Am I crazy? Or am I passionate? I honestly don’t know. I think I’m crazy passionate, or maybe passionately crazy? Or maybe I’m just really socially inept, lol.
I started to recently think about this when I walked up to a pastor and bluntly asked him if his church had an “unstoppable community”. I mean looking back at this conversation I don’t regret it at all. I thought it was a legitimate question considering the sermon was on the book of Acts and the apostle’s inheritance of an “unstoppable force’. I just wanted to know if the church had a community of people possessing this unstoppable force.
I’m just a really passionate guy. I mean honestly, to say one is a passionless Christian is almost like saying you’re a crippled jogger, it doesn’t make sense, that just can’t be, or at least if it can be I don’t understand it at all. But that’s the thing, have I gone over board recently? Have I entered into the realm of insanity, have I got it all wrong? I mean when I walked up to that pastor I couldn’t help but sense him being slightly freaked out, yeah I know there are a lot of other things that I could have done that freaked him out like my body language, bad breath, extreme good looks… (j/k).
For a non Christian I am led to say, yes I would totally understand why one would be freaked out by such an intense question, but from a Christian’s perspective I believe that a Christian should feel a huge sense of relief or joy that he had found a brother who also wanted to passionately follow Christ. I know that’s how I would feel. Why? Because it seems today that Passionate Christians are becoming few and far apart.
In the churches I’ve attended recently “the normal Christian” is pretty lame. I don’t know, reading the bible and then going to church is like watching an episode of ER, and then actually experiencing an ER off the television screen, they’re nothing alike. (thanks Tyler) This should not be the case when it comes to scripture and church, sometimes I question whether or not we even want the same spirit that the apostles inherited. It’d be to “radical” for us.
I mean the more and more I think about this, the more I begin to think maybe “crazy” is the goal. Just read the book of acts, I mean if we’re going to be honest just read throughout the whole bible, from Noah claiming floods were coming for decades while he built a boat and gathered animals aboard, to the disciples such as Stephen who stood up and infuriated the crowds so deeply that they gnashed their teeth, covered their ears, and ran at him yelling at the top of their voices, and proceeded to stone him to death. But, we (we as in the local churches I’ve worked for and/or attended consistently) have left this all to the “characters of scripture”, we have created buildings and environments that are okay with talking about biblical radicals but not actually becoming a “biblical radical”, because well that’d just be too radical...
What I'm saying is appearing insane, stupid, crazy, or even coming across socially inept goes with being a Christian. I mean much of the bible is going against what we would consider to be "culturally acceptable"... We can't let cultural acceptance take precedance over our walk with Christ... So let's be crazy, insanely, stupid in love with Christ til the point of which it at many times will make us look, socially inept.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
ooo brr... calm down, ok? Let's not "go overboard" here... we Christians hate that. I didn't read this blog to be CONVICTED! HUUUU
I like the analogy of the ER verses the TV show ER.
In my experience though it is often the case that the TV show is HIGHER in excitement than the real thing. I am kind of a wimp (even more so in high school) and i got injured and took maybe four trips to the ER. I probably spent about four to five hours waiting each time for the doctor to visit me which takes about ten minutes and then i am sent home, where i do more time waiting to recover from whatever happened that sent me there in the first place.
In contrast TV emergency rooms provide me with twenty-five to fifty minutes of action packed blood soaked heart wrenching healing and death. often skipping over the waiting or if it is an episode on triage (which it almost never is) it is boiled down to the twenty most exciting minutes leading to a climactic death as a result of so much waiting.
At the same time the TV versions are based on real drama that does, if infrequently, happen in hospitals. My grandfather died in a hospital and i remember visiting him the day or two before. It wasn't high in action but it was high in emotion for an hour. (though this was not the ER).
I think perhaps an equivalence i am more at peace with would be to say that the book of Acts is the TV version. Where the action is all detailed for us and the waiting is either assumed or jotted off in a couple of sentences. While the practice of church community seems to go slower and involve much more waiting.
I also think that while Jesus had three action packed years, they came after thirty rather uneventful ones.
these are some thoughts i had, thanks for the inspiration. And for putting your thoughts out there and inviting us to read them. Keep on running the good race man.
Great post Colin, convicting yet gentle. I 100% agree with what you've said.
Though, I strongly agree with you, the point I want to make, and that I don't want us to miss is that yes, there is much waiting when it comes to community, but when we're asked to do something socially unacceptable, make a stand, or do something "radical" we continue to be stuck within our, "waiting".
I don't want to be mistaken that I believe comfortable community or waiting is wrong, it's obviously not. Although, I do believe it's wrong to ignore a call from Christ because it will cost us social acceptance or make us and/or others feel uncomfortable.
But I do want to encourage brothers and sisters to go ahead and do the socially unacceptable, radical, crazy things that God will most likely call of us at one point or another to do.
So, I guess I'm saying, lets embrace waiting and the uneventful monotony of community while living out the possibly fewer occassions of uncomfortable, socially unaccepable, "crazy" moments God will inevitably call us too.
Being completely in love with Jesus looks crazy to the American Church...Let us start praying for revival in the Church in America...Let the Holy spirit burn in the hearts of each believer and may each follower be crazy in love with Jesus
Post a Comment