Christians: if you only read one book this year...

Read Jim & Casper Go to Church. It's a rare opportunity to gain spiritual wisdom from an atheist - someone on the outside who isn't afraid to tell us all the crazy things we're doing.

I don't agree with all of Jim & Casper's observations. But if I only read books where I agreed with everything that was said, then I might as well not read books at all.

I agree with their main point, though: Jesus didn't come to this earth, live, die, and rise again so that we could have awesome church services. He came to reconcile us to God, and He has committed to us the ministry of reconciliation. So let's get out there and get involved. The church service should be the fueling station for believers in their lives of service, not the rock concert that makes outsiders wish they could be as cool or as saved as we are.

Casper (the friendly atheist) had one profound question which could transform our lives if we let it: "Is this really what Jesus told you guys to do?"

He is absolutely right that, though Christians often "do church" in similar ways, we are all over the map in regard to how we live out our faith. Sometimes it seems like our worship is not an expression of true faith, but a substitute for it, a pleasant routine.

At the end of Jim & Casper's journey, Jim asks: "What do you think about Christianity?" Casper's response is dead-on:

"I don't think I can answer that question because Christianity takes so many forms. It's like asking me, 'What do you think about people named Dave?' Each denomination, each church, each Christian basically has a version of Christianity."

So where did we go wrong? How can we all confess the Nicene Creed - that the God who made us is the very same God who became one of us, to bring us to Himself - and yet have such vastly different ideas of our mission in the world? Perhaps we need to recapture what orthodoxy means - for the word, simply translated means "right glory." Being orthodox is not about merely knowing the right things, or saying the right words, but about giving the proper glory to God. And how do we glorify God? I would point to the words of Christ Himself as He went out to death on the Cross:

"'Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him." We are called to live sacrificial lives; prosperity teaching or grasping after political power and influence have no place in the Church's witness. All that is a temptation of the Devil, just as it was when he showed Christ all the kingdoms of the earth. All that is the "theology of glory," which, impressive as it seems to us, will never finally last and will never win people to Christ. God's weakness is stronger than our strength, and His foolishness wiser than our wisdom. If we let our lives be shaped by the Cross, then we will see change in our churches and in our culture.