on living in a bubble
In recent months, along with the mighty group of women I meet on Monday nights (I wrote about them here!), I have been learning and un-learning many things about discipleship. We have especially delved into what being a faithful disciple looks like and, by extension, what making disciples looks like.
In the process, I have grown increasingly convicted about how insulated I am.
I suppose some people would disagree with this- I live in a largely secular city, have only ever gone to secular schools, count (and love) many secular family members and friends. But, if I am honest, a large percentage of my time is spent with fellow believers, and in Church, doing ministry or working in faith-based contexts.
Moreover, in those moments when I do find myself with people who do not identify as Christians, I tend to avoid gospel conversations (or even remotely spiritual conversations) like the plague. Fear masked by tolerance, you might call it.
How can I purport to care about the Great Commission - the essential call of the Christian life- while also isolating myself in a Christian bubble? How can I claim to want to be like Jesus if I abstain from those uncomfortable and hard places where he went?
Many people I know who profess Christ do not seem to feel this anxiety or conviction. I think a reason for this is that the Christian Western world conceptualizes the gospel as a question of personal spirituality and individual uprightness before God before all else. Our sermons, conversations, programs emphasize soteriology- namely the doctrine of salvation through faith by grace - yet conveniently gloss over the way the gospel should bring holistic change to our churches, communities, cities too. We obsess over such things as 'overcoming MY sin, trusting God with MY struggles, ensuring MY relationship with Christ is good'... but do not give much thought as to how God is in the work of comprehensive redemption, calling all things and peoples to Himself. Christians tend to perceive the brokenness around them as a threat, rather than an opportunity for the gospel to be shared.
Brett McCracken mentions this in a book about this importance of outward-looking ecclesiology: "We are more comfortable talking in terms of our 'personal relationship' with Jesus than in 'we' terms of the corporate health of our faith community. But even though we are called and respond to the gospel on an individual level, we must resist the rampant notion that church [and, I will add, community engagement/ proclaiming the gospel/ ministering to others] is an optional add-on to one's solitary faith journey."
The gospel is about making all things new- not just me.
Individualistic Christianity conditions us to focus on our own walk with God and protect it at all costs- especially from what is unknown to us. We think, "If my family and I are doing fine with God- why would we move into that tough neighborhood? why would we adopt this child? why would we befriend those atheist neighbors? why would we send our kids to this school? why would we engage in that awkward conversation?" And while I recognize we should never feel guilt-driven into such decisions, we must flee from this non-commital thinking as it fosters a lethal sense of complacency that Christ forcefully condemned (Matthew 16:24-26). As written in Luke 14:23, "And the master said to the servant, 'Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled.'"
As a Church, we ought to repent of our obsession with personal salvation and our fear of "the other." Too often, we fail to recognize that being witnesses of Christ means engaging with this 'otherness' and the culture surrounding us. This is indeed the only way we will come to see the holistic gospel redemption in our weary world. The insulation of Christians simply won't (and can't) bring God's Kingdom on Earth.
Might I ask you, today, whether you know and actively engage with a single person who has a different faith system, sexual ethic, ethnoreligious backdrop and moral code than your own? Have you ever befriended someone who claims that God is a myth, or that Christians are naive and dangerous? Do you maintain relationships with people even as you increasingly realize how little you have in common with them?
I fear that, too often, the answer to these questions are no. This suggests our inability to see that every human bears God's image- and that His grace is lavished on all.
In faith, we must break down such cultural barriers. May we as God's people look to the apostle Paul who wrote, "I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some." (1 Corinthians 9:22). May we as God's people look to Christ Jesus, who indiscriminately spent time with tax collectors, prostitutes and drunks - and was known as a friend of sinners (Luke 7:34).
In order for "my light to shine before others" (Mark 5:16) I must effectively be with others. This is no easy or small thing. Yet, I must remind myself that those hard places (people, conversations, events) that I avoid at all costs are the very ones Jesus and His disciples plunged into, head first.
We must go to those hard places Jesus calls us to- trusting that He goes before us and that we will not be shaken. We must abandon the thought that engaging with those who believe differently than us will somehow threaten our salvation. Do we want our faith in Jesus to result from being surrounded by like-minded people, and not knowing anything different? Or do we want it to come from seeing that nothing compares to His gospel?
Our love and commitment to the gospel must propel us to pop the bubble of our subculture. The thought of transformed lives and cities, along with the prophetic image of every tongue confessing that Jesus Christ is Lord, should lead us to step into (not run away from) difficult places - even if it means putting our comfort, feel-good faith, wealth, dreams, reputation, achievements, family life and individual happiness at risk.
Paradoxically, it is in those difficult, uncomfortable and messy places that we learn to depend on God's grace and that He is most glorified (2 Timothy 1:8).
