I just returned from an inspiring afternoon with a few hundred people, interacting around the topics of the gospel and social justice, and I wanted to take a moment and share why I'm so passionate about this topic, and hence the book I've just written.  My hope and prayer is that this new book finds its way into many hands because I believe that millions are floundering in their faith, or on the sidelines, or simply having the wrong conversations because they've not yet truly grasped the significance of the incredible life to which we're called in Christ.

The book, as many of you already know, is called The Colors of Hope.  You can read a free chapter here.  You can join a Facebook discussion here.  But before you do any of that, I thought answering a few questions would be a helpful:

This past weekend, as part of our plans to insulate our attic bedroom, I was searching out the “art” part of the project and stumbled upon these lovely works from England.  They’re part of folklore, fairy tale genre that hints at a different world – they’re not the world itself, but just a hint of it, a marker pointing us in a direction beyond what we can touch, taste, and feel in this here and now.  As Lewis says, they are “only the scent of flower we have not found, the hint of a tune we have not heard, the news from a country we have never visited.” Lewis proposes that our love of fairy tales reveals that we’re made for more than this life, more than buying and selling, living and dying, watching Glee and filling our our March Madness bracket.  He proposes that the fairy tales themselves point towards another part of our world, invisible yet real.

The church, over the years, hasn't done a very good job, in my opinion, of addressing sexual ethics.  We invoke "you'll feel guilty" (but sex feels good as often guilty, for lots of reasons I won't address here), or "you'll get a disease, or get pregnant" (but there are ways of dealing with both of those things), or "because God says so" as if we should just blow our brains out, not caring for God's rationale, becoming mindless servants in spite of the fact that we're to love God with all our minds.  Here's my take on God's sexual ethic, prompted by recent events in the news.

Whether it's MTV's newest show exploring the seemingly endless sexual appetites of some American teens, or the now famous Karen Owen F*** List powerpoint, her tale of bedding various Duke athletes, offered in sordid detail with ratings for each (based on anatomical size, lovemaking skills, attractiveness), the reality is that an increasingly large percentage of our youth culture are floating on the stormy seas of awakening sexuality and adulthood with neither an anchor, nor a compass.

Life, it seems, is coming at us faster than ever.  Longer hours at work, more stress, commutes, repairs, exercise, relationships, and endless social connections that encourage us to remain linked in, with updated status reports and timeless tweets - add it all up and life can feel like a video game.  It's coming at you and you're reacting.  Reacting, though, is much different than living.  When I'm reacting, I end up preaching because I'm expected to say something, rather than because I've something to say.  I feel scattered, ineffective, stressed.I've felt this way too much in 2010, and so I'm heading back to "first things", foundational truths that are considered foundational precisely because life can be built on them.  I Samuel 30 tells the story of a time in David's life when he felt overwhelmed.  After some enemies ransacked a village, stealing his wives and children, he was overwhelmed with grief.  On top of that, his few faithful friends were so angry over the kidnapping that they blamed David for it and there was talk of stoning him to death.  It was a bad week.  We all have them, though not often to that degree.The first thing David did, we learn, was he "strengthened himself in the Lord".  This is the best first thing any of us could do, before diet, exercise, yoga classes, new goals and objectives, or attending another seminar.  Billions are made each year by capitalizing on our fundamental discontent - our sense of dis-ease that sends us looking in a thousand directions for ways to make life better.  I'd like to humbly suggest that whatever you're resolving to do differently in 2011, if you don't have any habits that help you strengthen yourself in the Lord, start there.   Specifically:I resolve to pray 5 minutes a day - at least 5 days a week.If that sounds overwhelming, here are five options for structuring your five minutes of prayer: