The Irresistible Revolution, Updated and Expanded: Living as an Ordinary Radical

Jesus is preparing to leave the disciples and says, “I no longer call you servants. . . . Instead, I have called you friends” (John 15:15). Servanthood is a fine place to begin, but gradually we move toward mutual love, genuine relationships.

One of the communities I love is a group of folks who gather below an interstate bridge in Waco, Texas, each week for worship. They creatively call themselves Church under the Bridge.5 Over a decade ago, homeless folks and their friends began meeting for Bible study and grub, and now there are hundreds of folks from all walks of life trying to figu

for those of us who have nearly given up on the church, may we take comfort in the words of St. Augustine: “The Church is a whore, but she’s my mother.

“We’ve got to unite ourselves as one body. Because Jesus is coming back, and he’s coming back for a bride, not a harem.”

http://www.alternativeseminary.net/

As the old Franciscan slogan goes, “Preach the gospel always. And when necessary, use words.” Or as our seventy-year-old revolutionary Catholic nun, Sister Margaret, puts it, “We are trying to shout the gospel with our lives.” Many spiritual seekers have not been able to hear the words of Christians because the lives of Christians have been making

Our job is to amplify the voices that are not being heard.

Community is also clutch. I heard a friend say, “Even Jesus didn’t carry his cross on his own,” referring to the fact that Simon helped him, but also to the fact that our burdens, our little crosses, our hard days, get a little more bearable when others are walking alongside us.

Jesus came not to give us guilt but to give us life. We never fully arrive at the perfect lives or the perfect world we hope for, which is why grace is so magnificent. But we still must strive to see our hypocrisies and contradictions become less and less each day. We are all bound up in the filthy system, and if you find yourself particularly boun