the Emerging Church starting in September. It will be open to everyone.

More to come on that. Enjoy.

Explaining Emergent Churches – Inner Compass from Calvin College on Vimeo.