I’m working through Volf’s Exclusion and Embrace. I’ve heard a lot of great things about it in the last couple of years and finally got around to hitting the purchase button at Amazon. So far, I’m finding it to be theologically rich and stimulating. It’s also dense enough in places to throw me off of my speed-reading horse.

This fall I’m going to be talking about evangelism on Sunday mornings. I don’t like using the word evangelism very much because of the baggage associated with it, so I’m trying to enter the conversation from a different angle. That’s why I’m preaching through Jonah. I see it as the perfect story for a church that is trying to get its missional groove back.

So. . .

What do you do when you find yourself in the belly of a great fish?

Stephen King’s final installment to his The Dark Tower series is out today. I’ll be downloading it from Audible in just a few minutes. Somewhere out there I’m sure someone is thinking, “Are preachers allowed to read Stephen King books?”

First, I’m not reading them. I’m listening to them.
Second, it could be worse. I could be hooked on Nicholas Sparks novels.
Third, while Stephen King doesn’t attend church, he believes in God and he reads the Bible. That’s more than I can say for some of the people I know who attend church.
Fourth, I have found nothing in King’s work that is any more bizarre, grotesque, or disgusting than certain portions of the Old Testament.

Seriously, King is a master storyteller and he can make the English language sing. Not necessarily in a high-brow literary sort of way, but in a way that makes it possible for me to actually understand what he is saying.

I just went out and picked up The Word on the Street by Rob Lacey. It’s a summary/paraphrase of the Bible done by a 21st century storyteller/perfomance poet from the UK.

Here’s how the first chapter of Genesis reads:

Genesis / Stuff Starts Up

Something out of nothing (Genesis 1:12:3)

12 First off, nothing . . . but God. No light, no time, no substance, no matter. Second off, God says the word and WHAP! Stuff everywhere! The cosmos in chaos: no shape, no form, no function just darkness . . . total. And floating above it all, Gods Holy Spirit, ready to play.

35 Day one: Then Gods voice booms out, Lights! and, from nowhere, light floods the skies and night is swept off the scene. God gives it the big thumbs up, calls it day.

68 Day two: God says, I want a dome call it sky right there between the waters above and below. And it happens.

913 Day three: God says, Too much water! We need something to walk on, a huge lump of it call it land. Let the sea lick its edges. God smiles, says, Now weve got us some definition. But its too plain! It needs colour! Vegetation! Loads of it. A million shades. Now! And the earth goes wild with trees, bushes, plants, flowers and fungi. Now give it a growth permit. Seeds appear in every one. Yesss! says God.

1419 Day four: We need a schedule: lets have a sun for the day, a moon for the night” I want seasons, years” and give us stars, masses of stars think of a number, add a trillion, then times it by the number of trees and were getting there: were talking huge!

2023 Day five: OK, animals: amoeba, crustaceans, insects, fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals . . . I want the whole caboodle teeming with a million varieties of each and lets have some fun with the shapes, sizes, colours, textures! God tells them all, Youve got a growth permit use it! He sits back and smiles, says, Result!

2431 Day six: Then God says, Lets make people like us, but human, with flesh and blood, skin and bone. Give them the job of caretakers of the vegetation, game wardens of all the animals. So God makes people, like him, but human. He makes male and female (for the how, see later). He smiles at them and gives them their job description: Make babies! Be parents, grandparents, great-grandparents fill the earth with your families and run the planet well. Youve got all the plants to eat from, so have all the animals plenty for all. Enjoy. God looks at everything hes made, and says, Fantastic. I love it!

2:13 Day seven: Job done the cosmos and the earth complete. God takes a bit of well-earned R&”R and just enjoys. He makes an announcement: Lets keep this day of the week special, a day off a battery-recharge day: Rest Day.

I’m starting a new teaching series this week based on Jonah. The title of this week’s message: The Accidental Missionary.