What does it look like to be a missionary in the western world? That’s the question I’ve had for a long time. I’ve read a lot of books on the subject, but to be honest, it’s sometimes difficult to understand what it looks like.

Until I read this book.

This book tells the story of Gregory Boyle whom assumes the leadership of a church in the most gang-infested corner of Los Angeles. He says:

If Los Angeles was the gang capital of the world, our little postage-stamp-size area on the map was the gang capital of LA.

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If I were to have written the book of Colossians Remixed, I would have given the subtitle as “Speaking the Language of Postmodern People.” I initially thought this was going to be a type of commentary on the book of Colossians, but the authors expand the book to be much more. Yes, they cover what the gist of Colossians is about, but more importantly, they use the book as a backdrop to illustrate the tension between the absolute claims that are often made in biblical texts, and postmodern thought that tends to eschew absolutism in any form.

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I just finished reading an interesting article that Mark Driscoll wrote called Navigating the Emerging Church Highway. It’s an interesting critique and analysis of the emerging church movement. From his perspective he divides this movement into four main theological “lanes.”

1. Emerging Evangelicals. Those in this lane will tweak things like worship style or preaching in order to seem more relevant. They won’t be very invested in “social justice” type issues.

2. House Church Evangelicals. In this lane are Christians who believe that the house church is the best way to reach people. In this lane are those such as George Barna, Neil Cole, and Shane Clairborne. He mentions that a common critique of this movement is that they’re filled with disgruntled Christians.

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