unchristian

Several weeks ago I shared my thoughts about moving beyond a churchianity type of Christianity to practicing faith more focused on joining God in kingdom work. Now a recently released boo titled unchristian points to why this is so important.

The book has research about how the church is viewed in our culture by the prominent Christian researcher George Barna. It reinforces the title of Dan Kimball’s book They like Jesus but not the church. The book and its accompanying web site suggests that the church has an image problem.

 Here are are some snippets

One-fifth of all outsiders, regardless of age, admitted they “have had a bad experience in a church or with a Christian that gave them a negative image of Jesus Christ.” This represents nearly fifty million adult residents of this country-including about nine million young outsiders-who admit they have significant emotional or spiritual baggage from past experiences with so-called Christ followers.

Christians believe the primary reason outsiders have rejected Christ is that they cannot handle the rigorous standards of following Christ. There is a nuance here that allows Christians to feel like they’re better than other people, more capable of being holy and sinless.

Only one out of five outsiders said they perceive Christian churches as loving environments, places where people are unconditionally loved and accepted regardless of how they look or what they do. Surprisingly, fewer than half of churchgoers, including born-again Christians, felt strongly that their church demonstrates unconditional love.

Here are a couple thoughts I have. It is certainly not exhaustive but a starting point.

First I think we need to get over ourselves. We have to get beyond thinking that being the church is about those of us who are in the church. The church exists to serve God by serving the world. Jesus said it clearly he came to serve humanity (Matthew 20:28Matthew 20:28
English: Contemporary English Version (1999) - CEV
28 The Son of Man did not come to be a slave master, but a slave who will give his life to rescue x rescue: The Greek word often, though not always, means the payment of a price to free a slave or a prisoner. many people.

WP-Bible plugin) so as his followers so should we.

Second spend less time trying to figure out who is in and  who is out and focus on doing the things Jesus said connects to him and to God. Like visiting the sick and imprisoned, feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless and clothing the naked. (Matthew 25:31-46Matthew 25:31-46
English: Contemporary English Version (1999) - CEV
The Final Judgment ³¹ a ; b . When the Son of Man comes in his glory with all of his angels, he will sit on his royal throne. ³² The people of all nations will be brought before him, and he will separate them, as shepherds separate their sheep from their goats. ³³ He will place the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. ³⁴ Then the king will say to those on his right,

WP-Bible plugin) Basically being their for the outsiders of our world.

Finally I think we need try to become like Jesus. A middle eastern man who lives a simple live was always working to deepen his connection to God and live out the scriptures. You see I think many in the church have become good a seeing all the flaws in others that will prevent then from going to heaven but we aren’t paying attention to what God is calling us to be as followers of Jesus. Not judges but followers. A recent talk I did at a public forum has gotten me a letter that suggest I am misguided at best and pagan at worst because I practice yoga and we have setup prayer labyrinths.

I wonder where in the scriptures does it say don’t practice yoga that focused our hearts, bodies and spirit on following Jesus or set up prayer labyrinth that deepen our relationship with Jesus our Saviour? However Jesus did tell his followers to leave alone anyone who proclaim the good news of God’s love in his name. (Mark 9:38-41Mark 9:38-41
English: Contemporary English Version (1999) - CEV
For or against Jesus ³⁸ John said,

WP-Bible plugin) That is the difference between being christian and unchristian. What do you think

Tags: churchianity, conversations, faith & culture, spiritual-practice, unchristian