If you could read only one book about Jesus, it should be The Divine Conspiracy. Dallas Willard masterfully explains the core topic of Jesus teachings, The Kingdom of God, and how we are to respond to them.

The book begins with a discussion of the very idea of a kingdom, how we each have our own, and what it means for God to have one.  At it’s most basic, the Kingdom of God is “the dome under which God is King.”  He then goes on to explain that if Jesus is God, he is also the smartest person that ever lived.  He also explains that Jesus teachings were meant to be taken as serious ethical directions for individuals and societies.  The majority of the book works through Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount.

What makes Willard’s writing so meaningful is that he is a foremost a highly astute philosopher.  Yet despite his intellectual prowess, the majority of his teaching is based in the belief that we can, and should do what Jesus said. He shows how very simple, yet difficult, it is to live in the kingdom of God.

Divine Conspiracy is on my vert short list of almost yearly reads.  When I read it, I feel like I am finally seeing who Jesus is, and how his teachings were meant to change our lives and the world.

You can find The Divine Conspiracy here in paperback, digital, and audio.

Community of Character by Stanley Hauerwas.  When I first read Hauerwas’s The Peaceable Kingdom it sent me down a path that has defined much of my thinking ever since.  I’m super excited for more.

Experiencing the Trinity by Darrell Johnson.

Renovation of the Heart by Dallas Willard.  I’ve been through this once before on audio.  Anyone who I’ve ever talked to about books knows that there’s no one I hold in higher esteem that Willard.

Spiritual Direction by Henri Nouwen.  I’m not sure how I’ve made it this far in life without reading Nouwen.  Time to change that

The Ascent of a Leader by Thrall, McNichol and McElrath.  Leadership books always inspire me toward greater focus.

Spiritual Leadership by Blackaby.

The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity, by Phillip Jenkins.  More of a sociological study for the “Global” in MAGL.

Announcing the Kingdom by Glasser, Van Engen and Redford.  Written by the Fuller Missions staff, this looks to be the heaviest theological work I’ll be doing this quarter.

Open Secret: An Introduction to the Theology of Mission by Lesslie Newbigin (not pictured). As I’ve said before, Newbigin is responsible for launching much of the conversation in the Church today.  This will be important.

Time to get to work!

Willard suggests that rather than asking the question, “Why doesn’t God talk to me?” we should ask the question “Why should God talk to me?”  As he always does, Willard breaks these mystical concepts into clear relational processes.  We never ask the question, why would a stranger, who I have no interaction with talk to me?  Rather, we will here from God, as we do life with him in the kingdom.

Although I have some struggles with the image of piety that Brother Lawrence projects, he offers an excellent example of how to do life with God.  He spent much of his life in a kitchen.  He would start his time there with prayer, asking God to be with him as he made omelets.  Afterward, he would review his day, what went well, what did not, and share that with God.

Maybe God just wants to be treated like everyone else who is a major part of your life.

Many great discussions about God’s mission in the world, and the purpose of the Church are helping to refocus the church, however, like any other terminology, missional has been quickly co-opted to mean whatever you want it to mean. For some it means rebranding seeker-driven formats of the 80s and 90s.  For others it means rationalizing a focus of social justice at the expense of personal morality and evangelism.

Ever since being blown away by Dallas Willard’s The Divine Conspiracy I haven’t been able to get past the idea that Churches should exist to teach people to live as Christ would if he were them. What if we just took simple ideas like “don’t hate other people” or “trust God” or “eat with people who don’t look like you” and formed sermon series, youth ministries and Sunday School classes around them?

Call me simplistic, but I’m operating from the belief that important doctrinal issues can only be worked out once you really love Jesus, are following him, and are being transformed into his image.  Focusing on the life of Jesus and his teachings would, in turn, make us naturally missional, and maybe even take the focus off some other arguments we Christians keep having.

Finding Our Way Again

The book introduces a series on 7 ancient spiritual disciplines.  The basic thesis is that Christianity’s diminishing role and potency is due to becoming just a system of belief rather than a way of life.  He shows how these 7 spiritual practices have roots in ancient traditions, in some ways reaching back to Abraham.

A few take aways:

• There’s a great diagram on how change happens within the church.  Rebels leave the established bodies, but eventually it affects even the institutions they left.  His point is that God is at work, both within the rebels and the institutions, helping them find common ground in the middle.
• The 3-fold path of ancient spirituality- Via Purgativa/Katharsis, Via Illuminativa/Fotosis, Via Unitiva/Theosis.  We purge ourselves of embedded sin, bask in the light of God, and join him in his work.  He has a cute parable to help communicate this.

Downsides:

• The book seems rush and disconnected.  Pearls on a string.
• The second is a hobby horse that he won’t get off of.  McLaren opens the book discussing the common ancestry of Judiasm, Christianity and Islam, and how we suffer from the same problems.  Though he has some interesting points, he keeps coming back on it, making you think that he’s more interested in tinkering with Universalism than teaching us how to find our way again.

Despite these downsides, it has enough pearls that it’s worth the short read.  I’m wrestling with how to make katharsis a regular part of my life.  If you’re really interested in spiritual disciplines, go read Foster or Williard or Brother Lawerence.