A little more (or a little less) grace.

So I'm still wading gradually through Philip Yancey's Vanishing Grace. For books that are not gripping, without a professional pressure to read and that I yet feel the need to be educated by, my approach is to read a couple of sections at a time occasionally during dinner.

You're still reading it? Really?

Yup. I'm hesitant to describe this as a book that's life-changing, because that carries entirely the wrong connotations - and as you can tell, it's easy to put down - yet this is also partially true. I'm aware that my approach to those I disagree with is not always gracious, and the book has certainly been causing me to consider ways in which I might be different, just as John Bevere's book on offence made me reconsider how I prayed for those who appeared to want to hurt me.

So there's a learning going on.

I'm also acutely aware that as Christians we need to be reaching out, being Jesus in the places we are, and in those circumstances relying on the Thumper principle isn't enough to look like Christ. How would Jesus encourage people, affirm them, build them up? How would he speak life to someone who was revelling in their sin?

I'm not there yet.