May this be the kind of disciple I am.
Amen.
In the process, I have grown increasingly convicted about how insulated I am.
I suppose some people would disagree with this- I live in a largely secular city, have only ever gone to secular schools, count (and love) many secular family members and friends. But, if I am honest, a large percentage of my time is spent with fellow believers, and in Church, doing ministry or working in faith-based contexts.
Moreover, in those moments when I do find myself with people who do not identify as Christians, I tend to avoid gospel conversations (or even remotely spiritual conversations) like the plague. Fear masked by tolerance, you might call it.
How can I purport to care about the Great Commission - the essential call of the Christian life- while also isolating myself in a Christian bubble? How can I claim to want to be like Jesus if I abstain from those uncomfortable and hard places where he went?
Many people I know who profess Christ do not seem to feel this anxiety or conviction. I think a reason for this is that the Christian Western world conceptualizes the gospel as a question of personal spirituality and individual uprightness before God before all else. Our sermons, conversations, programs emphasize soteriology- namely the doctrine of salvation through faith by grace - yet conveniently gloss over the way the gospel should bring holistic change to our churches, communities, cities too. We obsess over such things as 'overcoming MY sin, trusting God with MY struggles, ensuring MY relationship with Christ is good'... but do not give much thought as to how God is in the work of comprehensive redemption, calling all things and peoples to Himself. Christians tend to perceive the brokenness around them as a threat, rather than an opportunity for the gospel to be shared.
Brett McCracken mentions this in a book about this importance of outward-looking ecclesiology: "We are more comfortable talking in terms of our 'personal relationship' with Jesus than in 'we' terms of the corporate health of our faith community. But even though we are called and respond to the gospel on an individual level, we must resist the rampant notion that church [and, I will add, community engagement/ proclaiming the gospel/ ministering to others] is an optional add-on to one's solitary faith journey."
The gospel is about making all things new- not just me.
Individualistic Christianity conditions us to focus on our own walk with God and protect it at all costs- especially from what is unknown to us. We think, "If my family and I are doing fine with God- why would we move into that tough neighborhood? why would we adopt this child? why would we befriend those atheist neighbors? why would we send our kids to this school? why would we engage in that awkward conversation?" And while I recognize we should never feel guilt-driven into such decisions, we must flee from this non-commital thinking as it fosters a lethal sense of complacency that Christ forcefully condemned (Matthew 16:24-26). As written in Luke 14:23, "And the master said to the servant, 'Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled.'"
As a Church, we ought to repent of our obsession with personal salvation and our fear of "the other." Too often, we fail to recognize that being witnesses of Christ means engaging with this 'otherness' and the culture surrounding us. This is indeed the only way we will come to see the holistic gospel redemption in our weary world. The insulation of Christians simply won't (and can't) bring God's Kingdom on Earth.
Might I ask you, today, whether you know and actively engage with a single person who has a different faith system, sexual ethic, ethnoreligious backdrop and moral code than your own? Have you ever befriended someone who claims that God is a myth, or that Christians are naive and dangerous? Do you maintain relationships with people even as you increasingly realize how little you have in common with them?
I fear that, too often, the answer to these questions are no. This suggests our inability to see that every human bears God's image- and that His grace is lavished on all.
In faith, we must break down such cultural barriers. May we as God's people look to the apostle Paul who wrote, "I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some." (1 Corinthians 9:22). May we as God's people look to Christ Jesus, who indiscriminately spent time with tax collectors, prostitutes and drunks - and was known as a friend of sinners (Luke 7:34).
In order for "my light to shine before others" (Mark 5:16) I must effectively be with others. This is no easy or small thing. Yet, I must remind myself that those hard places (people, conversations, events) that I avoid at all costs are the very ones Jesus and His disciples plunged into, head first.
We must go to those hard places Jesus calls us to- trusting that He goes before us and that we will not be shaken. We must abandon the thought that engaging with those who believe differently than us will somehow threaten our salvation. Do we want our faith in Jesus to result from being surrounded by like-minded people, and not knowing anything different? Or do we want it to come from seeing that nothing compares to His gospel?
Our love and commitment to the gospel must propel us to pop the bubble of our subculture. The thought of transformed lives and cities, along with the prophetic image of every tongue confessing that Jesus Christ is Lord, should lead us to step into (not run away from) difficult places - even if it means putting our comfort, feel-good faith, wealth, dreams, reputation, achievements, family life and individual happiness at risk.
Paradoxically, it is in those difficult, uncomfortable and messy places that we learn to depend on God's grace and that He is most glorified (2 Timothy 1:8).
May this be the kind of disciple I am.
Amen.
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