the point: reasons to not hate Christ-ianity

so i recently wrote a 5 part ‘reasons to hate Christianity’ blog series which was (for those who read it) intended to be a tongue-in-cheek statement on some of the basic things Christianity is actually meant to be about – things like love and forgiveness and looking after people in need which are all things that actually no-one in their right mind would hate…

but yet people hate christianity and have issues with the church… therefore there must be a problem somewhere…

james writes this, “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says!”

and i think that’s it. we don’t. well maybe not all of us, but enuff of us to give people outside of the church the idea that it is not the predominant thing we are about

in fact Jesus said this, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this SHALL ALL MEN KNOW THAT YOU ARE MY DISCIPLES, if you love one another.” [John 13.34-35]

so why is it that the church is more often known for being judgmental, or anti-gay, or greedy and wanting all of your money, or hypocritical and so on… cos i think that is why people hate christians and fear or despise the church…

as my friend kleinfrans once said ‘the God i believe in is not the God you don’t believe in’ and i think that’s really true and the krux of it – people are against Christianity and the Christian God only because the witness and example they have had (from God representatives) have been so bad

Jesus Christ issued this hardcore challenge to those who would be part of His team – “If anyone wants to follow Me, He must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me.” [Luke 9.23]

when Christ is at the centre of Christianity then it works – then it attracts – then it heals – then it brings together – then it uplifts – then it unites

and so as Christians, or my more favoured term Christ-followers (which implies that we do) cos there are so many different people calling themselves christian who are so badly not-representative of who the name is meant to be all about, we need to be the love and the grace and the forgiveness and the uplifting that it as all about

then maybe we can start introducing people to a God they are in fact desperate to believe in.

[to see the start of the series ‘Reasons to Hate Christianity’ click here]

free, free, i’m free…

arr, so last nite of crew before baptist summer camp 1 (1000ish young people) arrive and my friend Craig Fincham leads a devotion/crew-building moment and confesses some stuff to the team and God who has been loudly whispering (well i have been incessantly converting His calls to a whisper so as not to pay too much attention to them) to me decides this is a moment of truth (MOT) moment to SCREAM at me – okay buddy, choose this day whom you will serve… i knew i had to and it sucked a lot (cos of the impending disappointment and hurtment that i knew tbv would experience and of course – once again – the embarrassment of not being big or strong or real enuff with this thing i’ve been struggling with for most of this last year, or maybe more accurately not ‘struggling with’…

and so i had to (take 2) confess that once again i got caught up in online pokering and while last time i confessed i left a back door which enabled me to fairly easily slide back into it, i knew this time it had to be kill kill kill (which is not easy cos i really enjoyed playing online and it gave me both an escape and an outlet for my competitive vibes) and so i have come home and deleted the software, this time with the knowledge that i cannot start again if… it is gone, finished, and i know that it won’t be a problem again in that regard cos the only reason it was able to become a problem again was cos i left a backdoor…

and so it was tough and it sucked to have to admit to her i’d been caught up in it again, but at the same time it was amazing and incredible and much needed and it really was (again, you’d think i would have learned last time) like getting a huge chunk of my life back again (and time which i need for book-writing so super stoked and excited for everything the time will free me up to be and do) and it was SO INCREDIBLY TIMED cos i knew deep within that as much as i was ready for summer camp and the workshops i had prepared and to serve and so on, that i wasn’t and i absolutely needed that moment to happen so i could stand in front of 1500 young people absolutely compromise free and not hiding my secret sins while admonishing them to be free of theirs.

burden lifted. thank you God. thank you lovely wife for your grace and forgiveness and lack of judgement.

thank you God for 15th chances… help me not to need a 16th… free me from my addictive personality that quickly gets my feet wrapped up and entangled with sin or distractful things which masquerade as not sin.

hebrews 12.1-3 starts with ‘therefore since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw of everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles…’