Yesterday, along with around 50 other church and organisation leaders across London I was invited to a lunch reception at Premier Radio to hear Rob Bell, author of Velvet Elvis and speaker on the nooma series of DVDs.

I read Velvet Elvis in one sitting in November last year after good friend Johnny Douglas sent me a copy and loved it and have been looking forward to this event for a little while. I was interested to hear what Rob had to say and how others would react.

The event started with the showing of the new nooma dvd called breathe. It’s good, possibly one of the best, and it was worth getting together just to see that. After speaking very well for a short while Rob handled a good number of questions from the assembled bunch of evangelical leaders. Rob was just how you would expect him to be from the DVDs. Before us was an authentic man of integrity in love with Jesus.

I found it interesting as talking afterwards a number of people were heavily agreeing with what Rob Bell has to say. Rob’s desire, and the desire of Mars Hill Church, is to repaint the Christian faith. By this I think he means that he wants to get back to the basics of the gospels and look again at our doctrine and pratice. This means they are asking a simple question as they look back:

‘what didn’t we adopt from our early faith which maybe we should have done, and what have we added to our faith which is now cultural and not really as essential as we have grown up to think it is’.

In essence Rob is saying we need to keep asking questions, and no questions are out of bounds.

God must be moving as I’m sure, in the past, we would have all felt threatened by such words. I remember endless discussions in the past where I have been thought of as heretical just for wanting to ask questions!

I left the day with one challenge. Rob shared that as church our role was to bless. He shared how he was almost moved to tears when his neighbour told him he was a good neighbour. Church is to be a blessing to others, and that surely means church is so much bigger than a sunday morning or evening service. That meeting is just a small part. I would even suggest that people don’t need to go to the ‘Sunday part’ to be part of the church. Church is wider and it is what the christian community do to bless those around them.

My challenge?: Rob shared a morning service idea they did at Mars Hill. They gave out gaffer tape and asked people to put it across their mouths with this challenge:

‘if you wore that all week, would those around you know by your actions that you are a Christian?’

For a man, like me, that ikes to talk – that’s a massive challenge.