For the second time in as many weeks I have heard someone say that it is not Jesus that they have a problem with…..it's Christians.
Ouch!! Nothing hurts like a kick to the groin.
What are we doing wrong?
In his book Irresistible Revolution, Shane Claiborne details a case where an old rundown church building that was no longer occupied by a church, had turned into a favorite place for some homeless people to escape the elements. The city was going to kick them all out and it was getting some media attention. It also got the attention of some local Christians, who one night dropped off a box of microwave popcorn. Like the homeless people have a microwave. We are so out of touch with the world it's sick.
We spend so much time trying to present ourselves as Holy. We pretend like our life is a bowl of cherries. We don't have a care in the world because we know Jesus. We dress up for Sunday service in suits and ties so that any lost person who comes in the door in search of the "Truth", instantly feels out of place, and we achieve our goal of not allowing any outsiders into our clique. We don't go into bars because we are afraid of what people might think of us if they were to drive by and see us going in. Notice that by doing so we will never have to get into a conversation with anyone else at the bar and have to give them the reason that we have hope! We pray loudly and use large churchy words to demonstrate to others around us that we are extremely close to God.
We go into Caribou coffee and buy our latte and sit in the comfy chair and pull out our mega sized Bible so that everyone within a 2 mile radius will know what we are reading, and we plant our nose in it so deeply that we can't notice the lady 2 tables away, crying.
So now we have a choice to make. We either continue to read our Bible,
or
We stop reading our Bible and start acting on what we have been reading……and care for His children. Perhaps then we give people one less reason to hate Christians.
