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Colors of God...part 1


OK, so the Church is broken, now what?
If you're like me, you've read a lot of books containing theory as to the why and the what of church problems and solutions. But what if we had a collaborative effort of church theorist-practitioners who produce solid paradigms, but do so in the context of sharing and testing in a local congregation? We do: It's called The Colors of God.

That's what the review for this book said, so how could I pass it up? After all, my church isn't perfect. And if someone has usable ideas, I would like to use them. Plus, I like colors.

Lots of books propose to start a conversation. This book accomplished that, helped along by the fact that it was a conversation already. It was written as if the three authors sat down and talked about stuff and some poor fourth guy got the enviable job of writing it all down. This made the book easy-to-read as the authors did a good job of stopping each other when clarification was needed.

They divided the book into four colors. For those of us born before sienna and chartreuse were popular, they went with Blue, Red, Green and Yellow.

Blue = Gospel Faith. This is where they tackled some big topics, like discussing how scandalous God's grace may actually be.
Green = Healthy Living. This is where they took their foundation and presented a new paradigm for thinking about Church and relationships.
Red = Community. Lots of conversation about community and authenticity.
Yellow = Cultural Engagement. How? Why?

The conversational style helped. By the last section I felt like I knew where they were coming from and why they felt the way they did. This is not to say that I agreed with everything they said or their interpretation about all the scriptures they used. But I felt safe to disagree because of the openness in which they shared. They even conclude with a short section on how they see their role with the larger church.

The biggest strength of this book is that it does not leave everything concluded. It leaves me free to think and ponder and share the ideas with friends.

This book was provided for free review by my new best friends at theooze.com.

http://nexuschurch.com - the congregation these authors started
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