Shane Claiborne Live

"Come now & join the feast
From the greatest to the very least
Come now & join the feast
Right here in the belly of the beast."
-- Shane Claiborne

Amidst a series of days filled with ice, sleet, & freezing rain (something so rare in Houston, TX), a great crowd gathered to hear the words of someone who's come to be akin to a strange mix of Old Testament prophet & John The Baptist to many in the Low Protestant/Evangelical world. A disarmingly humorous & humble man, Shane Claiborne held a packed house captive for over an hour, telling story after story about the steps he's taken on his journey as an individual and as a founder of a missional community in Philadelphia called The Simple Way. While some of the stories can be found in his best-selling book The Irresistible Revolution, Shane shared anecdote after anecdote, observation after observation from his life & his community.

I'm not sure what I expected when he began speaking, even though I've read his book & heard him speak in the past. He's been talking at various churches & events ever since the release of his book in February 2006, so you'd think the talk would become somewhat rote & standard, even as passionate as he could be about his work & his life. Nonetheless, using a variety of multimedia tools (including videos of lessons the children in his community have learned) and his unending fervor for the work God has called him to in Philadelphia, it feels like he's talking just to you, as if no one else was in the room. Sprinkling his stories with quotes from Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King, Jr., & others, Shane's tone wove its way between that of a fervent street preacher, calling The Church to accountability & responsibility, and that of a confidant who just wants to spend time with his friends & loved ones, sharing what he's seen & learned.

He spoke often of the children in The Simple Way community and their surrounding neighborhood, talking about the time spent with them & actions done to reshape & reform their thoughts & tendencies before they become too deep-set in their ways. He mentioned a time where, after returning from Iraq as a member of a Christian Peacemaker team, he talked with the children in the neighborhood about his experience and, as a result of their conversations, the children gathered up their toy guns, tanks, etc., melted them down, and created a plowshare to stand in the neighborhood park as a memorial to their decision to not pick up those weapons. His concept of becoming an "ordinary radical" stands at the center of his message - one doesn't have to be some sort of saint to affect change and be a part of revolutionizing the heart of The Church.

The dedication and perseverance to be the hands & feet of Christ to this world is so visibly resident in Shane's heart and the people of The Simple Way, but that passion comes across in a way that's neither overwhelming nor divisive. Shane's call to live as an "ordinary radical" is truly centered in the words, actions, & life of Jesus Christ – it's an ecumenical call that wants to bring The Church outside of the walls it’s built around itself & into the world that God created, going out into all the world, living out the Gospel to its fullest extent.