I blogged a while back on Hollywood pursuing the Christian dollar. And after hearing about it again this morning on the news, I’m just mad. What have we done as Christians to be viewed as a dollar demographic of people?

Is it even good that we’re viewed as a demographic. It makes us sound more like lambs for the slaughter than roaring lions. We are no longer viewed as dangerous individuals tirelessly pursuing Christ and giving our lives over to saving a lost world. No, we’ve become a buying class of people. Are we dangerous? No.

How does the world percieve us? Well, we’re PG and family wholesome. We buy nice clean things that make us feel nice and clean. We have let ourselves become stereotyped and neutered.

Where are our Christian testicles!?! They were lopped of long ago. I want to be a scary hairy smelly man crying out in the wilderness like John the Baptist. I don’t want be Ned Flanders.

Hollywood sees us as just another group to market and milk for cash. They don’t fear the message we have to offer. The smile, nod their heads and then give us what we want as we call it a victory for Christians!They set the trends (take the cash) and we dutifully follow.

The guys at the XXXchurch.com website use the phrase, “If Satan’s a pimp, don’t be his hoe.” Well are we hoe-ing ourselves out for a better life? To fit in? To be comfortable?

What has been lost? Too much.

How do we get it back? That’s something I’m trying to figure out, seeking it in prayer and practice.

So how about you? How does this make you feel?

Authenticity. It’s a word that’s been hitting me for the past few months. So what does it mean to be authentic (or mainly an authentic Christian)?

 Hebrews 4:13 says that “nothing in all creation can hide from Him. Everything is naked and exposed before His eyes.”

So why are we incapable of being authentic? Fear of shame, embarrassment? Maybe.

I think it goes beyond that. Granted, Adam and Eve eating from the apple shattered true authenticity and lead to us all covering up. There’s a deeper message here. 1) Satan tempted Eve to eat the apple. Shame and distance (from God and man) resulted from it. So then I could say that 2) Satan uses our fear of intimacy to keep us from truly having fellowship with others. Isn’t that his paramount goal? Separate us from God and other believers? There’s safety in numbers and when we stray too far from the herd, we’re toast.  

So then, is true authenticity acutally true oneness (with God or others)?

Agree? Disagree?

What is your definition of authentic?

I’ve noticed a trend lately. There seems to be a shift in God’s people. I’ve ranted on how I’m tired of seeing sleepy Christians, but I’m beginning to see some people awaken. Revival needs to happen and all it takes is prayer, faith and a spark. It feels like there’s plenty of gas laying around, we just need a match. I’ve seen signs of life, just no one rousing it and shepherding it. There’s no one leading the charge.So where are you out there? Are you going to be one of the grumblers (like I am most of the time) or are you going to get on your knees to pray and then do something about it.

I sat in church on Sunday morning utterly dismayed at what I was hearing. We had a guest speaker, a man raised in Mormonism who later converted to Christianity. I entered this morning with eager anticipation because we had with us a Mormon girl who has been involved in our ministry. I expected this to be a time where here eyes were opened to see the truth. What I got was a bitter man, hell bent on bashing a cult.  

As a church did we need a message that Mormons were bad and not Christians? I’d hope as a church that we’d have a firm grasp on that (if not, we’re in trouble). All I saw a man who built walls of bitterness and pompous religiosity.

I started praying for this girl, especially as she left about 20 minutes in to his talk - though I can’t say that I blame her for leaving. While praying the Lord reminded me that to reach Mormons (or any lost person) we must reach their hearts and not attack their religion or beliefs.

In this search for being right or righteous, have we lost our love and compassion? Christ was both truth and love. If we only take one of those we are in danger of making our own false beliefs. And if we do that, are we that much worse than any cult we so easily bash?

