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    Radical Renovation - eBook [ePub]: Living the Cross-Shaped Life
    Radical Renovation - eBook [ePub]: Living the Cross-Shaped Life
    Radical Renovation - eBook [ePub]: Living the Cross-Shaped Life
    Ebook73 pages1 hour

    Radical Renovation - eBook [ePub]: Living the Cross-Shaped Life

    By Rev. Dr. James A. Harnish

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    About this ebook

    Radical Renovation: Living the Cross-Shaped Life
    A Lenten Study for Adults

    James A. Harnish

    Radical Renovation is a powerful image of what can happen in our lives during the season of Lent. Just as a house can be rebuilt after it has fallen into disrepair or devastation, author James A. Harnish says, so God can enter in to our brokenness and completely rebuild our lives, so that we can become the kind of people in whom the living Christ can take up residence, and through whom the loving purpose of God can become a tangible reality in this world.

    As the great cathedrals were built in the shape of a cross, the author tells us, the traditional Lenten disciplines invite us to allow the Spirit of God to reshape the way we think, act, and live into the likeness of Jesus on his way to the cross.

    This seven-session study, appropriate for both group and individual use, will provide one lesson for each week in Lent. Each lesson includes a Scripture reference, a brief reflection, questions for discussion or reflection, a brief prayer, and a focus for the coming week.

    JAMES A. HARNISH is senior pastor of Hyde Park United Methodist Church in Tampa, Florida. He is the author of Journey to the Center of the Faith: An Explorer’s Guide to Christian Living; Passion, Power & Praise: A Model for Men’s Spirituality from the Life of David; and You Only Have to Die: Leading Your Congregation to New Life, and he served as a contributor to both 365 Meditations for Young Adults and 365 Meditations for Men.

    Chapter titles and key Scripture verses:
    “Discipleship: Living the Cross-Shaped Life” Mark 8:27-38
    “Servanthood: A Peculiar Way to Greatness” Mark 9:33-37; 10:35-45
    “Surrender: Nothing Short of Everything” Mark 10:17-34
    “Forgiveness: Rebuilding Damaged Relationships” Mark 11:25-26; Luke 23:32-34
    “Love: The Radical Center” Mark 12:28-34
    “Sacrifice: It’s Nothing if It Costs Nothing” Mark 14:1-19
    “Hope: He Goes Before You!” Mark 16:1-8

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAbingdon Press
    Release dateSep 1, 2010
    ISBN9781426727092
    Radical Renovation - eBook [ePub]: Living the Cross-Shaped Life
    Author

    Rev. Dr. James A. Harnish

    The Rev. Dr. James A. Harnish retired after 43 years of pastoral ministry in the Florida Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. He was the founding pastor of St. Luke’s United Methodist Church in Orlando and served for 22 years as the Senior Pastor of Hyde Park United Methodist Church in Tampa. He is the author of A Disciple’s Heart: Growing in Love and Grace, Earn. Save. Give. Wesley’s Simple Rules for Money, and Make a Difference: Following Your Passion and Finding Your Place to Serve. He was a consulting editor for The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible and a contributor to The Wesley Study Bible. He and his wife, Martha, have two married daughters and five grandchildren in Florida and South Carolina.

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      Book preview

      Radical Renovation - eBook [ePub] - Rev. Dr. James A. Harnish

      Radical Renovation

      JAMES A. HARNISH

      Radical Renovation

      Living the

      Cross-Shaped Life

      A LENTEN STUDY FOR ADULTS

      ABINGDON PRESS / Nashville

      RADICAL RENOVATION: LIVING THE CROSS-SHAPED LIFE

      A LENTEN STUDY FOR ADULTS

      Copyright © 2008 by Abingdon Press

      All rights reserved.

      No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, except as may be expressly permitted by the 1976 Copyright Act or in writing from the publisher. Requests for permission should be addressed to Abingdon Press, P.O. Box 801, 201 Eighth Avenue South, Nashville, TN 37202-0801, or e-mailed to permissions@abingdonpress.com.

      This book is printed on acid-free paper.

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Harnish, James A.

      Radical renovation : living the cross-shaped life : a Lenten study for adults / James A. Harnish.

      p. cm.

      ISBN 978-0-687-64548-0 (pbk. : alk. paper)

      1. Bible. N.T. Mark--Devotional literature. 2. Lent--Meditations. I. Title.

      BS2585.54.H37 2008

      242'.34--dc22

      2007031364

      Scripture quotations, unless otherwise noted, are taken from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, copyright © 1989, by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission.

      Scripture quotations marked (GNT) are from the Good News Translation in Today's English Version—Second Edition. Copyright © 1992 by American Bible Society. Used by permission.

      Scripture quotations marked (The Message) are from THE MESSAGE. Copyright © Eugene H. Peterson, 1993, 1994, 1995. Used by permission of NavPress Publishing Group.

      08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 — 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

      MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

      In memory of Glenn Jackson,

      for whose life, faith, and friendship,

      I sing a broken hallelujah

      Contents

      Ash Wednesday

      Introduction

      First Week in Lent

      Discipleship: The Design of the Cross-Shaped Life

      Second Week in Lent

      Servanthood: A Peculiar Way to Greatness

      Third Week in Lent

      Surrender: Nothing Short of Everything

      Fourth Week in Lent

      Love: The Radical Center

      Fifth Week in Lent

      Reconciliation: Something That Doesn't Love a Wall

      Holy Week

      Sacrifice: It's Nothing if It Costs Nothing

      Easter

      Hope: He Goes Before You!

      Ash Wednesday

      Introduction

      Ty Pennington, the hunky, hyperenergetic host of the television show Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, was in our neighborhood recently. He brought his construction crews and television cameras to Tampa's Davis Islands to build a new home for the Tate family just a few blocks away from our parsonage. The Tates lost everything they owned when a small, private airplane skidded off the runway at the Peter O. Knight Airport and exploded in flames in their living room.

      The rebuilding of the Tate home followed the familiar pattern of the television show. First, the Extreme Makeover producers find a family who are in desperate need of a new home but utterly incapable of providing it. Then the designers go to work behind the scenes to prepare everything for the week of construction. In this case, it involved major cooperation with the city to resolve permit and design issues related to the risks of hurricane and flood damage. The actual work begins when Ty sends the family off for a week's vacation and calls in the bulldozers to tear down the old house. By the end of the week, the new Tate home was completed. The show always ends with laughter, tears, and shouts of joy as the family moves into their renovated home to live their lives in a whole new way.

      Extreme Makeover: Home Edition provides a powerful metaphor for the kind of radical renovation that God intends to do in each of our lives. In the fourth century, Saint Augustine looked at the wreck he had made of his life and prayed,

      The house of my soul is too small for you to enter: make it more spacious by your coming. It lies in ruins: rebuild it. Some things are to be found there which will offend your gaze; I confess this to be so and know it well. But who will clean my house? To whom but yourself can I cry? (The Confessions; page 6)

      As a Shakespeare fan, I still prefer the way the Elizabethan version of that prayer captures the urgency of it: Narrow is the mansion of my soul; enlarge Thou it, that Thou mayest enter in. It is ruinous; repair Thou it!

      Talk about a radical renovation! God intends nothing less than the total reconstruction of our lives, so that we can become the kind of people in whom the living Christ can take up residence and through whom the Kingdom—the redemptive reign, loving purpose, and saving will of God revealed in Jesus Christ—can become a tangible reality in this world. The promise is that when God rebuilds the house of our lives, it will perfectly fulfill the design God intended for us from the beginning. St. Paul used construction imagery to describe God's intention for us when he said that in union with Christ, we are being "built together with all the others into

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