First Post

I had a lot of thoughts for what this could be about, but I think the most authentic thing to do would be to pursue what's on my mind at the moment.

You've been warned.

I've given a lot of thought lately to church and culture, and how the two interact. This is due in no small part to my wife, Elise, who challenges me pretty frequently to think harder about a lot of things. Somehow this morning while we were both getting ready for work, the conversation drifted to how I feel church interacts with western culture, which in turn has taken me into a whole new thought! And it's about this:

Do you actually know anyone who has ever suddenly just realized God doesn't exist?

I mean, stop and think. When I was a youth pastor, I dedicated endless resources to making sure that the teens in my youth group knew how to think. The big trend in a lot of churches these days, thanks in no small part to Focus on the Family, is "Worldview." A lot of people are investing a lot of money, time, and energy into making sure that their young people (and a lot of their old people!) are learning how a Christian should view the world. This typically, but not always, begins with learning creationism, moves to making sure the Bible can be trusted, and then lands somewhere around why you should vote Republican. (That last one's a joke. Sort of.)

But how much is it helping?

Stop and think really hard...I'm not saying it's impossible, but how many people do you really know that just one day realized that God doesn't really exist, or if God does then its as some sort of distant, uninterested deity that wouldn't possibly deny us heaven (as if that's the point) as long as we tried really hard to be a decent person the majority of the time. How many people went to a biology class, learned about the theory of evolution, and walked out convinced God is a myth? I'm not saying those people aren't out there, but I'd be shocked to learn that they're the majority.

A quick survey of former Christians I know, and of confirmed atheists doesn't turn up many people who had an intellectual crisis. The vast majority of people who find the Bible and its tenets so unbelievable are people who watched Christians behave contrary to the Bible.

At the end of the book of John, Jesus, in his last recorded prayer, drops some extreme wisdom on us. (John 17) He prays, "May they be united, just as you and I are united, so that the world will know that you have sent me."

Chew on that. Jesus didn't pray that we have the right worldview, or that we have a stellar understanding of the Bible, or that we operate a flawless outreach program. He prayed that we'd be united. That we'd love each other. And that through that, the world would believe. Maybe the thing that an unbelieving world needs isn't a lecture on the outlandish claims of Darwin, the immorality of modern lifestyles, or the importance of trickle down economics. Maybe what the unbelieving world needs is to see believers who live out what Jesus said, who don't treat, "Love thy neighbor," as a suggestion, or a secondary doctrine to be debated after things like order of worship or who can speak at what time.

I could rant and rave all day, but I'll close simply with this: It's not that the things we emphasize in our churches are wrong; it's that they're not right enough. This isn't a matter of right thing, wrong thing, it's a matter of Christ's priorities or our own. My prayer for you, dear reader, is that you will prioritize the things of Christ this week, and focus on loving others, and letting that speak loudest about the reality of a God who loves you.