Ah yes, the colors of fall… they are coming. I’ve already noticed the shorter days, the cooler weather - so I’m bummed out. Fall is nice, but it’s often times pretty short and rolls directly into winter - which is not good. I’m a guy what would be content to wear sandals, t-shirt and shorts year round and winter really cramps my style (though I rebel against it and wear them anyway and then usually get sick). Winter is my nemesis! Snow isn’t good for anything other than wiping your bottom in the backwoods when the toilet paper has run out. But that’s a whole other story which I can share sometime if you like. It’s quite brisk and refreshing if I might add.

But back on topic. So what are your thoughts about the impending doom of encroaching winter? Or are you excited that fall is here? Thoughts… Comments…. Good fall memories….

School is back in today and in the high school the freshmen go back a day early so they can adjust to the new life in high school with out the stress of upper classmen. I remember being terrified my first day of high school, but that’ was part of the initiation of the whole thing. It was something that needed to be done, a rite of passage. We’ve become so soft handed we want our kids to avoid living life. We are a society that’s working to crank out weenies.

The bruises and bumps are all apart of shaping us. Fear can be a good thing. There are people that are good in life and there are people that are bad. We all have to deal with both of them as we meander through this world.

There are times in my life that I’ve had the hell scared out of me, but it had been essential. Life isn’t easy and the sooner we let our youth figure that out and experience it, the better. I work with youth and hear parents constantly complain that ‘Johnny isn’t responsible’ or ‘he doesn’t take anything seriously.’ We hide these kids from life and then get mad that they act the way we want them to. It’s like a parent taking a kid to a pool for the first time and expecting them to know how to swim. The parent gets more and more angry and the kid has no idea why and no idea how to swim. Life doesn’t happen by osmosis. We’re not called to blindfold kids until they finish college, then expect them to deal with it.

If we never treat them like anything other than pets, what do you expect. And you disagree? I see the way parents treat kids and it’s not much different than a Labrador. Feed, give them what they want to keep quiet, put them in front of an xbox and start all over the next day. As long as they don’t inconvenience me, then they must be fine. These kids are human beings, if we never let them come face to face with real issues - what do you expect to happen?

We are doing a disservice to them.  Now, I’m not a sadist wanting to see them put through the ringer. I just want to seem them allowed to feel and experience the highs and lows of life, not some Prozac or Ritalin induced happy middle ground. And this is how we’re teaching them from the ground up. Little league baseball games don’t have scores. You know what? People win and people lose, that’s a fact of life. No one enjoys losing, but it pushes you to win the next time. 

Let the freshmen feel the fear of the first day of school. Let the kids feel the sting of loss. So much greatness is bourn from pain or failure. If we continue to pad the world around this upcoming generation, the future looks bland. And nothing really great comes from blandness. I for one don’t want to hand it over the future to a bunch of bland weenies. 

Tell me I’m way right. Tell me I’m way wrong. Just tell me something. 

Madness

Yes that’s what I’m swimming in at the moment. Or no, it’s actually it’s more like treading water - swimming implies that there’s movement in our situation (which there is not). We turned in all of our information to the mortgage company over a month ago. So when do they begin to process the application… 2 days before closing! That’ s right. We’re in the 11th hour and scrambling. So when do we find out about all of this, yesterday! Moving trucks are booked. People to help moving are all set in motion. At this moment, it doesn’t look like it’s going to be ready in time. Arg!

So my choice: 

(a) pull out my hair (a difficult prospect due to the fact of short, short hair)

(b) cry and whine about it (aside from ranting in a blog)

(c) get mad and yell (I’m too tired for that) 

(d) find peace in the chaos 

So amongst the madness I choose to find peace in this. I know that we have done all there is to be done. The rest will happen in God’s timing. We’ve been in the process of looking for housing for over 2 years, so I’m done with being frustrated with this situation. My mantra: peace, peace, peace. (Or at least that’s what I’m repeating over and over to myself).  We’ll see how this works its way out.

If I’m blogging from a fetal position tomorrow, that’ll be your answer.