The Internet Monk is starting a new series of posts called The Liturgical Gangstas. This is a panel discussion among different traditions represented in the Internet Monk audience. Every episode of the Liturgical Gangstas will feature a question, and each member of the panel will make a response from within their own tradition. Then you and the Gangstas can interact in the comments.

This is perhaps the best blog entry on IM I've read in a long time. The first post in this series is deep, engaging, relevant, and challenging. I can't wait to see what's next.

Yesterday, I finished reading Pagan Christianity?: Exploring the Roots of Our Church Practices (website), which I recently won from Steve Brown, Etc.. All in all, I think I enjoyed it.

It's a book that is attempting to start a conversation about the current practices of Christianity, mostly focusing on Protestant Christianity. (Roman Catholicism and Orthodoxy are briefly mentioned occasionally.) The authors claim that pretty much everything about how Christianity is currently practiced (church buildings, professional clergy, the modern sermon, seminaries, method of sacraments, etc.) is based on pagan practices, does not represent the New Testament Church practices, and should be abandoned. After reading the book, I'm relatively convinced of the first two points, but not the third. They back up all of their claims with copious footnotes and encourage the reader to check their sources (I didn't) to confirm that they're not making these things up. Because I wasn't convinced that their conclusion was the logical or necessarily reasonable product of their thesis, I didn't care to research their claims and try to confirm them.

It was really interesting reading about how many of our current church practices are rooted in non-Christian culture. I'm just not convinced that's a good reason to abandon the practices. It did, however, make me think about how the Church does things, and whether any of those ways should be changed. I think the obvious answer is, yes, there are definitely things that should be changed. So, in that respect, the book did what it sought out to do -- it started a conversation with me about what proper church practices should be. It just didn't pull me all the way to agreeing with their conclusion.

Because I wasn't convinced, the book started to get somewhat tedious about halfway through. It just came across to me as though they were trying to hard to convince me of something that I just wasn't going to buy into.

Viola is a proponent of the house church and/or organic church movement, and this book really does a great job of explaining a lot of reasons that those movements should be embraced. That is, if you buy into the conclusion that pagan-inspired practices of the church must be abandoned.

Should you read the book? Even though I found it tedious at times and disagreed with the conclusion, I'm glad that I read it. If you're interested in how the Church does what it does, you might want to give it a read. Pick it up from the library, though, 'cause unless you agree with their conclusion, I don't think it's the kind of book that you'll be coming back to after you've read it once. After yarbiedoll reads it, I'm giving my copy away.

There's a sequel, Reimagining Church: Pursuing the Dream of Organic Christianity (website) that recently came out. I may check it out from the library eventually, but it's not high on my list right now....

Next up on my reading list: The Great Awakening: Reviving Faith and Politics in a Post-Religious Right America by Jim Wallis.

I just finished reading It: How Churches and Leaders Can Get It and Keep It. I picked up a copy at the conference I was at last week, on the recommendation of one of the presenters.

Wow.

On the heels finishing up unChristian last week, this was a great follow-up read. The conference I was at last week was a leadership conference designed for church leaders and the session I was in where this book was recommended was a session about transforming Sunday morning groups from ordinary to extraordinary. I signed up for that sessions because I believed that it would be beneficial with my Sunday School class. It was, and I left the session (and the whole conference) incredibly enthused about the work I do at church and eager to step up my game. Hopefully soon I'll find the time to write up about the conference. But for now, I'll write up a quick book review.

It is a passionate call for ministry leaders to seek that something (the author call it "it") that makes ministries special. It's really hard to describe, partly because the author insists on calling it "it" through the whole book -- there is no attempt to more precisely define it. A big reason for that is that it is incredible difficult to define, and much of the argument comes from a spiritual and emotional perspective were precise definitions don't necessarily make sense. I struggled with that a bit, as I really like to order things logically. Once I was able to get beyond that and open myself up to the book, it really took a hold of me.

I read most of the book on the plane rides from Kansas City back to Greensboro. It's a quick read. I'm hesitant to say it's an easy read because the book is very challenging. I was confronted with my need to honestly step up my game as it relates to ministry. I've been involved in groups that have "it" and I know that it's good. This book helped me refocus my desire to chase "it" and get "it" back.

I know this review probably sounds scatterbrained. I'm just having a hard time finding the way to express how glad I am to have read this book. If you're involved in leading any kind of ministry, I highly recommend it.

I'm on a reading kick right now and really enjoying it. And just as I finished reading It, I'm happy to come home and find that the copy of Pagan Christianity?: Exploring the Roots of Our Church Practices that I won showed up today. So far, I've read the prefaces and introductions and the first couple of paragraphs of the first chapter. It looks very interesting.

OK, I'm exhausted. And my laptop battery is dying. This will be my last post before going to sleep.

My pastor recently recommended that I read unChristian: What a New Generation Really Thinks about Christianity... and Why It Matters. I picked up a copy from the library and finished it a few days ago.

It's an interesting look at how the Christian faith is perceived by both Christians and non-Christians. It's easy for Christians to say that the perception shouldn't matter -- as long as we accurately represent God's word, we're doing the right thing. The truth, however, is that perceptions do matter, and that many Christians simply don't accurately represent God's word. As a result, we're turning off a whole bunch of people who otherwise might be attracted to Christianity.

The book is based on a huge study that was conducted by the Barna group, so there's a lot of discussion about what was learned by the study. It was informative to look at the data they gathered for the study and read their conclusions. The biggest conclusion is that there is a lot of work Christians need to do -- that the current image of Christianity is not representative of what Christianity is supposed to be, and that many people who call themselves Christian are doing a terrible job of both representing and acting on their faith. The book focuses on a handful of negative perceptions that people have about Christians, explains why those perceptions are reasonable for people to have, and presents possible solutions on how to start reversing those perceptions. No surprise here, most of the solutions involve having Christians start acting on their faith instead of merely giving it lip service.

All in all, I'm very glad that I read the book. Especially as we continue to work on the new service at church and seek to get unchurched people involved, I think it's going to be helpful that I read the book. If you're involved in ministry in any capability, I recommend that you give this book a look. It's a very easy read, and you can skip around in the chapters to read them in whatever order you like.