Over the past few months the Lay Leadership Team has been reading the book "Everything Must Change" by Brian McLaren. It is a difficult book to describe and, truthfully, I have not enjoyed it as much as I did McLaren's previous book "Generous Orthodoxy." However, in it McLaren makes some important points about our calling as Christians living in the world. McLaren asserts that we live in a cultural system that has tamed and watered-down the Gospel. To live as Christians we must reclaim the radical-ness of Jesus and our faith.

In the final chapter McLaren makes a statement about the most radical thing we can do. In his opinion, the most radical thing we can do is beleive, especailly when our belief takes us outside the dominant cultural values of our day. He writes, "Martin Luther, Martin Luther King Jr., Galileo, Nelson Mandela, Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Saint Francis...they all showed this heroic courage to believe against and beyond the dominant systems of their day." It is easy to live our faith when we don't have to make waves. Yet, living our belief can become more challenging when we see injustice and are called to stand against it.

What do you think? Does your belief challenge you to see things in our culture and society in a different way than others? Is believing the most radical thing we can do?