rob bell’s new nooma video

As I’ve confessed before, I have this weird “thing” where my preference is to read mostly dead folks. So, I can devour C.S. Lewis, Augustine, Nouwen, St. Teresa of Avila, Martin Luther King Jr., Lesslie Newbigin, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, etc. but I have a hard time enjoying contemporary authors that are loved by others: Piper, Bell, Marva Dawn, McLaren, Lauren Winner, McManus, D. Miller, and others.

N.T. Wright, Eugene Peterson, and Scot McKnight may be the few exceptions but I’m making a conscious effort to do away with my dead author thing. For example, I’m reading some Lauren Winner since Quest will be hosting her for a conference in October; Wounded Heart of God by Andrew Sung Park [again], and I’m also beginning to engage Rob Bell’s writings. As I get familiar with Bell’s stuff, I’m beginning to realize why he’s so influential - there’s clearly more than hype and rhetoric. There’s great substance in his writing and theology.

Having said that, I also viewed my first Nooma video today on Facebook. For 48 hours only [You’ve got about a day left], enjoy the online premiere of Open, the newest film in our series with Rob Bell. View the video free on Facebook. Again, well produced but good substance:

Many of us have experienced situations where we’ve prayed and it felt like God wasn’t listening. And yet other times we’ve prayed or known someone that prayed and the situation changed. Does God answer prayer? Sometimes, but not all the time? Or does God always answer prayer and it’s just that sometimes God says no? Some of us are angry with God for not answering the prayers we’ve prayed for years. Why did he answer their prayer but not ours? What if there’s more to prayer than just God listening and answering? Maybe if we understood how Jesus prayed, our concepts and expectations of prayer would change.