Fotografía de autor
8 Obras 339 Miembros 6 Reseñas

Sobre El Autor

Greg Paul is a member and the founding pastor of Sanctuary Toronto, a ministry and faith community serving marginalized communities in Canada's largest city. He is the author of several books, including the award-winning titles The Twenty-Piece Shuffle and God in the Alley.

Obras de Greg Paul

Etiquetado

Conocimiento común

Género
male
Nacionalidad
Canada

Miembros

Reseñas

Summary: In an era when religion has a bad name, the author proposes that what we need is not "no religion" but the kind of religion that James writes about, and that his church is trying to live out.

John Lennon's "Imagine" has become kind of an anthem for our age, particularly with it's suggest that we imagine a world with no religion. The author of this book suggests there is good reason for this, that there are many examples of bad religion out there that might disillusion some from the whole "religion project." There is religion that is insensitive to the poor, that is racist, that is hypocritical, or simply irrelevant.

Greg Paul would contend that the answer to bad religion is not "no religion" but the kind of religion that James, the brother of Jesus wrote about:

"Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world" (James 1:27).

In this book, he takes us through the book of James, weaving in narrative of Sanctuary Toronto, a church that takes seriously ministering to the poor, the homeless, all those society tends to write off, forming a community with these people. Their mission to the poor isn't a once a year volunteer stint at a soup kitchen, but regular communal meals served by all the community to all the community--rich and poor together.

All this comes from taking scripture seriously, and particularly the challenges in James to care for the poor, and that faith without deeds is dead. He argues that the pollution about which James is concerned is a church that shows partiality to the rich rather than seeking to bless the people Jesus blesses in the beatitudes. He writes about Matt, whose abilities to form attachments and exercise judgment was impaired from birth by fetal alcohol syndrome. Loved despite all his faults and struggles with addiction, he ended up taking his life. Paul writes of Matt:

"In all of my reading of commentary on the Beatitudes, I've never found anyone who went so far as to say this straight out, so I will: What Jesus taught that day means that Matt, regardless of what he believed about doctrinal concepts such as 'the person and work of Christ,' is a citizen of the Kingdom of Heaven. He was, in fact, thus blessed from the moment of his birth--you could say, in his case, that because he was born screwed, he was also born into the Kingdom and carried the passport all his life, even if he didn't realize it" (p. 112).

This makes sense of a community that loves the most unlikely--they believe these are the blessed of the kingdom in the beatitudes. Perhaps most moving is his story of Al and Mike. Al was a bicycle courier, a Mixed Nations person, and pretty rough around the edges. Mike was a successful businessman, who one day was in an accident that ended Al's life. The most unlikely followed. Mike became a part of the community, loved not because he was rich and accepted despite killing one of their beloved members.

Following James' teaching, this is a community that is learning to listen more than speaking, to find wisdom in submission to God. They are seeking to live out, as the book's final chapter describes, a new reformation they desperately believe is needed throughout the church. He believes such a community actually follows Jesus into the places he would go, preaches a whole integrated gospel, focuses on practical justice, directs its energies outward, and committed to being a real community and not a social club.

This is not a comfortable book. But neither is James letter. Both sound like they deny, at points, the life of faith, for an emphasis on works. But in our era of designer, big box suburban churches, it seems to me a greater venture of faith to set out to follow Jesus as this community does. It takes them into human pain for which there are no easy answers even while they proclaim and live great grace.

____________________________

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.
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Denunciada
BobonBooks | Feb 13, 2018 |
Greg Paul is the founder of the sanctuary movement.
 
Denunciada
tumc | Sep 12, 2017 |
The spiritual life is opening ourselves to God. Writers on prayer and contemplatives have urged us to tune our beings to God, to kneel in his presence and receive good things from him. Yet sometimes we don't sense God. Sometimes we don't open ourselves up to him because we are too busy grasping at everything else.

Pastor and author Greg Paul wrote Simply Open: A Guide to Experiencing God in the Everyday to lead us to the land of greater openness. He wrote this book after a sabbatical from his pastorate at an urban Toronto church when he had spent time in prayer at Quarr Abbey on the Isle of Wight and hiking on the coast of Cornwall (21-2). Simply Open records his reflections, insights and prayer on opening the senses, mind and heart up to God.

