Ok..I can't stand it anymore! And I'll warn you, this is a LONG one! LOL!

Obviously, blogging has taken a way back seat to a million other priorities lately - mostly the wading through the dailies of having 7 children. But I just can't stand not writing a little about a book that is getting under my skin and about to make me do something crazy! The book is called 7:an experimental mutiny against excess, by Jen Hatmaker. She and her family of 5 at the time (now they are 7 after adopting Ethiopian orphans) did an experiment in which they fasted from seven different things for a month at a time. Here are the areas: Month One-Food, Month Two-Clothes, Month Three-Possessions, Month Four-Media, Month Five-Waste, Month Six-Spending, Month Seven-Stress. I have read Shane Claiborne. I love some radical people out there and how they're living, but quite frankly, when I read someone like Shane I'm almost left feeling like I have an "out" because I know that I'm simply never going to make my own clothes out of burlap, etc. He's a lot like John the Baptist and seems way too "out of my league". Enter Jen Hatmaker. She actually began seeing a lot of Jesus' truth when she read Shane, but the clincher for me is that she's a lot like me. She's a mom. She lives in Austin. She used to be the wife of a mega-church pastor (for more on the story of why they no longer are a part of a mega church, read their books...Barefoot Church; Interrupted), they are just "normal". Or at least they used to be. She is REAL. She is hilarious and witty so I really enjoy her writing and I often laugh out loud. And I have been SOOOOOO challenged by every single month. I knew the one on "Spending" would kill me and it has (all of them have, actually; this one was like the climax!). So much so that I am now about to quote half the chapter (okay, not really, but it may seem like it to you). The deal with this book is that it's basically her daily journal through each of these months so you catch a glimpse of what God is doing in her heart. But here's the deal - if I read a book like this one and quote it on the WWW, I better have some intention of doing something about it and not just mentally agreeing with what she's saying. She points out that we American Christians are really good at doing that here in the USA. And I'm figuring out that it's why I'm tired and depressed pretty often. Maybe it's true that we really have been deceived so deeply into believing that we're acting like disciples of the real Jesus that He and His original followers wouldn't even recognize us...or don't recognize us. Honestly, much of what I read in this book does describe the people I'm in community with. Really. That's not an exaggeration. God has given us some amazing people to walk out life with. Unfortunately, when I'm gut honest, I have to admit that it does not describe ME. I went through some healing/deliverance prayer ministry time a couple of weeks ago called Sozo (that's a WHOLE 'nother post) and it was AMAZING! But what I realized in it was how little I actually ask God questions and then listen for the answer. I realized that I was praying to a doctrine or an idea, but I had been praying very little to Daddy, Jesus, or Holy Spirit as real, tangible, BEINGS in my moments. This is changing. And it has been quite a beautiful (and sometimes challenging) ride the last couple of weeks as I realized how the spirit of religion had almost completely choked the very life out of me (Randy actually had a prophetic dream about it chasing me and me fighting for my life). So here's me - almost feeling like a baby Christ follower - reading this book about loving Jesus and loving the poor (globally and locally) and for the first time ever, not picturing my Jesus standing in the corner with His arms crossed, disappointed in me, and frowning. Instead He is bent down with His arm wrapped tightly around me, beside me, as He is responding to my cries to free me from bondage - the bondage that tells me that I'm not free to break from much of what seems familiar. I trust Him a lot right now. But I digress! Here are some LONG quotes from one of the best books I've ever read (how many times have I said that?? LOL!!) WARNING: these aren't really her funny statements:

After hearing these lyrics in a song, "God, may we be focused on the least, a people balancing the fasting and the feast", she comments on what has happened in the American church...(pgs 171-174):

That statement sums up all my tension and hopes for the American Christ follower, the American church, the American me. With good intentions but misguided theology, the church spends most of our time, energy, resources, prayer words, programs, sermons, conferences, Bible studies, and attention on the feast, our feast to be exact. (She then quotes Psalm 36:5-9 and acknowledges that there is indeed a feast to be celebrated.)

But the feast has a partner in the rhythm of the gospel: the fast.

