baby and the bath water

It's been interesting working for the church for the past few years. I've noticed a few things that are different in this world than in most.

There are a ton of people working in churches that grew up in the church. I guess that sort of makes sense...

I think most people in my world tend to look at the things around them in light of their history.

Based on that history they make decisions to either continue along a certain path or go in a completely/or slightly different direction.

We see things we like and pursue them - we see things that we don't like and run from them....sometimes.

Once Christians mixed up faith with politics - things got ugly. Once Christians mixed up faith with music - things got ugly. Once we mixed up a certain kind of morality with God - things got ugly.

So instead of seeing what the truth is in the ugly situation - we often just run in the other direction.

There was some pretty cheesy Christian music out there - so now I have friends that refuse to listen to Christian music because "it's all crap". There were some conservative (politically) Christians that were letting their politics get in the way of their faith - so it became crap.

Christians talked about morality to the point of legalism...and the next thing you know we're ignoring the Scripture that talks about self control, purity, etc. (and there's plenty in there) because we don't want to get legalistic. We want to be relevant. We want to matter.

It was a bad decision to make faith about politics, music, morality or (fill in the blank with anything short of a relationship with God) and now we've reversed course and made it about not focusing on those other things...

I wonder how much of this is a conviction that that is what God is calling us to - and how much of it is that it's just a lot easier to try and fit in? or just kind of do whatever feels good at the moment?

I've thought a lot about this because I'm around a lot of Christians who grew up (on some level) in the church - and they have a lot of baggage. (we all do)

If you heard that being a Christian was about doing good stuff and not doing bad stuff....well that will quickly run dry. So you reverse course...and that doesn't really work either. But at least this way you're relevent....with whatever it is you're trying to do...

I'm still thinking this stuff through....it's just on my mind now and I had a fifteen minute break.