novus•lumen

Late last year I began a (unfinished) series of blog posts on “the unoffensive gospel of Jesus.” The idea was to counter the crazy notion that “the gospel is offensive,” something I’ve heard far too often from Christians. So a few months ago I thought I would turn it into a book! I took this (un)offensive gospel motif and combined it with a phrase I began to develop late last year: “we are responsible for the Jesus we show and the Jesus they see; we are responsible for the story we tell and the story they hear.”

Here is the description of the book from the back cover: “Contrary to the popular Christian notion that “the gospel is offensive,” this book contends that Jesus and His message is inherently inspiring, reasurring and good, drawing those who needed restoration and rescue, while disturbing the power brokers both in Jerusalem and Rome. Based on several blog posts, experiences in the Western Church, studies in the Gospels and theology, conversations and friendships, and the joy of personally following Jesus, Jeremy A. Bouma explores the person and message of Jesus and helps us understand why both are more hopeful than many of us think.”

Here are the 11 chapters:

1. introduction

PART 1: Jesus-Show

2. the (un)offensive Jesus

3. the Jesus we show; the Jesus they see

4. showing Jesus well

PART 2: Story-Tell

5. a story among stories

6. the Story we tell; they Story they hear

7. our creation

8. our rebellion

9. our rescue

10. our re-creation

11. the (un)offensive gospel of Jesus

The idea is to help Christians understand how we are showing Jesus and telling his hopeful message poorly, while offering a better way of showing Jesus and telling His hopeful message. It also hope it encourages de-Churched and un-Churched people to rethink Jesus and his Story, a Jesus and Story this is inherently (un)offensive.

So far I’ve written over 45,000 words and 192 pages. I probably have another 30 pages to go. I’m on track to finish it in 3 weeks and send it off to 4 of my friends for edits. At the end of September I’ll finalize the book and send it off to the printer. By mid-October it should be available at amazon.com and the book website, www.unoffensivegospel.com.

I’m not expecting to be the next “Shack” by any means. I’ve always wanted to be published, so this is fulfilling a personal goal. Besides the goal fulfillment I do hope it provokes people to think about how we Christians are showing Jesus and telling His story, and also provide a more hopeful portrait of both for those not connected to Jesus or His story. We’ll see how it goes…

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I’d like to announce a new effort of mine. I’d like to take the wraps off of a new project called novus•lumen books.

novus•lumen books is a new, small publishing arm of novuslumen.net. Like the blog, it will explore living in the tension of an emerging faith in Jesus and postmodern America, but in book form. As an alternative to the big Religious Publishing Houses, it was established as an independent effort to provide public, printed space to wrestle through this exploration and hopefully encourage others to come along for the ride, too.

Like novus•lumen, future books and other publications will contain content that explores the tension of spirituality and culture, politics and theology, existing and emerging forms of Church, the Kingdom of God and America, modern and postmodern thought, and the gritty drama that is our collective pilgrim story. Future published works pledge to be fresh, relevant, intuitive, and insightful written pieces for all Westerners, Christian and non-religious alike.

Tomorrow: why I started novus•lumen books .

-jeremy

ps: btw, this is why I haven’t written on here in a while!

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This is a message I shared with the community I am helping to pastor as an intern outside of Grand Rapids. We are wrapping up a 20 month study through the Book of Mark, and I had the opportunity to share about the very Human Jesus we see in the Garden of Gethsemane. Enjoy the listen!

 

 Mark 14:32-42 [30:10m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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National Emerging Church leaders and authors Tony Jones, Doug Pagitt and Mark Scandrette are crisscrossing the country in a bio-diesel RV to visit 32 cities with a message that combines old time revival flair with a 21st century gospel on a tour called the “Church Basement Roadshow,” and I was able to snag them and set them up at the church I’m interning at during seminary.

