{"id":36643,"date":"2014-08-23T17:56:31","date_gmt":"2014-08-24T01:56:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/redeeminggod.com\/?p=36643"},"modified":"2017-06-09T18:26:36","modified_gmt":"2017-06-10T01:26:36","slug":"radically-normal-christian-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/redeeminggod.com\/radically-normal-christian-life\/","title":{"rendered":"The Radically Normal Christian Life"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a>I recently read a book called Radically Normal<\/a>, and I found it to be shockingly refreshing. <\/p>\n To be honest, the book was much heavier on story-telling and narrative than most books I read, but I appreciated the insights and ideas that were behind the stories. <\/p>\n The bottom line idea from Josh Kelley is that Christians don\u2019t have to be weird to follow Jesus. We can live normal human lives. In fact, living normally may be the best way to reach out to our neighbors and love others like Jesus. <\/p>\n For example, on page 68, Josh Kelley writes about \u201cHarvest Parties\u201d and \u201cReformation Day\u201d celebrations as two of the things churches sometimes do to offer a \u201cChristian alternative\u201d to Halloween. I laughed out loud at this because I remember attending \u201cHallelujah Parties\u201d (instead of Halloween Parties) when I was younger. I always thought it was strange because everybody could still dress up in costumes and we still got candy, but we just didn\u2019t go door-to-door and say \u201cTrick or Treat!\u201d Anyway, John writes that he and his church specifically chose to not have any sort of Halloween substitute at their church because they figured that Halloween was an excellent time to be in the world but not of it. He is absolutely right! <\/p>\n The rest of the book contains similar examples of how we can be Jesus to others in a completely normal way. By doing so, we love people into the Kingdom rather than scare them off with our weirdness. <\/p>\n