Tag Archives: Tony Campolo

“Stories That Feed Your Soul” by Tony Campolo

A few months ago I was the very happy winner of a book giveaway by Tony Campolo on his website, RedLetterChristians.org (which I highly recommend reading!). The book that I won was called “Stories That Feed Your Soul” and is a collection of nonfiction inspirational short stories revolving around the following eight themes:

  1. Freedom From Condemnation
  2. The New Life In Christ
  3. Intimacy With God
  4. The Call To Rescue Creation
  5. Living With Hope
  6. Praying In The Spirit
  7. God’s Plan For Us
  8. The Assurance We Need

At first I read one story per night while putting my son to bed, but soon I found myself eagerly eating up the stories as I saw the hand of God working in each situation. They truly did bring to light some of the nuances of living out our faith day-to-day while causing me to stop and reflect on my life.

The stories are also very useful in communicating complex ideas and theological points. Point in fact, I paraphrased one of Tony’s stories in my sermon last week on a whim as it just seemed to fit and, would you believe, it was the one thing folks remembered! Why this may not reflect good on my sermon, it does highlights the power of stories – perhaps that is why Jesus taught in parables?  😕

Below is the story that I paraphrased (and which will be read in its full this coming Sunday) as a teaser for the 117 stories included in Tony’s book. Enjoy and be blessed.

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Rob Bell, C.S. Lewis and the Split of Evangelicalism

As I mentioned before, there is currently a theological war going on within evangelicalism on the same scale of the Protestant Reformation and the Fundamentalist–Modernist Controversy of the early 1900’s. The crazy thing about this ‘war’ is that it is really NOT about theological matters or even doctrine (unlike some of the other theological splits and wars).

This battle is more about control and the worldview through which one reads the Bible.

Jimmy Spencer put it this way last week on Tony Campolo’s “Red Letter Christans” blog:

“Over the past couple years we have seen a growing hostility between conservative and more legalistic traditions of Christianity here in the USA and the more progressive traditions who focus more on loving and serving others. This doesn’t cleanly break across strictly denominational lines either.

Watch.

You’re witnessing something big right now.
You’re witnessing a new split in Protestant Evangelicalism

This thing is going to split wide open.

I’m not saying it is a good or bad thing…but I can tell you it’s coming. It doesn’t have all the vocabulary put to it yet—but it is coming. It has been a bit under the radar for much of the Christian world—but it will spill out into the streets and the media and be a fullblown separation.

We have all felt tremors of this thing coming for a couple years now…

Rob Bell’s book will play a huge part in triggering this split.

This is not just about theology.

It’s about control of the story of Jesus.
It’s about the entire framing of God and The Gospel.

It’s gonna be something we mentally mark
It’s gonna start something big

It may not be nailing 95 theses on a door…”

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