Ordinary Radicals

"IF THE DEVIL CAN'T STEAL YOUR SOUL,
HE JUST KEEPS YOU BUSY DOING
MEANINGLESS CHURCH WORK"
- Shane Claiborne


Shane Claiborne has a blog called "The Simple Way" and is both a prolific writer and radical disciple of Jesus Christ. He has served all over the world from cleaning lepers in Calcutta to working for peace during the bombing of Iraq. Here are a few excerpts from his book The Irresistible Revolution:


"We must be careful not to allow ourselves to be written off as radicals when church history and the contemporary Christian landscape are filled with ordinary radicals. But today people crave the spectacular. People are drawn to lights and celebrities, to arenas and megachurches. In the desert, Jesus was tempted by the spectacular---to throw himself from the temple so that people might believe---to shock and awe people, if you will. Today the church is tempted by the spectacular, to do big, miraculous things so people might believe, but Jesus has called us to littleness and compares our revolution to the little mustard seed, to yeast making its way through the dough, slowly infecting this dark world with love. Many of us find ourselves living differently from the dominant culture end up needing to 'despectacularize' things a little so that the simple way is made as accessible as possible to other ordinary radicals." (p.132)

The concept of multidimensional discipleship is essential as we consider how to retain a radical discipleship that is multiethnic, intergenerational, and includes singles and families. Otherwise we will just end up surrounded by people who look like us, think like us, and respond to the gospel in exactly the same way we do (p.139).

How many times have you went to a church event, small group gathering, or conference and everyone was simply talking to the choir?