Donald Miller in Dorm Meeting

donald miller @ dorm meeting
Originally uploaded by iBjorn.

Donald Miller (author of Blue Like Jazz and Searching for God Knows What) spoke in chapel. I have been looking forward to this all semester, as I really like his books. It is really weird when you see an author that you have read after you read the book. Initially it is always weird, because they never look like you imagine them. I never really realized this, but as I read I develop this picture in my mind of what the author looks like and I kind of imagine that they are talking to me. If you asked me to describe what the author in my mind looks like I couldn't. Like take Gorman, an author I am reading, I can't describe what he looks like in my mind, but I know I have some image. I never really realized that I did this that much until today. Miller looked totally different from the Miller in my mind. This is why I think that they should put a picture of the author in all of their books. It would make this whole imaginary conversation go a whole lot easier.
It is also weird how much different their writing style is from their speaking style. Miller was a very enjoyable speaker for me. He is real laid back, but still very interesting. It was amazing how quite everyone was while he spoke. He is the favorite author of the college age christian crowd right now. I have also never seen that many people at a Wednesday chapel. Usually the crowd builds up through out the week and climaxes on Friday, but today was almost a Friday crowd.
For chapel he talked about not being ashamed of sharing the gospel. He is great at telling little stories and puts them all through his talk. Tonight he spoke on how the gospel is relational and not a list of ideas. He told a story how he spoke to a class at a Bible College for forty minutes about the gospel and did not mention Jesus once. Afterwards he asked what he had left out and for five minutes the stumbled around and could think of anything. His point is that we have created these lists of what you need to believe to be a Christian and Jesus doesn't even have to be a part of it and Bible College students accept it.
He went on to talk about how the gospel relational and all about becoming one with Jesus. He used this story to demonstrate how scientific lists do not cover everything. He was having coffee with one of his friends and he asked him why he loved his wife. Well, he said, she challenges me intellectually, she is beautiful and she encourages him in his faith. Miller said okay, now what if I found a woman that was more intelligent than your wife, more beautiful and more spiritual than your wife, would you love her. No way he said. Then what is it that makes you love her Miller asked again. It is not something that you can explain in lists was his reply.
The last part of his talk he went through how Romeo and Juliet compares with Christ as Juliet and us as Romeo. He thinks that this is exactly what Shakespeare was trying to do, but I don't know if that is true. I do know though that it does work as a great illustration. I won't explain it to you, because much of it is in his new book. So you can go and read it yourself. Anyways, his visit has been great so far and I am looking forward to chapel tomorrow.