Living Beyond The System
Look who stopped by. On a recent trip to Los Angeles Jim Palmer, author of Divine Nobodies and Wide Open Spaces, came by to meet Brad and Wayne so we taped part of the conversation. Jim talks about his transition from staff member at Willow Creek to someone living outside the box, and wonders why so many people only see the church functioning at a given place and time and not everywhere, at every time, with everyone.
Podcast: Download
Subscribe: RSS
Great podcast dudes! And thanks to Jim Palmer for not wearing just underwear while podcasting….hehehehe (To those reading this and wondering…what tha….?, I’m referring to the Jim Palmer, baseball player underwear add you guys were referring to)
Keep slingin’ fellas!!
DaRon
Just for the record, Jim Palmer referred to Seth Godin’s book, “Triiibes”, as being about leadership organizations. He is confusing either the book, “The Spider and the Starfish” or “Here Comes Everybody.” Triiibes is about marketing. Finding the tribe of people who follow your thing and serving them instead of the general hoi paloi.
I meant “leaderless” not “leadership”.
This was a great podcast. For me, I feel that Jim Palmer helped to really sum things up in terms of defining the way in which the church attempts to establish a system by which all Christians ought to live and the dire need to take the love that is already within us and to apply it in our everyday life – outside of the box of organised Christianity.
Great podcast … I’m currently listening and he’s talking about how we get caught up in playing the game and not being real with others we are in fellowship with, how we can’t tell them how we feel — angry at God, depressed, whatever — it resonates. I find myself sharing these kinds of things more easily with former-Christian-now-atheist friends who have “deconverted” because I know they won’t judge me and they will care ONLY about ME when I share with them.
Ok, I want to know who those 6th Century folks were as well.
Way to go once again!! I so enjoy listening to y’all’s goofiness. You have so much fun throwing around hard hitting truth. We all applaud being honest, truthful, real. But truth is; we are taught from very young to be nice and “being nice” is another way to say “live a lie”. Religion is the worst. So many folks have lived lives of lies finding the truth to live will take a great deal of work. Thank you for encouraging us to do the hard stuff!!!……….Love y’all!
Yes Debra!!!!
It’s amazing just how long it has taken so many of us to catch on to the fact that Jesus came to redeem fallen man, to give us new life and in so doing the Kingdom of god. New people, born again and re-created in the image and likeness of Christ…a new family. It’s ALL about relationship. It’s so hard within modern Christiandom to find open, honest committed relationships with “brothers and sisters”. For me and for many for so long it was all about ‘performance” and doing instead of being and playing “follow the leader” or Christian Simon says.
I am so blessed to now be free of the spiritual religious stuff and free to be who it is that I am.
keep slinging freedom all over the place.
Love it!
alternative to religious Christianity…..is everything that is not confined within the walls of church….the times, the teaching, the ministry, the commitments, the expectations….amen to everbody, everywhere all the time….not just a few hours a week ……relationship with God is crucial to the relationships we have with each other…..more than the few minutes before “service” starts on sunday …..if we dont know God…as He desires that we do….and just know what we think He desires….like attendance to the show….we get lost in the corporate expression of what the church teaches and not what Father desires….give it up to Him and be bold in the freedom of relationship with Him
I am about to listen to this podcast. A friend, Johnny Brooks from http://www.purechristianity.blogs.com told me about you all. I am happy to be listening as I agree so much with the subject summary. His church is all believers in Jesus everywhere and it’s function is at all time, all places, and in all we do.
I have been listening to your podcasts for awhile now and I enjoy them very much. They are thought provoking and challenging. I liked a lot of what Jim Palmer said, especially, the parts about allowing the church to become our identity. Unfortunately, other parts were over the top for me. Jim’s view of a “church-less” society where we all just meet together and love each other is a bit utopian. It kinda reminded me of the 60’s where all was peace and love and lets just all ive together and love one another. It sounds wonderful but it really does not work. The problem is that we are human and that human-ness will always creep in. For me, I am not looking to be set free from the church but rather, I want the church to be set free from its religious performances and religious conformity.
Keep up the great discussions guys!
I had such a frustrating conversation with a friend who’s a churchgoer the other day … she was so convinced I was falling off the deep end because I dared to share honestly about my walk – that I was angry at God and trying to work through that, that I have difficulty finding relevance with the whole church thing. She was totally sure that my lack of church attendance was at fault.
What I wanted her to do was to listen to me and to allow me to share my walk, no matter how honest and difficult to hear. But it’s almost as if she didn’t want to hear the unpleasant and not-so-perfect bits, or that our Christian walk is supposed to be spotless or else … It’s so difficult to be real with her because she was so determined to DIAGNOSE me rather than listen. In fact, I spent most of my time hearing her talk!
Thing is, you can still be angry at God AND disillusioned with the whole Sunday service ritual while physically in church. So many Christians attend church but their bodies may be there but their minds are elsewhere. I just chose to remove both my body and mind 😛