218 pages
Go out and buy this book right away!
Bell and Golden sum up the book this way:
There is a church in our area that recently added an addition to their building which cost more than $20 million. Our local newspaper ran a front-page story not too long ago revealing that one in five people in our city lives in poverty.This book is about those two numbers.
It’s a book about faith and fear, wealth and war, poverty, power, safety, terror, Bibles, bombs, and homeland insecurity; it’s about empty empires and the truth that everybody’s a priest; it’s about oppression, occupation, and what happens when Christians support, animate, and participate in the very things Jesus came to set people free from.
It’s about what it means to be a part of the church of Jesus in a world where some people fly planes into buildings while others pick up groceries in Hummers.
This book is the story of the new exodus; the struggle of the Israelites who were delivered from slavery (Egypt), met God at the mountain (Sinai – “It is believed that this is the only faith tradition in human history that has as its central event a god speaking to a group of people all at one time.”), created their own Empire under Solomon (Jerusalem), and returned back to a life of slavery (Babylon). This is a story of a new exodus in which Jesus comes to free not only the Israelites but all of humanity from the oppressive system of empire once and for all.
Bell and Golden do a tremendous job of engaging the reader with their writing style (very much written in the same cadence with which Bell speaks) and incorporating a vast array of Biblical scholarship that speaks not only of the time it was originally written for (ancient Israel) but translates beautifully for us today — especially those of us living in the United States of America. This book will no doubt cause a stir and controversy along the political spectrum, but this work is a great contribution to the conversation.
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That first line tells it all for me. The church “needs” $20M for itself, while the people who are living paycheck to paycheck die off.
Its like this whole gov’t mess with the $700B bailout. We could make the entire nation middle class or better with that sort of loot. Everyone would have health insurance, etc. But no, bail out CEOs who mismanaged millions by giving them more money? I am proud of all those who stood up to real freedom today and voted no.
I hope the church learns a lesson from this too. Stop the capital campaigns and start the spending campaigns in your own neighborhood. Give every dime back to your neighborhood that comes in. Its possible we just have to get “us” and our wants out of the way.
Mars Hill has a 120K digital audio console sitting front of house (any church can get by with your basic analog console – even for TV broadcast) They also sport a EAW install speaker rig, Crown power amps (top of the line) and a vast video system. Yeah…
Not interested in someone who spends millions on an AV rig and preaches about poverty. Not very bright. At all.
Their video system is very small considering the size of church, most are just projectors on small screens. A few flat panels, but nothing like Willow, Saddle, or other big churches I have been at. Also, former music head from Willow Aaron Niquest, paid personally for most of the audio equipment. The amps they use also donated. Their operating budget is at least half of what most churches their size is.
Also Rob himself picked his family up sold his land rover, and moved to inner city Grand Rapids, where his kids attend what was dubbed by the local paper as “the worst in the state”
Granted its always going to be easy to pick out faults, but being pretty well connected and having family attend Mars, I know they do more than most mega churches do. They also are at about 80% green now, meaning 80% of what they produce in trash, paper, etc, is recycled. A massive recycling program at a church who would’ve thought that. They rent out their building most of the week so it doesnt sit empty, and they focus on house churches to do the “work” of the church.
Bell has been very adamant about being big is not good, and what they do there wont work everywhere else. You dont see them coming out with campaigns like the latest money maker coming from Saddleback this winter.
How many of us with young kids could honestly say, lets pack up, move into the ghetto, sell our goods, and live simple? I know myself it wouldnt be something I could do at this point in life.
I beg to differ on your assumption that it is quite small. While the appearance utilizes smaller screens and monitors, the editing room is top of the line.
Just like most churches it’s size, Mars Hill has top of the line gear. Possibly some donated. Fine. I’ll give you that. However, one would have thought that is Aaron N. really believed in the mission of the church, he would have donated his monies to the cause the church supposedly stands for. Still doesn’t change the fact that monies are “wasted as people starve in foreign countries” (as ya’ll state) for the niceties that they have.
Complete BS. Stay away from this book.
Love Wins Dan!