Panama City Beach: A generation of the unimpressed

In Panama City Beach I refused to buy a snow-cone because I was unimpressed with the sample I got. Yeah I appreciated the free sample, but I wasn't impressed enough to spend three dollars on it.

This is how we operate, for better or for worse. We choose what is most impressive, if we can afford it. They go hand in hand. 

So I have a little bit of a stab to take at the church, which includes me. Why do people turn down Christ when he is REAL, when he gives ETERNAL LIFE, when he CHANGES HEARTS, when he LOVES, when he is absolutely FREE. 

Think about that for a moment. Picture the best thing you could ask for and then imagine someone just handing it to you. Shoot, if I rush off the road to get a free Krispy Kreme donut when the light is on then why don't people come by the thousands to receive Christ?

Last week I, along with 21 other students, went down to Panama City Beach Florida where we ministered to the spring breakers there by giving them free rides and free pancakes. The saddest thing wasn't even seeing the brokenness in many of the people but rather the amount of radically unimpressed kids. Many of these students who were boozing it up all week had been to church their whole lives and flat out rejected it. Why is that? And don't you dare blame it on adolescence, thats how we lose entire generations. If someone encounters Jesus they won't go away the same, the ball is in their court at that point.

The saddest thing I heard was when students spoke of how other Christians treated them, how they didn't even care about them as a person but instead had a conversion agenda. Reality check, Jesus didn't have a conversion agenda, he had a love agenda, people CAME TO HIM. Whats worse is their are actually people telling these kids they are going to burn in hell. I dont care if you are sure they will or not it is up to God. YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO JUDGE SOMEONE'S ETERNITY. You are called to love, to "preach and sometimes use words" as St. Francis of Assisi once said.  

I am here to boldly say that the problem with the church is that we have failed to impress for thousands of reasons that we are ok with ignoring. While we are spending our strength condemning those who abort their babies, fighting gay marriage, and hating Obama, their are people looking for a church that cares. They are looking for a church that doesn't sit on its butt and scream when someone takes away it's toys. They are looking for a church that comes down into the darkness of the valley and shines their light, a church of real people who really care, a church OVERFLOWING with LOVE in ACTION. 

A friend of mine had a conversation with a spring breaker one night. Really long story short, that man said he SAW JESUS in her eyes. Well how is that possible? Its possible because she had Jesus behind those eyes. Its possible because she loved that man and didn't have an agenda to "save" him. Its possible because she loved Jesus and by pursuing him with her whole heart he was inside of her. What does "saved" even mean anyways? This man left the conversation saying his "mind had been opened". What is it that someone recites a prayer? We should be opening hearts and minds not mouths. The Holy Spirit does this, we are just called to consume the spirit and let it shine through our eyes (literally or figuratively) so that others can encounter that spirit of love in us. 

So I want to challenge the church, myself include to stop preaching to the choir, to stop recoiling from the sinner, to stop enjoying its little church tea parties and go to a bar where there is someone who is broken that just needs to know they are loved. 

Loving is holding a bag for a drunk kid as he pukes, love is telling a "slut" she is a beautiful creation when her boyfriend just ditched her, love is going to the man rolling up joints and asking him how he is doing, love is getting to know your atheist coworker better, love is making a meal for the widow down the street, love is inviting the loud and often times drunk neighbors for a BBQ, love is dying to yourself for the needs of someone else whether they accept Christ or reject him. Can we start impressing people with what we do? Love also must exist within the church, that is crucial, but we aren't even doing that. Phillipians 2 says to be one in SPIRIT and in PURPOSE. That is the extent of our unity. We are to have the Holy Spirit, and have the purpose of administering love. Conversion is up to God. 

I am convinced that if these spring breakers saw Christ in their church or even just ONE person, then most of them wouldn't be looking for fulfillment elsewhere. There is something wrong with that fact that many would rather buy a snow cone than accept the gift of Jesus Christ. Let the burden sit on your heart, and let it move you to act. Dive into this world and you will be amazed to know how many people just need to know that SOMEONE cares.

Caring isn't enough

Let me shatter a reality for you, my reader. A reality that has overtime been broken for myself. You have no rights, they are simply an invention of America.

Before you get all up in arms about blasphemous ways I want you to step back and be willing to listen. Please listen. I believe in the convicting truth of what I am about to say.

Its called ethnocentrism. You have probably heard about it before. Ethnocentrism is when one makes judgements on another's culture based on their own culture as the "correct way of living". The first step to accepting what I will tell you is dropping this thought process, understanding your a minority in the world, a speck in history, one idea in 7 billion, created by God yet fallen away, doomed to never get it completely right, "limited".

That being said, what is the reality of the world then? There are 925 million people in the world that are malnourished. There are millions of people dying in wars, genocides, of AIDs, diseases, and malnutrition. There are millions trapped as sex slaves, people are earning a next to nothing and certainly not enough to put food on a table but they continue to work 12 hour work days. Its not just around the world, its in our own backyard. There is toxic pollution affecting communities, people without jobs, children without parents, people without opportunity to become anything but the next "burden". In light of this can I really say that everyone should get an education, a home, a car, a meal, a friend, a wife, a dream, life. These aren't rights, they are privileges!

What does that mean though? It means that we need to pull out this American ideology by the roots and replace it with a heart after God! And don't even try to say they are the same or even similar. Christ didn't go around preaching inalienable rights. He gave up his own! I am asking you to look at the starving child from now on with compassion, not with the thought that he deserves something but that Christ loves that starving child so we MUST love him/her as well. Doing so authentically of course. If you don't know how, ask God for help ;)

I am asking a difficult thing, it is just as much a challenge to myself. I am asking to drop all selfish ambition. Please refer to Philippians 2. I am asking you to understand that going to school isn't your right, that living tomorrow isn't your right, that having a car isn't a right, that finding a beautiful husband or wife isn't a right, that accomplishing your dream isn't a right, that security isn't a right, that your salvation isn't a right. I am confident that wherever we go we are not called to horde our money "just in case" instead of using it generously and trusting it to the care of the Lord who is the great provider. I am confident that we are not called to find a secure job and raise a family then think about working for the kingdom of the Lord. I am asking that we do that now. Does that mean that we sell everything, grow a beard, eat locust, and fight evil? No, though you should not be surprised or indignant if indeed God decided thats what you should do. I am saying pursue the Lord, give up your rights to him. Don't wait to have a secure life before serving others. This is not a condemnation of the rich, rather a challenge to motives for all.

I realize I am just an ignorant youngster with high ambitions... I take that back, I don't realize that. Jesus had high ambitions for the world. He said radical things. He was an extremist for love as Martin Luther King Jr. would say. Are you claiming rights? I know I still am, but I am working hard to let go everyday. If I die tomorrow, I won't die alone. thousands if not millions will die around the world too. Who am I to say I deserve to live? Every breath is a chance to do good, how can I waste a moment? Not to say we should serve 24 hours a day either. God invented the sabbath for a reason and we need these in our daily lives.

"Shit, A million people around the world are dying of hunger, and all of you are more concerned that I said shit in church than that a million people are dying" - This was quoted by some pastor that my roommate told me about, I can't remember the name but it is an excellent insight into the church's problem. Lets get concerned about the big issues instead of our petty ones that satan uses to distract us from the needs of the marginalized. We are privileged with the knowledge to help, the resources to help, the time to help, and the GOD to help. So what are we waiting for? Lets not spend another moment spending it selfishly on ourselves! Let us become champions for Christ each day while actively giving up  our own rights for the sake of others, whom Christ came down and died for.