This morning I was listening to AM talk radio and stumbled upon a Christian channel. I decided to give it a listen and was amazed and appalled at the content. An older man was talking on the subject of having worn knees from prayer. He mentioned that if we were really honest, we’d all say that prayer is work and unnatural and not fun. He also said that he used to see people with holes, rips, and tears in their jeans and assume they didn’t have enough money for nice jeans, he recently realized that this is a fashion/stylish thing. He then said ‘what if Christians all had holes in their jeans at the knee area from praying so much’. Probably the only thing I actually positively took away from the listen was when he said that prayer was the way Jesus stayed connected to God while on earth and how it’s our way to connect with God now. That prayer is not an emotional response, it is communication.
I was discouraged to hear the next speaker come on to blatantly bash the Democratic Party; he said things that really made my blood boil. It’s like I time warped back about 15-20 years when my world was so small. I related more with the hypocritical Christians than the rest of the world. I am so thankful to have had some eye opening experiences in my life. I get so sad when I hear Christians bad mouthing any particular group of people. I really don’t think that we are here on this earth to tell people what they should and should not do. I earnestly believe that God wants us to show love and grace and mercy and for us to mirror his Son’s earthly life.
This is why a missional and incarnational approach can be so effective. When we are not judging people and their sin, when our focus isn’t numbers or finances or programming, we can step away from all of the weight that the ‘American Church’ has put on Christianity and simply build relationships. And then…a more natural and organic phenomenon can manifest.
