I’d meant to blog about this months ago, but ended up distracted and inevitably forgot and moved on… God’s just reminded me in the lovely way that he does sometimes whilst I’m on the train from Sheffield to Liverpool and so I thought I’d blog away whilst I have the chance.
I was reflecting on when I was a teenager and first really got into events and the Christian sub-culture that I find so aggravating and fascinating and about the major mission statement that my Christian friends and i lived out in those years. Often, I have the privilege of teaching, preaching, discerning the direction and messages that God wants to speak at events, and along with the fun and privilege of that, I’m also greatly aware of that responsibility. For all the negative consumer connections, I still think there is so so much worth in conferences like new wine, spring harvest, soul survivor and the like, to excite, enthuse, teach and really demonstrate to those around us what it is to really follow Jesus, and it’s very exciting to be involved in leading the next generation.
So it gets me thinking about the message, the mission statement we bring. For me this year, I thought new wine really hit the mark by looking at Luke 4 and the core manifesto that Jesus had. We took the focus away from the big ol’ club of Christians, we’re safe here, mentality… away from teachings on how to receive what YOU need from God, and really focused on the poor, the needy, the imprisoned, the hungry, the real good news of the gospel… and I hope and pray that the 1000 or so young people who heard that message for a week will have had their lives utterly transformed, and their perception of being a Christian turned on its head.
But back to my old youth group… and most I ever met.
If I think about it, one of the overwhelming messages that we lived by.
“Lets show people that Christians are normal”.
We spent so much time, energy, events, missions, and conversations trying to show our friends that us Christians, we’re normal really. Yeah we love God and believe in that guy Jesus, but we’re normal honestly, we shop in the same places you do, we listen to the same kind of music (its just ours is written by this guy called Tim Hughes) we still go out, we still have fun… we’re just like you really….
And we wonder why people weren’t interested.
We spent so long showing how the jesus life doesn’t cost that much, at being normal to not put people off, that we squashed the jesus life into our normal lives, when really we needed to mould our normal lives into the radical jesus life that we’re called to lead.
It upsets me so much every time I hear someone describe being a Christian as “well that’s fine for you, its just not for me” like it’s the difference between shopping in Primark or not. The idea that it’s a lifestyle option to be fitted in where applicable, that “its up to you really” and that this has seeped down into our ideology.
We spent so long trying to prove that we’re really normal, that we lost almost everything that made us different.
We tried to sell Jesus in acceptable, unobtrusive packaging, when the whole point is that he’s anything but that.
We decide that people may just fall into the Jesus life because its not obtrusive, rather than living our lives in a way that utterly provokes and confuses. If we honestly and truly lived the Jesus life, we should be so utterly different to our society. Our values and attitudes and activities should be so different that it calls people to see that there is more to life.
Following Jesus should massively change the food we buy, the places we go, the films we see… by making ourselves just like everyone else, we lost so much of the essence that made the Jesus life special, that made it a worthwhile decision.
When did controversial become a bad thing?
I was provoked and reminded about all this today when reading Shane Claiborne’s difference between normal and ordinary.
We are ordinary; we’re not exceptional except that we have the Living God working within us daily. But we are never normal… we are never the secular option, never accepting “that’s the way it is”, but constantly embracing the abnormality that living for Jesus brings.
God, help me to never ever be normal. And NEVER make you normal.
