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Books > Religion & Spirituality > Christianity > Christian religious experience > General
While praying for his community on the Island of Iona, the Celtic
monk St. Columba described his experience as a thin place- a
location where heaven and earth seemed only thinly separated.In the
same way, God's kingdom is being realized here on earth with
stories of restoration and redemption. Our God moved into the
neighborhood, seeking to invite us into his story of
reconciliation, and commission us to missionally engage our
neighborhoods with the good news of the kingdom.Joining the
concepts of monasticism and mission, author Jon Huckins will walk
you through six postures of missional formation: listening,
submerging, inviting, contending, imagining, and entrusting. As you
begin to employ these postures, become apprentices of Jesus who are
committed to living in and experiencing the thin places.Through
Thin Places, create a fertile soil to commune with God, live in
deep community with others, and extend the good news of the kingdom
in your local contexts.
This book is about the misguided obsession with the management of
sin that cripples too many Christians. It's about the view that
religion is all about sin...about how to hide side sin or how to
stop sinning all together.
In the Introduction, the author toys good-naturedly with an
agitated caller on his radio program, teasing him in a segment
where he offers three free sins. The offer is real. Not that Steve
has the power to forgive sins, but he wants to make the point that
Jesus has made the offer to cover all of our sins - not just three.
Chapter one, " "titled "Teaching Frogs to Fly," is even better. The
gist of this chapter is that you can't teach frogs to fly, just
like you can't teach people not to sin. Steve tells a story about a
guy who has a frog, and he's convinced he can teach the frog how to
fly. The man keeps throwing the frog up in the air or up against
walls - all to the poor frog's demise. The message is that even
though people can be better, they can never not sin--just like a
frog can never learn to fly, no matter how much pressure is put on
it.
Steve continues" "through the book to show readers that while they
can never manage sin, they can relax in knowing that they are
completely forgiven--not just of three, but of all.
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