Its practice is unmistakable in Scripture. Hundreds of times we see reduction, pouring out, abstinence, restraint. We find our Bible heroes fasting from food-David, Esther, Nehemiah, Jesus. We see the Philippian church fasting from self-preservation, sending Paul money in spite of their own poverty, a true sacrifice. John the Baptist says if we have two coats, one belongs to the poor. The early church sold their possessions and lived communally, caring for one another and the broken people in their cities. We see God explain his idea of a fast: justice, freedom, food for the hungry, clothes for the naked. This balance is a given in Scripture.

If we ignored the current framework of the church and instead opened the Bible for a definition, we find Christ followers adopting the fast simultaneously with feast. We don't see the New Testament church hoarding the feast for themselves, gorging, getting fatter and fatter and asking for more; more Bible studies, more sermons, more programs, classes, training, conferences, information, more feasting for us.

At some point, the church stopped living the Bible and decided just to study it, culling the feast parts and whitewashing the fast parts. We are addicted to the buffet, skillfully discarding the costly discipleship required after consuming. The feast is supposed to sustain the fast, but we go back for seconds and thirds and fourths, stuffed to the brim and fat with inactivity. All this is for me. My goodness, my blessings, my privileges, my happiness, my success. Just one more plate.

(Enter more booty-kicking facts about the early church here that I don't have time to quote)

What would the early church think if they walked into some of our buildings today, looked through our church Web sites, talked to an average attender? Would they be so confused? Would they wonder why we all had empty bedrooms and uneaten food in our trash cans? Would they regard our hoarded wealth with shock? Would they observe orphan statistics with disbelief since Christians outnumber orphans 7 to 1? Would they be stunned most of us don't feed the hungry, visit the prisoner, care for the sick or protect the widow? Would they see the spending on church buildings and ourselves as extravagantly wasteful while twenty-five thousand people die every day from starvation?

I think they'd barely recognize us as brothers and sisters. If we told them church is on Sundays and we have an awesome band, this would be perplexing. I believe we'd recieve dumbfounded stares if we discussed "church shopping" because enough people don't say hello when we walk in the lobby one hour a week. If they found out one-sixth of the earth's population claimed to be Christians, I'm not sure they could reconcile the suffering happening on our watch while we're living in excess. They'd wonder if we had read the Bible or worry it had been tampered with since their time.

But listen Early Church, we have a monthly event called Mocha Chicks. We have choir practice every Wednesday. We organize retreats with door prizes. We're raising three million dollars for an outdoor amphitheater. We have catchy T-shirts. We don't smoke or say the F word. We go to Bible study every semester. ("And then what, American Church?") Well, we go to another one. We're learning so much.

I think the early church would cover their heads with ashes and grieve over the dilution of Jesus' beautiful church vision. We've taken His Plan A for mercy to an injured lost planet and neutered it to clever sermon series and Stitch-and-Chat in the Fellowship Hall, serving the saved. If the modern church held to its biblical definition, we would become the answer to all that ails society. We wouldn't have to baby-talk and cajole and coax people into our sanctuaries through witty mailers and strategic ads; they'd be running to us. The local church would be the heartbeat of the city, undeniable by our stanchest critics.

Instead, the American church is dying. We are losing ground in epic proportions. Our country is a graveyard of dead and vanishing churches. We made it acceptable for people to do nothing and still call themselves Christians, and that anemic vision isn't holding. Last year, 94 percent of evangelical churches reported loss or no growth in their communities. Almost four thousand churches are closing each year. We are losing three million people annually, flooding out the back door and never returning. The next generation downright refuses to come.

Ironically, this is the result of a church that only feasts.

When the fast, the death, the sacrifice of the gospel is omitted from the Christian life, then it isn't Christian at all. Not only that, it's boring....

Okay, so I need to go to bed and I've obviously written/copied enough to make you sleepy by now, but let's just say that i've gotten bored and "stuffed" on my religion and all my gluttony. We live NOTHING like the people around us - really. I am tired of trying to avoid inconvenience and suffering because I think it's my "right" not to. That's a lie. I want to love people. I want Jesus. And I think He's lifting just a little more of the veil! And He is amazing...