For about three years, Rob Bell has been a constant source of inspiration for me. It started with his book, Velvet Elvis. The title alone tells you something about the guy. He may be talking about serious things, but he doesn't often take himself too seriously.
One of the main thrusts of the book, for me, had to do with the idea that faith shouldn't be rigid. It should be open to change, open to questioning, open to the idea that we could be wrong at any given moment. The way he puts it, faith should bounce. It shouldn't be a brick wall, each piece relying on all the other pieces to survive. If you can't remove one piece without the entire thing falling apart, you're in trouble.
That was very affirming for me. I tend to question. I don't always expect answers to each question, but if you tell me I can't or shouldn't question, that tends to shut me down pretty quickly toward either you or what I'm questioning. Early in my faith, I also had trouble believing in all the individual pieces. It worked for me to temporarily ignore the things I had a problem with (Was this story literal? Global floods? Eaten by a whale?). It worked for me to put them off for future questioning. I have since had most of those pieces fall into some place, though not necessarily the traditional place.
I later started listening to Rob's weekly sermons online. I was blown away. Rob is pretty clear, he wants a sermon to be an experience. It should start conversations. It should keep you thinking and lead you to think about other things. You should walk away going, "Whoa!" He pulls this off quite often. Not always, but often.
I appreciate the way Rob looks at the Bible. It's not unique, or new, but it works well for me. For one thing, he explores the original language. Reading scripture in English is fine. You often get the overall message, but sometimes you miss the nuance. The word Abba doesn't just mean Father, it's more like Daddy. Daddy is much more familiar and intimate.
Rob likes to make connections between Old Testament and New Testament writings. He often asks, "Where have we read this before? What were they talking about in that section that would shed new light on this one?" In a lot of cases, the OT takes on a whole new light and sheds even more on the NT.
Rob also researches the time period he's talking about. The OT can sometimes come across very harshly. The way God is portrayed can easily be a turn off to anyone. If you take the time to understand what life was like back then, what other religions were being practiced, a lot things make much more sense. Things lose their harshness.
You may be reading this thinking, "Wow, Brian you sure are concerned with the details that don't necessarily mean all that much." Bell is also pretty vocal about the idea that the few answers we scratch out often lead to more questions. Some questions can't be answered. When asked whether we should believe in free will or predestination, Bell replies, "Yep." Maybe it's both. Maybe we'll never know. Maybe it doesn't matter.
Listening to these sermons, you also get to hear real life examples of people being influenced by these things. Some of the stories from his congregation are just as inspiring as any scripture based sermon. The people of Mars Hill (Grand Rapids, not the west coast church with the similar name) have done some crazy, amazing things. They don't just support the poorer areas of Grand Rapids, they move in to help change the culture there. They don't just try to teach kids not to join gangs, they take jobs working with the most troubled inner city kids. They get involved in their struggles and they experience life-changing tragedies.
The things is, these tragedies don't drive them away from the harder acts of love, it always drives home the importance all the more. Their stories show us that these acts of love aren't always about being a positive force in other people's lives, they're sometimes about transforming us into people who aren't too afraid to love. Reading this, you might be tempted to think that they put more emphasis on works than other churches, but I've never been left with that impression. In each case the works are preceded by strong convictions brought on by faith. The works are just a byproduct, love leading to love. Faith leading to circumstance.
I hear these sermons, sometimes given by Bell, sometimes added to by very personal stories, and I'm left struggling with these ideas. I'm left on the verge of tears, and in many instances, I'm left with a conviction to change myself. There are a handful of sermons that directly led to my family recycling on a regular basis. There are a handful of sermons that changed my opinion of what "turning the other cheek" means to me.
For many years, earlier in my faith, I would catch these glimpses of God, and I would hope that those glimpses were at the heart of what God was all about. Those glimpses involved love. In my life, God brought love, but there were these other stories in the Bible, these other viewpoints that Christians stereotypically followed that didn't equal love in my opinion. So, for years the studying I did, the prayers I prayed, had to do with God being all about love. Before I was introduced to Bell, that opinion was strengthened in many ways through many avenues and people. I think what I love about Bell the most is, at almost every turn, he does what he can to remind us of this: God is love. There is hope. Bell would go one further and finish up with, "Love wins."
I can get behind that message. I can't think of a point in my life where I would have been against that.
Rob's Website: http://www.realrobbell.com/
Mars Hill, Grand Rapids, MI: http://www.marshill.org
