Margin Talk Back

Crossroads is starting a month long all-church summer book read tonight (we are starting it with a potluck, the quintessential church event). The book we are reading is called Margin and I would highly recommend it to you. It is written by an MD, Dr. Richard Swenson, who was finding that most of the maladies that brought people into his office had to do with the stress of living overloaded lives. Indeed, high blood pressure, heart problems, overeating, under sleeping -- many of these can be easily traced back to the stress we place ourselves under as 21st Century human beings in America. When I was writing my dissertation on affluence and Christian Discipleship, I found a lot of the same things -- that people are doing tons more compacted into less time than ever before. Unfortunately, this doesn't lead to happier lives, just more worried and unhappy ones. This does not just lead to physical sickness, but spiritual sickness as well.

We the church need to fight this sickness. To do so, over 100 people so far have taken a copy of Margin and have committed to read it and pass it on.

What I'd like to do in this blog is encourage you to read along with us and post any responses/questions you might have in the comments section (I may post a few thoughts as well). Let's agree that our overloaded lives are not all they are cracked up to be, and are maybe not even glorifying to God. Then together, lets commit to change.

If you haven't picked up a book yet, they are at the church information window. $5, or whatever you can afford.

Blessings,
jeff