imagination and responding to revelation

i heard shane claiborne speak at Quest on sunday. a few random thoughts from it...

-the man is funny
-his southern accent is stronger than i thought it would be
-he speaks with truth (not a surprise)
-he spoke simply
-i wish i could have heard a little more about intentional community from him
-he is a truly humble dude
-its no wonder eugene and he get along. part of what he said was exactly what eugene spoke about that day in church. makes me grateful for great teaching in my community.
-two things i really took from it was first, a call to more imagination in our pursuit to love God and love our neighbor. and second, the simple articulation of something that has been on my mind for some time now-a need for us to respond to revelation.

these two things were the big go-aways for me. we need a creativity in our love, in our response. they are tied very closely together. our convictions and our response. i think we often look around us to see how others are responding to similar convictions or revelations, but i God doesn't say look at others and then love. God/Christ say look at Christ. thing is, Christ lived 2000 years ago, his words remain true, but our context has changed. JC didn't have the internet, cars, cell phones, 21st century culture, or globalization. but he did have the marginalized. he did have neighbors. he did have a Father. and he called us to love those people. we need to be creative and imaginative in how we do that. there are many people out there not doing it well so surely we don't want to copy them. there are people out there doing it well, but is copying them all God wants us to do? we need to learning, we need to be discussing, we need to be imagining, and we need to be responding. for the most part this can be done individually, but i believe for it to be done best, it should happen in community.

i have just been invited to join a "book club." we are reading jesus for president, shane's latest book. i am excited for great discussion, but i am also excited to have intentional time to talk with people who's heart strings are being tugged at in some of the same ways mine are, but as importantly, are being tugged at in different ways as well. it's my hope that we all may grow and that we can imagine even greater things together and then, of course, respond.