Curbside Prophets (need a real job)

If you are ever tempted to stand up on a public bus to proclaim some aspect of your faith, may I vehemently recommend that you NOT. On my way home from work today, I heard a man sitting a few rows behind me quietly asking the person next to him about Jesus. While I generally find this approach to be obtuse, I could at least initially admire his devotion. Then he addressed the entire bus, proclaiming God's disdain for homosexuality. When challenged on his judgmental attitude, he attempted first to sidestep the attack by claiming that people will sit quietly by when evil is spoken, but suddenly become agitated when truth is spoken. He then spent a few more minutes defending his original statements as non-judgmental before getting off the bus with a final "Jesus loves you all."

In what universe is that an effective approach to witnessing? Regardless of what he was talking about (which I'll post on soon), did he really expect to convince anyone who didn't already agree with him of anything? Did he really think that because of his threats of hellfire another soul would find salvation? Maybe I'm off the mark here, but I see a plethora of problems with this approach. What this gentleman probably believed to be an desperate plea for his beloved brothers and sisters to act in righteousness was at best ineffective, at worst (and much more likely) painfully counterproductive.

First, I would like to point out that it is generally difficult to have a thoughtful exchange of ideas among a large group, unless that group essentially exists for that very purpose. In case it wasn't painfully clear, buses do not exist for that purpose. Most people on the bus would rather keep interaction to an absolute minimum. In fact, this applies to the majority of people in public areas. While plenty are perhaps open to having meaningful discussions, even they are generally offended if you approach them with that assumption in mind. Productive conversations, especially unanticipated ones, are best left to very small groups, such as perhaps the person sitting next to you. I have had plenty of meaningful conversations with the person sitting next to me, but never from a podium.

Second, framing a conversation with threats of hellfire is not likely to win you many supporters. Damnation doesn't scare people who don't believe in it, nor those who don't believe they've done anything wrong. What it will do is indicate that you are more interested in fearmongering than an open discussion of values and ethics, which will cause most people to assume there is no use in attempting to have a meaningful conversation with you. I do believe that there is room for discussion of judgment, but it should generally be left to discussions among Christians, not as a threat against those outside. I could go into a long discussion about "judge not lest ye be judged," but I'll save that for another time.

Third, if something does compel you to loudly proclaim judgment in public, don't claim peoples' negative reaction to your comments as justification. While doing the right thing in many circumstances will get you in trouble, it does not mean that anything which gets you in trouble is the right thing. Yes, the truth will upset people much of the time, but so will lies, personal attacks, ignorance and arrogance, and none of these things merit reward.

I wish to conclude by emphasizing that while faith is absolutely personal, it is certainly not private. It is something to be lived out and discussed, but like so many other things in life, how we choose to live it and discuss it is critically important. I was once on a panel discussing issues facing modern Christianity, and one matter brought to my attention was evangelizing and missions work. While I agreed with the rest of the panel that the Church has a very questionable history in these areas, filled with regrettable and indefensible actions, I made it clear that it is no less crucial now than ever. What Christianity needs is not to abandon all attempts at witnessing out of fear, but to learn new and wholesome ways to show what Christianity is really about. Simply because we can no longer waltz into the marketplace and begin proclaiming the word of the Lord, we should not abandon living as imitators of Christ, seeking to show love and compassion to the world. We need fewer curbside prophets, and more creative ones.

PS: while I don't want to distract people from this blog, I have one of my own which I've been working on for quite some time. While I will post here on occasion, more of my thoughts can be found at http://wannabeprophet.blogspot.com/

Luke

Last night I was sitting around, not playing games, and decided to begin looking into the Bible study that we are doing as a church. We are going to be covering the book of Luke over the next 6 weeks together. Our Pastor took the time to develop a reading plan along with insights and notes to go with it. Today is the first day of reading, but last night I broke out several of the reference books that I have laying around and looked into what we were getting ready to read and found out some interesting things about Luke. Many of you have heard him called the "Great Physician" so you already know that he was a doctor, but did you know he was the only non-Jewish writer of the New Testament and possibly the entire Bible? Here is another one...it is fairly common knowledge that he spent a lot of time going on missionary trips with Paul and spent time in prison with him and was even there at Paul's death more than likely, but did you know that he was not actually around for most of the things that he wrote about? Instead, he used his travels with Paul to interview people that WERE there. I also found out that it is entirely possible that he was able to interview Mary, THE Mary, as well as Jesus brother. How cool would that have been to get insight into Jesus' life by talking to his mother and brother?

Luke has been called one of the most beautiful books ever written. It is the first half of a whole that is finished in Acts. All four gospels seem to have a somewhat specific audience. All four of them tell the same story, although each of them have some new insights. Luke was written to speak to the Greeks. Although it was sent to a high ranking Roman official. The Greeks of this time were interested in culture and beauty and it seemed that Luke was directing his take on the story to them. I find it funny that he was a doctor writing for the upper echelon of people for that day, while sitting in prison (at least that is what many believe). Talk about rising above challenges. The only Gentile in the midst of a group of Jews sitting in prison while writing for some of the most critical people of his time. Kinda puts a new spin on what we consider an underdog.

I am looking forward to getting a fresh new look into Luke and I will more than likely be posting more about it as I go.

40 Days...

So, like many people, I decided to give up something for 40 days during lent. I thought long and hard about something that would impact my life and yet still allow me to function as a normal contributing human being. This means that I was not giving up coffee or caffeine as is popular with many people. I decided instead to give up my online gaming that I had become so fond of. It had become this beast that was eating up hours and hours of my time (my wife is so proud that I am a level 6 favored soul/fighter Drow Elf....). The first day I sat down with my game and gave away all of the seasonal items I had acquired to the first person I found that could use them and shut the game off. Only hours later I was sitting down on the computer and realized that I was going to have to delete the link so that I would not automatically go to that game. It is amazing how our lives get stuck in a rut like that. Something that is completely harmless can become this beast that can suck away at your time energy and willpower. I already got farther along on my chores today that I have in weeks. I spent more time just hanging out and goofing off with my son that we had been for awhile as well. So for those of you that thought that giving up a game for Lent was unworthy of the season, let me assure you that so far it has already caused growth that would not have been there otherwise. I am looking forward to spending the time that I had been using to play my game, working on projects, working on this blog, playing with my son, cuddling with my wife and otherwise being a somewhat normal human being. For those of you who are participating in this Lenton Season, I am praying for you and those around you that this will be a season of growth for everyone.

Welcome to Worship Incorporated

in-cor-po-rat-ed

-adjective

1. combined in one body; made part of.


Welcome to Worship Incorporated.

We are a Group of Bloggers focused on the true act of worshiping Jesus. If you were to ask most people what worship was, they would say something about singing songs in Church. In truth, this is only part of what true worship is. Worship can be reading the Bible, fellowship with other Christians, prayer etc. Every part of our lives can and should be turned into worship. One way that we want to worship in this blog, is to share our stories and teachings from the Bible with people from many different walks of life and backgrounds. Our hope is to gather writers and readers from many different denominations. This may cause differences in theology from time to time, but rest assured that any "disagreements" we may have, we will doing so in love and to try to further our understanding of God's Word. If this sounds like your kind of blog, then come and check us out.