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“What is church? It’s people, broken people … pretending not to be broken … and that’s what breaks it…”

The quote is from Phil Groom’s blog post – here / The clip is from Rev, a new BBC sitcom – here – its profound!

I think what’s so great about Rev is, its not making fun of God but it is highlighting how absurd people are.

This clip exposes the ‘Jesus is awesome’ mask brilliantly – if you can watch the full episode on iPlayer, you must do so! It highlights so much of what is wrong with our “21st Century Church” but also shows a beautiful and genuine Christian reaction to such false behaviour. Like i say, profound stuff!

“If Bible teachers could only remember that the ‘Holy men spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost’ and gave us divinely inspired truth, and never for one remote moment meant to give us anything to satisfy our intellectual curiosity, they would realise that the prophets meant to give us truth to transform spirit and soul and bring us into holy living and holy believing. They never intended that we should have theological baby rattles to entertain ourselves.”
A.W. Tozer

You have to admire Tozer’s ability to just ‘say it like it is.’

I just started reading one of the ‘never before published’ titles that landed recently – ‘Living as as Christian’ – and in typical Tozer fashion im blown away in the first chapter. Challenged is perhaps a more apt way to describe BUT…………yes there is a big BUT!!

How often are we challenged by a book or by a sermon to the point where it brings about change? Let me explain….

“Today we sing songs that are so dishonest that i sometimes hesitate to sing them. Yet when we sing the average hymn, if God Almighty compelled us to be entirely 100% honest, we simply could not sing them because their words would not be true of us.” A.W. Tozer

I read that Tozer quote yesterday afternoon and as i stood in Church last night i stared at some of the words and found myself not singing…i couldn’t help but be stopped in my tracks as i pondered the words and whether i meant them or whether we were all just entertaining ourselves.

I don’t say this to boast because these moments are rare – i promise you that – i am no saint!

Each of you can examine your own heart – so, feel free to chuck away this blog post as another aimless rant if you have this all nailed down!

Sometimes i just don’t care about what theological subject you are a ninja with, how well you can argue for dispensationalism or what kind of worship you prefer………its a baby rattle!

I know some of you will say “but its truth, and this is the right way to do things” which is lovely, but how is your life? How is the Holy Living working out for you? Do others think of you as a rude arrogant sod who knows a lot about the Bible? Do you have all the doctrine hammered down tight but yet can’t look a brother in the eye to say hello to him?

Has all the knowledge and intellectual thinking changed who you are?

If not, then what are you rattling, what theological/doctrinal toy are you playing around with?

Holy living and Holy believing…..NOT Holy entertainment! Thats what we need………

Buy the book thats kicking my ass – here – let it kick yours also!!

Its a rare occurrence for Stephen and i to not mention The Sopranos when we are hanging out together……his favourite season is 5 – mine, i think is perhaps 2!

Anyway, I have to say its the best TV Series thats ever been – in my humble opinion!

Not convinced? Here it is in 9 minutes for you, the full story…………

This track was one of the highlights from the Belfast gig last week……

Thats 6 words i love to hear!

In fact, i use Amazon quite often & i know this statement to be true for pretty much everything, certainly for books & music. I will find what i want, quicker, easier and often less expensive via Amazon!

There will always be all kinds of debate about whether price is what drives customers to Amazon, or whether it is the ease of purchasing – 3 clicks is about as much as it takes – but i wonder how often the debate is about supporting your local bookshop. I often buy books in Waterstone’s so i’m not just referring to Christian Bookshops…..

But then i need to stop and ask myself, “who really cares if there is a bookshop in our town?”

In Christian circles, many will speak of the Bookshop as a ministry, but are they? I can instantly think of a LOT of customers who regularly visit the Ballymena shop, and they would really miss the ‘ministry’ aspect of the shop that many of you don’t see.

The last time i blogged about this stuff, someone said in the comments that customers want something else, they want us to go the extra mile, (i’m paraphrasing)  but what does that even mean?

Often, the customer doesn’t know what they want, but ‘cheaper than everyone else’ will make their mind up for them.

That is the harsh reality of where we are in retail – not just bookselling, and not just Christian Bookselling – iv been doing this for long enough to at least know that much!

With Wikipedia allowing you to handpick the contents that you want in any book about anything (see the video) – what is the future going to be like? The present is hard enough for many!

As i have said many times, we are about 10 years behind everyone else here in Northern Ireland so we have some catching up to do in the doom & gloom stakes. Christian Bookshops in Northern Ireland are still busy places, still supported by many Churches and may not be in steep decline just yet.

But, as i hear ‘you can get it on amazon’ more and more & even as i sometimes say those words myself i have to wonder if your town will have a ‘Christian’ Bookshop in 5-10 years and whether the ‘Christian’ people of your town will even notice its absence?