I recently read a book called Radically Normal, and I found it to be shockingly refreshing.
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.
The bottom line idea from Josh Kelley is that Christians don’t 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.
For example, on page 68, Josh Kelley writes about “Harvest Parties” and “Reformation Day” celebrations as two of the things churches sometimes do to offer a “Christian alternative” to Halloween. I laughed out loud at this because I remember attending “Hallelujah Parties” (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’t go door-to-door and say “Trick or Treat!” 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!
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.
Each chapter in Radically Normal looks at one area where Christians often behave a little weirdly, and then shows how we can view these things a little more normally. He has a great chapter on parties (and how life and heaven is one big party), about money, evangelism, and several other critical Christian concerns.
To get a copy for yourself, buy Radically Normal on Amazon today!
One way that some people limit grace is when they try to differentiate between “cheap grace” and “costly grace,” or start trying to limit the application of God’s grace by using theological terms like “prevenient grace” or “efficacious grace.”
Many Christians believe that these terms refer to “heaven” itself, and more specifically, when Scripture talks of entering or inheriting the Kingdom, that this refers to going to heaven when we die.