This week we are giving away Incarnate: The Body of Christ in an Age of Disengagement
4 COPIES!!!!
see below for all ways to enter
I have absolutely loved this book. It is a top book for me over the last year and that is because of a few reasons. It gives me new thoughts about my own engagement with people, God and mission, and it catches me off guard at times. It also has given me some new language and words for things I have been feeling about faith communities in today’s culture but didn’t know how to articulate.
Here is his opening paragraph and it grabs you right away,
“The core idea of the Christian faith is the incarnation: God took on flesh and dwelled among us. To other religions such an idea is considered odd or, worse, inconceivable or, even worse, blasphemous. And yet as centrally as we hold the idea of the incarnation, there is a grave danger that we are leaving the implications of the great idea behind us. Whereas Jesus Christ was God incarnate and his church was called to an incarnational lifestyle, today we find ourselves drifting toward excarnation – the defleshing of our faith. We have been moving through a disembodying process that has left us feeling rootless and disengaged, connected to our world more and more through screens rather that face to face.”
The first half of the book is helping us to see the many ways we have slipped into excarnational ways of living as the church, and the second half helps us think deeply about how to take hold of incarnational living once again in fellowship with one another but also in mission and evangelism.
Like I said up top, this book gave me new insights and language that have helped me see more clearly a better path to pursue. I consider this a needed prophetic work and I hope you all read it. It is a must read in my opinion.
Here is how to enter yourself for the drawing…
You can enter the drawing by doing any one of these four things. Each one is a separate entry, so you can have multiple shots at this book if you do them all!
- Comment (2 winners)
- Comment on this post below and share with us one way you see “excarnate” behaviors wreaking havoc in our world. (2 winners)
- Twitter (1 winner)
- Tweet this post (below) using @releasetheape in the tweet. (each tweet is +1 entry)
- Facebook (1 winner)
- Like & Comment on our Facebook Page telling us why you want the book! (+1 entry)
- Share the post that is on our Facebook Page on your wall or in a group (make sure to share the one on our wall or I cannot tell. +1 entry)
So just to be clear, you can win by commenting, tweeting or Facebooking!
You can tweet as many times as you want for a chance to win!
The contest will be open all week!
I will notify you next Sunday night if you have won by replying to your comment, tweet or Facebook post!
Four Books will be given away this week. *All winners will be chosen randomly*
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People primarily having conversations over text instead of face to face. One college student recently said, “I ask women out on dates over text.”
One of the most prominent forms of excarnate behavior can be found in the rhetoric of many evangelical churches when discussing secular versus holy. The reality is that if we take Christ invitation to live incarnate seriously than we know that Christ dwells within us and therefore are very countenance becomes holy. Therefore where Christ dwells, the Kingdom is present, thus the power of incarnation! Sadly, the rhetoric of secular vs. holy has led to a mentality of us and against the world. A perfect example of excarnate behavior are NOTW (Not of this world) bumper stickers suggesting that we are not apart of this world, which the language alone is excarnate. Jesus calls us into this world. We are of this world and yet our God came to us so that our world could be reconciled to Him.
I’m saddened by the amount of conflict that happens over text or email. If we are called to be reconcilers, we need to get off our screens and remember how to talk to people… awkwardly, emotionally, difficultly, but face to face.
Good thoughts Sarah. Didn’t I have a bad email exchange with you once 🙂 Here’s to incarnation!
One way I see “excarnation” wreaking havoc in the world is through typical gospel presentations that make little of resurrection (Christ’s and ours) and make much of “going to heaven” (I.e. leaving this world). This message conveys the idea that the Christian message if irrelevant for this life.
Yes, we need to help people see how Jesus makes sense for this life as well as the next. Good thought.
A challenge in our is gospel centered engagement – actual face to face contact. It’s pretty hard to get to know our neighbors when we pull into our neighborhood, open the garage door, pull in and close the garage door before we even turn off the car. If we do know our neighbors, shooting a quick text about catching a ride to school or asking to borrow an egg is more normal now than walking across the street and connecting face to face.
Tami, great thought. What if we all took responsibility for our street or floor of the apartment building. What would Jesus be able to do with that kind of intentionality and mission?
(Clearly had some typos. Oops!)
I think that is the goal: “go”ing right where we are; incarnational living in our neighborhoods, schools, workplaces. WE ARE ministers of reconciliation (not just the paid “professionals”). I was just encouraging a group the other night: our neighbors are not far from God because they ARE NEAR to us! Praying for the Spirit to move us closer to overcoming these obstacles and helping us simply be obedient to the mission…
Two of the most obvious ways I see it are:
1. Going to a restaurant and seeing a party of 5 not talking to one another because they are all on their phones.
2. Watching people enter their neighborhood, then their garage, and then not seeing them again until they leave the next day.
Congrats Andrew! you won the book! send me an email to beau at releasetheape.com and I will send you a copy!
When I think of the idea of excarnational spirituality, I think about our tendency to think there is a place and time for spirituality, rather than the Christian truly taking Jesus everywhere.
Great thoughts Steve. I love that!
I am not sure how I see excarnate being played out. I would like to get this book to understand it more.
Congrats Joel! you won the book! send me an email to beau at releasetheape.com and I will send you a copy!
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As a Pastor and a practitioner of Missional Community, I can’t wait to see the impact this book will have on those who read it. I believe it will also impact those who don’t read it, as it equips and releases those who do. Release the APE!