A prayer provides the basic outline for this book:

Open my eyes that I may relase what I have seen, and so see you, see myself through your eyes, and truly see others.
Open my ears, that I may release what I have heard, and so hear you, become a listener, and truly hear others.
Open my nostrils, that I may release what I have inhaled, and so breathe in your fragrance, be delighted by it, and breath your Spirit upon others.
Open my mouth, that I may release what I have tasted, and so taste your goodness, be made strong by the sustenance you give, and share your sustaining grace with others.
Open my hands, that I may release what I have held, and so hold what you give me, be molded by your touch, and reach out to others.
Open my mind, that I may release what I have understood, and so understand you understand myself, and understand others.
Open my heart, that I may release what I have loved, and so receive your love for me, love you more deeply, and truly love others. (17)
Each of the sections above follows a fourfold structure: releasing, receiving, becoming, doing. So in each chapter,Greg unfolds our sense experience, the unhealthy things we need to let go in order to receive from God so that we may be transformed into those who do his will. His chapter on 'opening our eyes' discusses the way our culture gives us far more than an eyeful. For example, objectification of women creates body image issues and pornography hurts both the viewer and the viewed (30-31). When we let go of our false images, then we begin seeing as God sees--people created in the image of God, fearfully and wonderfully made. Similarly, our inability to hear God is because of the cacophony that surrounds us. Receiving from God and learning to hear his voice means learning to say no to competing voices (59).

Greg offers similar reflections on the other senses. The nose (sense of smell), he ties to breath and talks about how we can open ourselves up to the Spirit (God's breath/wind). Taste has us examine the variety of fare that we feed ourselves with, those in our midst who are starving and the sacramental enjoyment of God's good things. Our touch is how we learn love and form meaningful attachments, but is also a source of wounds we need to release. Finally Greg wants us to move to having the 'mind of Christ' and hearts open to give and receive love.

In his last chapter Greg acknowledges that our spiritual senses are not as compartmentalized or linear as the above framework may suggest, "We will find that inhaling a particular fragrance, and receiving it as a gift of God's Spirit, will cause us to hear and see things differently; we may realize that we need to let go of a way of thinking, and thus find our hearts drawn to loving someone previously unnoticed (211). What Greg Paul's discussion of each of the senses, heart and mind do, is allow us to see the holistic and inclusive nature of spirituality and prayer. The abundant life is a sensual one--full of beauty and sound, tastes and wonders, smells and memory, thinking and love. By seeking to open up each facet to God, we are able to offer our whole self to Him.

I have been a 'fan' of Greg since reading God in an Alley a number of years ago. What impressed me about that book was his hospitality to and humanizing of those on the margins (he pastors a church that reaches out in some beautiful ways). This book was more like Close Enough to Hear God Breathe than God in the Alley (another book of his on prayer). But this isn't just a book about prayer and the spiritual life. Greg knows that it is as we open ourselves up to God, we experience profound change in how we relate to others. The contemplative life leads to the active life (releasing and receiving lead to becoming and doing). I give this book five stars ★★★★★
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Denunciada
Jamichuk | May 22, 2017 |
I first came across a book by Greg Paul several years ago. I was new to urban ministry and the stories, people and insights of Greg Paul's God in the Alley were well worth it, though frequently heartbreaking.

This book was different. It was not about justice and while a few of the stories were about sanctuary and the neighborhood his church is in, this was much more personal. He told the stories of his relationship with his parents, his children, people he was privileged to walk along side. He told the story of God's relationship with us. The stories of Greg and the people he loves dovetail with God's story and he sees in them the God he loves and who loves him even more passionately.

Greg Paul uses the framework of Creation, Fall, Redemption and Consummation to tell God's story (a helpful framework given to him by Rod Wilson of Regent College). At each point, Greg's life and metaphors converge to tell the story of God's love. We are created by a loving God. God looks on our sinfulness not with anger and judgmentalism, but with sadness of seeing the pain we are in. God in Christ is our great redeemer. The God of love holds our future.

I would suggest reading this book slowly and devotionally. As someone with 'pastor eyes' reading this, I love how Greg Paul is able to share how biography intersects theology. The truth of Grace is not a doctrine, but a lived reality. We all need to know this more.
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Denunciada
Jamichuk | 2 reseñas más. | May 22, 2017 |

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Estadísticas

Obras
8
Miembros
339
Popularidad
#70,285
Valoración
½ 3.6
Reseñas
6
ISBNs
16

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