Taking a page out of the Billy Sunday playbook, the authors will spread the emergent message of a generous, hope-filled Christian faith in the style and cadence of the tent revival preachers of a hundred years ago. They plan to have fun with it, wearing frock suits and selling “healing balm,” but the goal is, as in the revivals of yore, to preach the good news. “This will be unlike any book tour people have seen,” says Jones. “We’ll be barnstorming the country, shaking the rafters with our ancient-future message of hope.”

The second to the last stop on their journey is Grand Rapids, MI and Fellowship Covenant Church is hosting that stop on Sunday August 3 at 7pm. If you live in Michigan, Ohio, Illinois, or Indian (and EVEN Canada!) and are interested in dreaming of an alternative Christianity and following of Jesus, please come to what should be a rockin’ good time! Also, if (somehow) you read this blog and live in the area I’d love to connect during and after the show, so please try and make that Sunday evening.

ps-show up early, cause we’re expecting a big crowd and our capacity is 200ish!

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Series
1-Introduction
2-The Post-Colonial Era and The Church
3-Toward A Post-Colonial Worldview
4-Post-Colonial Theology and Missions
5-A Case Study – Evangelism Explosion International

TOWARD A POST-COLONIAL BIBLICAL WORLDVIEW

Abraham Kupyer gave the Church a beautiful model for understanding the biblical worldview: a Creation-Rebellion-Rescue-Recreation paradigm. As the Western Church re-thinks how She should approach global missions in the 21st Century, She should use Kuypers paradigm to construct a post-colonial biblical worldview of global missions.

Keep reading →

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The first miracle of Jesus that is recorded (and presumable the first one of His ministry) occurs at a party. Actually, the setting is more a banquet, which was given in honor of newly wed couple. What is striking about this initial miracle are the clear eschatological implication that would probably have been evident to the hearers of the miracle. At this banquet for a bride and groom wine runs out…but Jesus provides the wine so that the banquet can resume. The prophetic texts of the Hebrew Testament that testified to the coming Messiah all had banquet overtones that described abundance and the flowing of wine. So symbolically this pericope is laden with eschatological overtones.

The second passage is Messianic and in large ways foreshadows the work of the Messiah Jesus on the cross. The original point at which heaven and earth over lapped was the Temple. It was the physical focal point for the Jews. The thought of it being physically destroyed was unthinkable, yet Jesus both foreshadows its actual destruction and spiritual destruction. For through Him, heaven and earth met, and through him all people would find connection and access to God.

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Series
1-Introduction
2-The Post-Colonial Era and The Church
3-Toward A Post-Colonial Worldview
4-Post-Colonial Theology and Missions
5-A Case Study – Evangelism Explosion International

THE POST-COLONIAL ERA AND ECCLESIOLOGICAL IMPLICATIONS

While post-modernism is the condition of the West, post-colonialism is the condition of the South and East; the West is grappling with an existence beyond the values and metaphysics of modernism, while Asia, South America and Africa are all dreaming of an existence outside and beyond their collective colonial history and colonizers. Most non-Westerners prefer to use the term post-colonialism to describe their struggle for identity in the aftermath of the colonial experience. Postmodernism deconstructs the dominant narratives as being simply one of many competing reality-defining stories, hence Jean-Fransçois Lyotard is incredulous towards metanarratives. Furthermore, Michael Foucault’s critique birthed the deep hermeneutic of suspicion of institutions that characterizes our postmodern culture. Consequently, any institution that attempts to control belief and behavior is viewed as repressive and domineering. In fact, there is a deep sense that institutions in and of themselves are structures of domination. Thus, postmodernism is an ally of sorts of post-colonialism; those who seek to come to terms with the experience of colonization and its long-term effects see in postmodernism not only the possibility of an alternative discourse that affirms and celebrates Otherness, but also a strategy for the deconstruction of the concept, authority, and assumed primacy of the category of ‘the West.’ In other words, just as postmodern thought disrobes the differing values and authorities within the West as simply one story over another, post-colonialism asserts that the West itself is one narrative among many, a narrative whose authority and primacy is no longer simply so. That the West does not exclusively define reality is a seismic development, indeed!

Keep reading →

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