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Tuesday, August 08, 2006
Attractive Christianity?
on sunday night, standing around after church, some lady came up and started telling us off for driving down the road very quickly. she said that "you church people come out of your church meetings and go speeding out of the car park and down burmingham road, and quite frankly, we are all sick of it". she walked off for a bit, turned around and came back, and said "you all go to church. you should be ashamed of yourselves".
what struck me as funny was that she had this preconceived idea about what people who go to church should be like. good, moral, law abiding citizens. ones who arent allowed to make mistakes or be.. i guess... 'normal'. and it got me thinking.
what image should we, as a christian body, be presenting to the world. how can we show jesus to everyone else?
what do people really think of the church, and is it our job to make it more desireable to go to church?
there is a verse in the bible, (i cant exactly remember where) where paul (pretty sure its paul) says we have to make our faith more desirable, or where we have to make it more attractive to others. and i think i have struggled with that passage because im not sure where it fits in.
any thoughts?
"salt and light" anyone?
I think that we should be an example of what Jesus did I guess. But I think that often the "you go to church you should be ashamed" line gets thrown around a lot. I used to get told off because I wasnt doing something supposedly "godly" (yet their perception wasnt spot on), people used to try and fit me in their little box of christianity, that "I can do it cos Im not a christian, but you cant because you are" attitude.
I think it is important to ACT like a christian, being "christ-like", for ideas on this, see the bible always, but I also am a bit annoyed with the lady who said this. One day at a church I got told off for driving the wrong way in the carpark (I didnt realise) - wasnt very good image for this church.
Anyway, if this doesnt make sense. Please delete it...
....driving out car parks to fast..... its something all young people do or have done, and many grow out of it quickly but some people feel its there job to stop it
being a good speaker engaging people on issues like this in a converstaion often helps, and normally ends the issue
as for the putting on a christian appearance all the time, thats a dream we all seem to be striving to
Well, for one, we are supposed to be good moral law-abiding citizens if we're Christians...we're called to it. Rom13:1-2. Does that have any standing?
Actions speak louder than words
yeah, but cant we be able to be human too? christians are not above sinning, and even though we are called to be salt and light, i think it might be important to let people know we have faults too, and that yes we do do wrong things and we do sin.
just some thoughts.
