Making Sense of Church: Eavesdropping on Emerging Conversations About God, Community, and Culture

by Spencer Burke

Samplings of online discussions about God, truth, and church—from theOoze.com Our culture is rapidly changing and people are searching for new models and paradigms to find meaning in their lives. As in all transitional periods, this search takes place in grass-roots conversations where the “new” is taking form. No other place so uniquely captures this struggle more than the message boards at theOoze.com, the premier melting pot of emerging spiritual conversation. Making Sense of Church is a snapshot of this “community conversation” as it tries to make sense of God in the emerging worldview. It represents a gathering of individuals with different points of view, theologies, life contexts, and feelings. Author Spencer Burke, creator of theOoze.com, provides the framework writing for each chapter and acts as a “guide” to the accompanying e-mail postings that supplement the chapters. Subjects discussed include: • Authentic Community • Experiential Worship • The Internet and God • Art as a Vehicle for Communicating Truth • Spirituality and Sexuality • What Is the Church? • What Is Postmodernism?

Genres: Theology, Church, Nonfiction, Christianity

174 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2003

Reviews

[Mark Archibald · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was part of an Emergent Church series. The words “emergent church” and “postmodern” come up a bit (phrases that are soooo 2000 and late *snap* *snap*). But the value of the book far outlives those concepts. This is a book about church and ministry praxis. The ideas are helpful at any changing moment in church and society - if you haven’t noticed those things are changing all the time. I got at least 3 big important ideas from this that I am putting into practice. Easy to read. Easy to pick up and set down and pick up again.

[Naturegirl · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I loved what McLaren had to say in this book, it's more a compilation of emails and reactions from other people about their experiences with the church. McLaren's site theooze.com provides a place for people to vent, to share, to commiserate about the state of the church and where it's headed. I'd really like to read more of his books that don't have the emails and outside opinions in them.