The Growing in Faith Circle is beginning its first book discussion on Facebook.
The book we are to discuss is Michael Frost’s Keeping Christianity Weird.
The Basis of Union tells us in paragraph 4 that,
“Through human witness in word and action, and in the power of the Holy Spirit, Christ reaches out to command people’s attention and awaken faith; he calls people into the fellowship of his sufferings, to be the disciples of a crucified Lord; in his own strange way Christ constitutes, rules and renews them as his Church”.
Weirdness or eccentricity might not be ‘strange’ for us as a Uniting Church when we recognise the strangeness of Christ, however two challenging quotes from Michael’s book are:
“Churches do all kinds of crazy stunts and they think that that’s some kind of special form of being different to the world around them, but I think that they are just stunts.”
“Many churches…have moulded themselves to contemporary suburban values which are things like conformity and privacy and consumerism and busyness.”
As we read, it would be good to also discuss how we might counter a spirit of consumerism.
Each month, those who are reading the book will be invited to comment on and discuss a chapter. Updates from the conversation will be posted to the newsletter.
Sign on to join the book club on the Growing in Faith Facebook Page or email: circles@nat.uca.org.au
Rev Ann Perrin, Advocate, Growing in Faith
About the author: Michael Frost holds a PhD in “being and doing church” and is the author of several books. He is also the head of the missiology department at Morling College in Sydney, Australia. Michael co-founded the Forge mission training network.
He is on this podcast by Church Leaders.