Rob Bentz laughs kindly at the question. When did you know you were called to God?

It turns out that being chosen by God isn’t a Cecil B. DeMille production: puffy clouds, rays of golden light, angels playing harps and a wise, bearded deity reaching out to shake Bentz’s hand.

Bentz – a pastor at Woodmen Valley Chapel – was called by simply reading Scripture.

“When you respond to the call of the Gospel, that’s when God adds you to his community,” says Bentz, author of “The Unfinished Church,” his first book.

That notion is central to his book, which explores the nature of the church, Christians’ relationship with it and the importance of being Christlike in your everyday life.

Many Christians, he said, go to church because that’s what you do on Sunday or that’s where your friends are. They’re Christian because their parents were. And for others it’s “I’m spiritual, but I don’t really go to church.”

“There is a role and responsibility to being part of God’s church,” says Bentz, 44, a husband and father of two. “People say, ‘I can be a buddy with Jesus and I can do my own thing.’ That certainly fits with the Colorado view of life, but I think that’s a problem. In our culture, we don’t have a solid, biblically rooted, theologically rooted understanding as to what the church is.”

Be a follower in the church or you’re not a chosen one sounds pretty cut-and-dried.

“You know, in the midst of that, I would offer a measure of grace,” says the Michigan native, laughing. As he says several times during the interview, “I don’t want to seem arrogant.

“I don’t think I’m any better than anyone else. I can speak to that very directly. I’m not. For whatever reason, God has called me to himself and in that, given responsibilities to respond to his faith and to see him in me. The church is not called to be a unique club.”

As he talks, you can hear his conviction, especially when he talks about kindness, forgiveness and human failings.

“When you go back to Scripture, he (Jesus) says, you are here to be a blessing to other people,” he starts. “Lots of times, though, Christians don’t represent Christ well. I really wanted to write a book that says, hey, we need to recognize that we’re broken and that we have a responsibility to represent Christ and be a blessing to others, (as well as) who we are and how do we live that out in a world that is skeptical.”

He telegraphs some of that profound message through pop culture references, such as the NFL draft as an analogy for being called or scenes in the recent film “Les Misérables” as an example of redemption.

“I’m a normal guy. I watch movies. I follow my favorite sports team. I listen to popular music. I think that’s one of the things that I hope people can connect with – that it’s not a lofty exercise from a monastery or somewhere. It’s a book from real life, from living in our world, living in our culture. I can’t really be a blessing if I’m disengaged from our culture.”