Organic Church Conference Thoughts Part???

I've been really contemplating this Organic Church Conference that I attended last weekend this week. The first night Deb Hirsch spoke and I keep going back to her talk. Here are her main points and some things taht I got out of them:

Obstacles that keep us from engaging in the mission:
1. Wrong view of Jesus
We tend to view Jesus through our cultural and religious lens instead of seeing him as he is. A good way to counter this is through spending time in the gospels. I totally agreed with this point. As I've spent time in the last years just reading the gospels they've really changed my view of Jesus.
2. Wrong view of ourselves
We act out of what we think - a year of counseling and heartbreak really showed this to be true in my life.
3. Wrong view of others.
One thing that struck me about this point is that if some one asks a group of Christians what is true about all people, the first thing we tend to say is "they are a sinner" but that's not the first thing that's true about all people. The first thing is that all people are created in the image of God and in some way reflect that. It totally changes the way we view people when we think through this lens.
4. Distorted view of love
We tend to see love as only romantic love - "Hollywood love", but love often brings pain. It made me think of some of my best friends. Being in relationship with them has often caused pain but there is also real love there.
5. Distorted view of the world
We tend to see the world through our socioeconomic status. Wow - my view of the world has dramatically changed living in New Orleans so I couldn't agree with this more!
6. Distorted view about money and status
Deb spent a lot of time on this point because the church has bought into the "American dream". We want to follow Jesus without sacrificing our money or our status. I find that to be so true and it's not following this Jesus I read about in the Gospels - very convicting point!
7. Wrong view of the family
In Jesus' time, the family unit wasn't the nuclear family - it was a whole community. We tend to isolate with our family rather than view the community as valuable.

She ended by saying that the church has joined the culture rather than be followers of Jesus. That's so true and it's often difficult to know how to even get out of the culture. It was the first of many challenging things I heard over the weekend.