Jason Evans is ranting again...

Next-Wave editor Jason Evans really got wound up, I am going to quote his entire post:

""In essentials unity, in non-essentials liberty, and in all things charity." I think this quote is attributed to St. Augustine, not totally sure on that, but either way people in the "emerging" church scene need to take this to heart. Some friends have been linking me to the ongoing blog rantings. The 'back-and-forth' on non-essentials. (I'm a little behind on this one so spare me.) Seems like splitting hairs, tearing words apart to me.

Here's the bottom line: you will not convince anyone unless how you conduct your life backs up your language. It doesn't matter how long you rant, how good you spin it. We are a generation that is tired of gimmicks and sales pitches. We want to see the reality of it, the everyday living of it (yes, the high's and the low's). If you are not serious about engaging in that, than we aren't interested in your negativity. "What particular instances or subjects are you talking about?" I'm not stooping to that. If you really want to know what I'm about on these petty matters you can come see how I live and discover it for yourself. I'm not interested in these issues. That's why I chose the road I did - because I thought it was amongst a community of people ready to move beyond that, to get to the essentials of following Jesus.

For goodness sake, I'm just getting sick of the bitterness that surrounds this so called 'movement' (oh, sorry, we changed our minds on the 'movement' thing last month). I'm fairly certain that we were told somewhere that we would be known by our love. That seems to be fairly antithetical of where we are at some times. It's more like you'll know us by our negative, knit-picking and indeciviness. For a season, we all undergo a transition, a time when we "unpackage," as Spencer puts it, how we believe. But you have to move on. You can't sit there pulling everything apart for ever, attempting to draw attention to your spiritual temper tantrum.

I long to hear stories of wonder and joy, of passion and love, of falling down and being picked back up. But please no more of the continual unhappy banter that seems to always be taking place. This doesn't apply to everyone. But to many it does. Heck, it has even applyed to myself. But we need to move forward in faith. Find some joy in finding our way into God's Story. I'm just getting tired of all the complaining. I might take it serious if half the people moaning were making an even meager attempt at making a dent in the enemies kingdom. I remember Dallas Willard saying in a talk I listened to once that what you profess and what you believe are often two different things in the Christian community. What you believe is defined by how you live... what you profess may just be empty words. It's time to engage, to reconstruct, to believe and profess something holistically, to live abundantly. If you would like to sit on the sidelines and scream, we're not interested. So, here's my request: would the people in the balcony please shut the [blank] up and get their [tails] on the stage of God's Story please. I say that in love. Honestly."

I expurgated a couple of words because the last time I posted some harsh language, I got a bunch of guff about it...Can you hear what he is saying? Can you hear the heart and passion behind his words? Wow, dude, get all "John the Baptist" all over us, huh? Sweet...

posted by Charlie Wear | 9:14 PM | |