It's a Dance

By Patrick Oden

Book Overview

Luke is a journalist at a local newspaper in Southern California doing a series of articles on churches in the area. As he interviews Nate, pastor of a nontraditional church that operates a pub, he... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1594980128
• ISBN13: 9781594980121
• Release Date: November 2007
• Publisher: Barclay Press
• Length: 292 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Left me speechless yet moved.....

This is a book every Christian should read. Most of us Christians don't really understand who the Holy Spirit is and the role the Spirit plays in guiding us on our Christian walk. Patrick Oden's free flowing narrative sets his main character, a journalist working on his column that reviews churches, meeting an enigmatic pastor and the community of his "peculiar" Christian congregation. The resulting conversations paint a beautiful picture of what "living a life with the Spirit" truly entails and how the Holy Spirit calls us to living in the way of Jesus. Patrick Oden writing a compelling narrative here that is well thought out and flows very well. I found the characters well developed (thought not the focus of the book) and I found myself relating to many of the characters on the book and the questions they are asking. If this work was just a work of fiction, I would recommend it as a good read. Yet this book is so much more than the story that is told. The beauty of this book is that it exposes people to very deep theological concepts, questions and terms in a very non confrontational and easy-going way. It's as if you are along for the ride as two men converse. It's a Dance exposes it's reader to very unfamiliar theological terms such as kenosis (the outpouring of the Spirit) and percholeresis (moving with the Spirit), yet explains them in language that anyone can understand. It is as the title suggest, a dance. It tackles difficult questions of theology like salvation and what Christian worship and living should look like and presents an interesting perspective of how he believes it should look. Yet this book is grounded on the firm ground of the core beliefs of Christianity. The questions posed in the minds of many of the characters are common in today's world dealing with how one views God, the church, Jesus, the Holy Spirit and how one pursues their spirituality. These are questions that are asked frequently in our churches yet are never answered satisfactorily or really discussed. A portrait is painted for those who may be experiencing crises in faith, questions about God, or dissatisfaction with Church and offers them hope. On a personal note, this book reflects what I have experienced in my walk with Christ since coming back to a Christian faith four years ago. His descriptions of how the Spirit moves in our lives and how the Spirit inspires us to be creative, missional and relational are all themes that ring true in my own experience. Yet Patrick's book challenges us to look more intently at the role the Spirit plays in our lives, in our families, in our relationships, in our communities, and in our churches. I enjoyed the book immensely and it really got me thinking. So I thank Patrick Oden for this tremendous work on pursuing our Christian walk.

Epiphony

When the definition of epiphony is examined, Oden's book provides its readers with a perfect example of this definition when applied to understanding the Holy Spirit's interaction with God's pepple and the church. Ephiphany: a usually sudden manifestation or perception of the essential nature or meaning of something (2): an intuitive grasp of reality through something (as an event) usually simple and striking (3): an illuminating discovery, realization, or disclosure b: a revealing scene or moment.

Refreshing.

What a refreshing look at the ministry of the Holy Spirit. I enjoyed it this so much! Thank you Patrick. You've written a very engaging and theologically sound work. I was caught up in the story line but had to have a pen and highlighter nearby to mark the deep truths that kept leaping off from page to page. WELL DONE. Keep writing!

A Needed Perspective

I recently had the opportunity to read a review copy of It's a Dance written by Patrick Oden. When I first heard about this book I was intrigued - a theology book about the Holy Spirit written in story form. I am aware that the role of the Holy Spirit is not mentioned often in emerging church discussions. Perhaps the fundamentalist/evangelical roots of many of us in this conversation who grew up being told that the salvation of Pentecostals and Charismatics wasn't for sure and that the Holy Spirit no longer works in our current dispensation may have something to do with that. But whatever the case, I haven't heard much talk about the holy Spirit recently and so wanted to explore It's a Dance. The book is set up focusing on a writing assignment of a southern Californian journalist, Luke. His assignment leads him to visit and review churches in the area in search of something new and different to capture the readers attention. While the assignment is part of his job, the search echoes Luke's own spiritual quest to arrive at some sort of understanding and expression of faith he can accept. This quest leads him to a very different sort of church that meets in a pub. Luke then discovers the hows and why of this church's differences as he sits down for long discussions with the pastor and church attendees. Through these discussions we hear the stories of what brought people to this different church (often stories of pain) and are exposed to the basic theology driving the church. All the while the presence of the Holy Spirit makes itself known as the conversation returns again and again to how the Spirit is at the center of what drives the church. I personally enjoyed reading the theological exploration in conversational format. Many of the conversations in the book reminded me of ones I have participated in from time to time. There were points where the writing slipped out of conversational mode into sermon mode, but then again when you are writing through the voice of a pastor, it is hard not to sermonize every once in awhile. Although the book does not use footnotes (they would have broken up the flow of the conversation), Oden lists his sources at the end of the book and one can tell that centuries of theological traditions and reflections informed the dialogue in the book. As I read I encountered ideas common in emerging church circles as well as explorations of the Holy Spirit that were new to my understanding of faith. It was a fun intellectual journey to take. In the presentation of the "different" church Luke encounters, it is easy to recognize many of the trendy trappings of relevant churches. They met in a pub connected to a coffee shop/bookstore, they don't do programs, they offer a prayer room for contemplative prayer, they eschew the typical patterns of modern American churches and so forth. Nothing wrong of course with any of those things, they just fit the common stereotypes of what emerging churches look like. I appr