Story :: Chris Seay

Chris Seay founded Ecclesia in 1999 with his wife Lisa and brother Robbie Seay in Houston, TX. This missional community houses a fair trade coffee shop, bookstore, organic food market, recording studio, art gallery, music venue, and a number of community events. Chris is the author of several books including The Gospel According to Tony Soprano, The Gospel Reloaded, Faith of My Fathers, The Last Eyewitnesses, and The Voice of Romans. He is also behind The Voice, which teaches the Bible in the narrative as the story of God.

• People love to fight over the Bible.
• Many of the examples we’ve been given have been combative.
• We need to come a place where love the Bible not as an object that informs us, but something that points us to a loving relationship with a loving God.
• Words only point us someplace.
• We’re called to tell the creation story, instead we fight over how long a day is.
• Creation is one of the most beautiful stories ever told.
• There’s 2 accounts of creation in Genesis… God speaking and God stepping in.
• In John there’s another account.
• The logos is the forming point of all creation.
• It’s like fire… moving, active, forceful, beautiful.
• The Word is active.
• John’s account of creating centers around Jesus.
• We fight over what a day is or if there were dinosaurs,
• All things that exist are in Christ.
• God is the cosmic force that has created all things… let us tell you the story.
• We need to reach the narrative of Scripture, not just the propositions of it.
• We are shaped and made by other people’s stories in our lives.
• Too often we read the Scripture like it’s someone else’s story that we can get some good information out of it.
• We oftentimes read it actively so we can learn how to argue with people.
• The Bible is not your sword to pick up and hit people with – it’s meant to do surgery on our hearts.
• It reveals our need for a rescuer.
• It’s not meant to inform our ideas.
• The way we teach history is very broken.
• We are totally, completely focused don the proposition.
• We gear our learning around propositions.
• We forget them.
• We miss the story.
• Propositions will not save you.
• Check out the book Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts
• You can’t tell a story.
• You need to tell a story that invites people into inquiry.
• Explore tensions in the story so students will want to research and investigate.
• Jesus told stories that humbled people.
• We summarize Jesus’ stories in to three propositions.
• Jesus tells a beautiful story that invites us into it.
• We need not propositionalize everything.
• The logos is what we are called to engage.
• We thrive together on mission; we wither in anger, dissent and institutionalism.
• Matthew 11 – Jesus tells us to take His yoke.
• There’s a yoke that’s been created for us.
• We’re not tired for doing the right things; we’re get tired by doing the wrong things.
• There’s life and vitality found when you are doing things with Jesus at the center of them.
• Jesus needs to be at the center.
• Every social concern is an opportunity for God to be about His business of restoring what is broken.
• We need to engage, not just write checks.
• We are called to engage in restorative work.
• There is life in doing God’s work.
• As we put a yoke on us, something comes alive within us.
• There is no one more inclusive than Jesus.
• We must call sin, sin.
• We like the BIG sins… but we can’t point out a sin and say you have to get it together before you can come.
• We can only deal with sin and restoration in the place of community.
• Until we bring the whole Gospel to the whole world we’ve missed something significant and beautiful.

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