If It’s Funnier Than It Is Wrong Do It…

The preceding statement was at one point a staple of how I lived my life. Now some years later, it is something that I want nothing to do with. I have been a witness to many a funny thing in my day – in no way am I myself claiming to have what someone might call a humor bone – things from the outbursts of an off the wall comment, to the fluorescent light battles that seem all to common in our cities back alleys. But what I have seen is the destruction of myself and my fellow comrades spiritual growth a different points in our walks through this very concept of humor.

My findings have been this; we as Christians seem to in an overall sense do quite well when it comes to living out our faith in public. We do not cuss, we are polite, we will even drop a five dollar bill into a buskers basket once and a while (I once saw a man playing buckets full of glass, and he was good, how can you not support that kind of talent?) and of course there is always a smile on our face. But follow that same Christian home, and over to his friends house for a party – were talking about Christians, so a party is the concept of hanging out in the same house where nobody has any idea of what to do prompting everyone watch a movie, probably a new one where everyone will fall asleep, missing any and all memorable moments – and things tend to shift. If you listen closely you will hear a certain familiarity come out, a certain comfort with the crowd.

In my own experience I have heard many a crass word, joke or conversation, most often within the group of my Christian friends. In fact I have seem a number of people get frustrated with the amount of personal attack, racial jokes, sexual discussions, and sarcasm. It’s as though we leave out faith at the door and let out everything we keep covered throughout the day. I kid you not I have walked into a setting where a group of males who were being trained to be evangelists were living; by the time I left that that building some 10 minutes later I had vomited on the road from the amount of homosexual talk and actions taking place. But if it’s funnier than it is wrong do it right? Of course there was a lot of ‘humorous’ shock value that brought this kind of awkward smile to our faces. Why is Jackass so popular? Shock value; where else would you see a man thrust a fish hook through his cheek and go fishing with himself as bait in shark infested waters?

I have also come across a number of people whom are either new to their faith or not well founded in their faith, who are lost on the idea of people acting like that. “I can’t tell them from my non-Christian friends,” “My friends who aren’t saved have better morals than my Christian friends.” It has even come to the point where I am finally hearing people questioning their faith on the very basis that they see people following other faiths or no faith at all, living better lives than their Christian friends. This is not an attack to say separate yourself from the world and circle the wagons as it were, but it is a call to plead with you to live your faith without compromise at every moment of your life. Again I’m only stating these thoughts out of frustration from my own life, my own experience to get a laugh – which even with shock value seemed to get me no further. Perhaps a book on humor… How can you be leading someone to the Lord one moment and the next moment be engaged in a mocking display of sinfulness? I plead with myself and those whose sarcasm leads them to a place of comfort in sin, to step up and live a life of no compromise, whether your in public or private, because either way God sees our actions.

I Think My Individualism Has Betrayed Me…

How often is it that we walk down a street as were window-shopping, glance in the mirror and secretly think to ourselves, “hey I look pretty good”? When we check out our attire we see that were sporting our own look, which no one else has modeled (yet), were living on our own in a nice apartment around the corner chalk full of the newest IKEA products. We also have a cell phone full of the numbers of all the people we have met on our extroverted excursions. It is a wonderful world living on our own, freedom to do what we please, and no one to tell us what to do. Although after living two years
This individualism transfers quite easily to our faith as well. We go to our local church and sing our songs that praise the Lord from the viewpoint of I, “I will worship you God, only you God” (Although I do notice a shift taking place). And while these things are not necessarily unacceptable things, because as many people can serve as examples, they live wonderful lives unto the Lord, I would suggest that there is more to be had. These same people can be seen on street corners preaching, homeless shelters handing out food, outside of certain movement protesting against something that they consider wrong. And what happens the majority of the time? We leave feeling better about ourselves having done something to fight against the social injustice that we are oppressed by. We, as in ourselves, and only ourselves.

This is where this idea of individualism that I have wholly embraced kills me; I cannot do it on my own. Now I know you are thinking that I’m about to tell you that we need God to do it for us – and we do – but my point is that we need each other. We do not need hundreds of millions of Christians each doing their own things – while they are still 3good things yes – but when we try to accomplish stomping out hunger in our cities on our own we can only do so much. Imagine if all the churches in a city gathered together in one voice to collectively tackle a problem, whatever it is, and imagine the impact form that. The Sr. Pastor of the Mars Hill church (not Rob Bell) in Grand Rapids approached his mayor and asked him what his church could do for the city because he had an army of 10 000 people longing to bless where they are needed. We need this kind of action in our world.

We are a body, and if each part of the body tried to be a body itself, we will do nothing except for immobilize this body, rendering it useless. God himself said that we could accomplish anything if we work together, read it in the story of the Tower of Babel in Genesis; “Nothing will be impossible for them.” (NLT). We need to work together to stomp out issues and stand united against issue, but more importantly, for issues; instead of just throwing money at a problem, or only praying – again these are good but by themselves can be limiting - because faith without works is dead. Someone, somewhere has to be the answers to those prayers, so why not out ourselves in the position to be used to accomplish it? So get together, work together, lay down your selfish desires, and long to corporately live out your faith, and truly see change in your world – You’re not alone.