Escaping the Christian Subculture

I recently finished a book called They Like Jesus But Not The Church, by Dan Kimball. The thrust of the book makes the case that because of our rapidly changing culture, we have now become the missionaries to a younger generation of people who have no idea what Christianity is...except for what they see and hear. There is a stern rebuke in the book concerning the failure on our part to become missionaries, but instead, to have retreated into our self-imposed Christian bubble.

I have been grossly convicted ever since.

A few weeks after I finished the book, two college students stopped by the church office and let loose a barrage of questions they had in their struggle with Christianity. One of those struggles was being stiff-armed by our "Christian subculture," which they felt was keeping them from even being able to view what a relationship with Jesus is all about. They WERE curious...but it was us (as a whole) that excluded them.

I am trying to imagine what a non-christian must see when they look in at us, and after I peeled away my sense of pride, I saw a group of people who hang out together, do everything together, wear christian t-shirts like this one...

...listen to christian music, go to christian events (with christians), lock ourselves in churches, and hang out with christians. And all of this seems to happen EXCLUSIVELY with Christians. When was the last time I hung out with a non-believer? When was the last time I took a non-christian out for coffee just to get to know them? Why do we wear WWJD bracelets with such pride, as if wearing them so loudly will minister more to the passing skeptics than will a sincere "Hi, how was your day?"

Those two college students are going to give the college ministry a shot. God forgive me if I ever approach them with some sort of 'holier-than-thou' gimmick. And I do pray God will have mercy on me for all the times that I've already done that.

In painful contrast to my past behavior, Jesus emptied himself of every privilege that was rightfully his when he came for me (Phil. 2:6-8). And He is God in the flesh. Oh crap.
In a culture that is so open to the person of Jesus Christ, it would seem that we as Christians have a huge responsibility not to mess that curiosity up.
We are, afterall, the lights of the world (Matt. 4).

"...we have become citizens of the bubble, having lost our understanding that we are missionaries in our culture." -Dan Kimball

The Heavenly Man

...coming soon to Reality Carpinteria.

Visit www.jesusisreality.com for more information.

So faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ. -Rom. 10:17

The Dark Knight

I found amusing the mixed responses I got about the Batman movie that recently came out. Now, I'm not really talking about people's reactions to the movie, I don't much care about that. What I'm talking about is people's various justifications for seeing or NOT seeing the movie. For example,

"It's has a demonic character,"
"It's scary,"
"it's too violent,"
"it's too grotesque."

Really? I've even heard Scripture verses thrown around in support of refraining from what is evil. I love the idea of refraining from evil and clinging to what is good, but what I find amusing is the general consensus of what evil IS. Because if the standard for evil content is demonic characters, intensity, violence, or gross scenes, than that would also exclude a plethora of other films that most of you have watched. For example, Lord of the Rings is full of demon-characters, scary moments, and violence. The objection, of course, would be that Lord of the Rings was written by a godly, well-known author, J.R. Tolkein. Or what about Braveheart? That was far more violent than the Dark Knight ever was- in fact, Dark Knight rarely showed blood, earning it the lower PG-13 rating. Of course, the immediate rebuttal would be the inspirational true-story backing up the utter violence behind the death, fighting, and torture in Mel Gibson's film.

What about the Passion of the Christ? That film is FAR more grotesque, violent, and scary than The Dark Knight could ever dream of being. There's even a demonized character in the film (Satan, actually).
"But...how dare you! THAT film is about Jesus!!
Ah...but it's NOT Jesus. It's James Caviezel acting as Jesus. It's still a film, and we are still filling our minds with vivid imagery. Now what you fill your head with is obviously each persons concern. Indeed, many have all seen that murder of the woman at the stake, the torture of a Scottsman, the violent deaths of all of his men and enemies (Braveheart), flying darkness, hell-fire, giant tarantulas that eat you alive, grotesquely evil monsters that cut up humans (Lord of the Rings) the demonization of babes, the torturous executions by the Romans, and an actual scourging (Passion) and justify it as true, inspirational stories that were written by great men.

But it's ironic to justify the mental intake of that imagery, and then condemn others for watching a comic book story simply because it's fiction.

Fix your standards. Why so serious?

Reality College Ministry network

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Good News - Bad News

The good news is: I'm back!!!!

The bad news is: I feel like my stomach got run over by a truck with all-terrain wheels.


(I missed you!)

Thailand trip!

A few highschoolers and leaders from Reality youth group are going to spend time with our friend Ron and his kids at the orphanage in Thailand. We're leaving this Wednesday, but will be back at the end of the month! While we are there, I will be updating a blog with prayer requests and pictures of our exploits: thaiunit.com.

Much love!
From, the Thai Unit.