Growing up I heard all of the messages, sermons, and parables that a child could sit through. But they never meant anything to me. They never clicked. It was just a collection of stories that seemed interesting but not really relevant. No one was actually saying “take these lessons and live your life by them.”
I grew up believing that Ned Flanders was the ideal Christian. And the only way to be a good Christian was to spend all of your time in nursing homes and hospitals.
Boy was I shocked to learn that isn’t what Christianity is at all! Christianity is this dangerous, rebellious thing. Erwin McManus calls it “the Barbarian Way”.
Over the last few years I’ve come to realize that becoming a Christian means shedding some of my old habits. Some of my old behaviors. But how to do that? How do I change behaviors that I’ve been doing since I was a kid?
As I looked for answers I found that most blogs and sermons focused on one of two groups – seekers (people who didn’t know God, but were looking for him) or “veteran” Christians (those who had already figured out a lot of the questions I was struggling with).
R3 stems from this void. As I look at the revolutionary and radical nature of God, I realize that God is “different”, he is not what I expected. I now realize that God wants me to take those stories and lessons he tells, and apply them to my life. He wants me to be different, just like him. R3 is my search for those answers.
