This blog grew out of our recent mission trip to Nicaragua
where I preached five times in five days.
God seemed to bring me back again and again
to the notion that His ways are not our ways.
In fact, God's plans often seem
directly contrary to human plans.
His values are different.
His perspective is different.
His kingdom seems to be “upside down”
when compared to the “kingdoms” of this world.
This concept is repeated so often in scripture
that I thought it could be the focal point
for a disciple-making blog.
Then my friend Ken Walker brought me his copy
of The Upside-Down Kingdom by Donald B. Kraybill
(copyright 1978, 1990, 2003 by Herald Press).
It's a measure of my bibliographic ignorance
that I had never heard of this radical book
by the man Wikipedia calls
“the foremost living expert on the Old Order Amish.”
The book is in its third edition, available on Amazon.
Kraybill is a Mennonite sociologist.
He writes as a Christian layman for other laypersons.
He asks the question:
“What would our lives look like
if we lived out the beatitudes?”
With chapter titles like “Free Slaves,” “Luxurious Poverty,”
“Impious Piety,” “Low is High” and “Successful Failures,”
the reader had best be ready for a good shaking-up.
“The corporate life of the people of God
will be visible and external.
These are the folks who engage
in conspicuous sharing.
We practice Jubilee.
Generosity replaces consumption and accumulation.
Our faith wags our pocketbooks.
We give without expecting a return.
We forgive liberally as God forgave us.
We overlook the signs of stigma
hanging from the unlovely.”
Strong stuff for the milquetoast Christian to digest!
