Tweaking The Norm

This morning at the Isn't She Beautiful conference Rob was in full form. If Rob has the ability to do anything it is to tweak the way people see the story of redemption. This morning was all about Salvation, Heaven and Hell. And the content of these sessions are for another post. What is important was how Rob expanded the conversation of heaven, hell and salvation. And as I looked at the mood of the room it was obvious that he had tweaked the norm.

You see, there is historical way of operating that is so fixed, so completely restrictive to a select few (some would call it scholasticism) that it gives people no permission to think. Rob won't let you do that. He calls out a way of being that requires you to think. He's so much like Jesus in that he almost forces you to wrestle with it. His best subversive quality is his capacity to tweak the way you see it.

And the reality was that 20% of the people were deeply confused and immediately discounted what he said. I am at lunch as I write this and I just finished a conversation with a local pastor, who came because he just heard of Rob's church (this guy is really tweaked). The very first thing he said was "I didn't agree with about 25% of what he said." I asked him why, and he stumbled on it. "We did the proof text and..." You can finish the sentence.

See what Rob does that bugs people is that he makes people aware of their own way of seeing, and in the presence of a new way of seeing it most people question the validity of their own image. Some immediately walk away, some go numb, some just agree, and a small group wrestles with it. Some, like my neighbor at lunch, immediately assume an attack on their image and can't handle it.

What if we miss the whole story when we do this. What if we miss the story that Jesus is trying to communicate, when we assume our way of seeing is fixed and the only way to see something. I have been listening to Rob for about a year and a half and I think he would probably say, "I could be wrong."

How then do we find love in all of this? How then do we live in the tension of the new and the old and find a way to remain in the learning, the relationship, and the love? How do we stay in trust when something affronts our senses and constructs? That my friend is the question of living.

More pictures to follow.