in search of a free Velvet Elvis

now that's an odd title, eh?

i want to read Rob Bell's new book Velvet Elvis so bad. like, incredibly bad. i just don't want to spend money on it 'cause i've heard a ton of criticism about it. so i feel like i'm contributing to his cause if i buy it, and as much as i've tried to defend Bell and Mars Hill, the danger signs just keep piling up against them. therefore, not really sure what this book is going to have in it, i don't want to support it with my money if it does indeed contain tons of danger signs in it.

my sister left me a voicemail this week saying her mother-in-law sent them down a copy of it and she absolutely LOVES the book. that makes me want to just give in and pay for the book, so i can read it for myself. i'll probably just end up forking over the money for it.

i knew when this book hit the stores it would either cause a huge debate surrounding it or it would be an amazing book that would catch a lot of attention and then be considered another "purpose driven life" or "prayer of jabez" - where if a book is super popular among Believers, it MUST be bad :) i've never read either of those books though, so i can't really give my opinion on them.

sorry if this post is kinda like...repeating itself and jumbled together. it was a short night last night and my dog started my day on a bad side by peeing right next to my bed...while i was still in bed. how pathetic is it when your dog can put you in a bad mood? haha :) trying to wake up with coffee...

oh yeah, 1 more thing. what was really cool was i found out gabe is reading the same book i'm reading about the emergent church, and it's a really hard book to read 'cause the dude's like - super smart and writes really like...smartly. :) so hopefully gabe can tear though it a little better than me and summarize the parts i don't understand (...which will probably be atleast half the book). AND i found out last night that ben vz has studied a lot on the emerging church and stuff, so now i have 2 people i can ask questions to! that's cool 'cause before, hardly anyone had heard of the emerging church movement and i was trying to study it on my own and i'm not really smart so i wasn't getting that far in my "studying" of it. but it's a movement that i know is going to all of a sudden explode and i want to know what i believe about it so i don't get caught up in it. and i'm afraid i already am a little, i'll admit.

keep it real.
~jen~