Before I get really wound up here, it's important for me to point out that I see this in myself as much as in anyone else. If you feel like I'm talking about you or you feel guilty about what you read, maybe that's the Holy Spirit prompting you about something. Maybe that's an arrogant way to start out, but it's only going to go downhill from here.
I'm tired. I'm tired of the things that I read about Christians. I'm tired about the things I hear about Christians. I'm tired about the things I watch about Christians. For the most part, we have become nothing but a joke to the rest of society. Why? Because we aren't relevant. We are content to stay in our little Christian subculture and talk about happy things. We aren't willing to shake things up, to become controversial in the right ways. The world sees us as hypocrites and rightly so. We want our kids to be sheltered from the bad things of this world, and in doing so we undermine their effectiveness in reaching that world when they come of age.
This is nothing that hasn't been said before. I'm not the first to think these things. I'm sure I'm not the first to write them down. What we need in this world is a true revival, but not a revival in the sense of bringing people to Jesus. A revival in ourselves, in our own churches. How can we show Jesus to someone when we don't know Jesus all that well ourselves? Mohandas Ghandi said it best when he stated, “I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” Is that an overused quote? Maybe. But it's TRUE. We aren't like Christ. We may emulate some of the words Christ spoke. We may think some of the things Christ thought. But we so very rarely do the things Christ did. And that is where we fail.
In Matthew 28:19-20, Jesus says:
“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
Are we doing that? Are we making disciples or are we making converts? What's the difference? According to the American Heritage Dictionary, disciples are:
a. One who embraces and assists in spreading the teachings of another
b. An active adherent, as of a movement or a philosophy
Disciples are those who are taught the Word and can then go out and teach the Word. This implies knowledge of the Bible, of theology, knowledge that many today don't have. We don't make disciples, we make converts. Making a convert means “to cause to adopt a different religion, political doctrine, opinion, etc.” Simply adopting, not someone who embraces. Jesus isn't looking for converts, he's looking for disciples. People who are willing to stand up and possibly be shot down over His name.
Why am I ranting about this now? Because it's really hitting home to me at this point in time. I'm tired of being lukewarm, of being afraid to defend my faith. I'm also tired of being part of an American church that is more concerned with bringing in the already converted than reaching out to those who are lost. We would rather have get-togethers and parties and lightweight studies than something that really digs into the meat of Christianity. I recently finished a couple of theology books that really got me to thinking about why we as a church do what we do.
I'm going to say again that I'm the biggest hypocrite out there. I do the same things, fall into the same traps.
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