Question of the Week

While our youth minister Jason went to India for seven weeks, I began a tradition of giving a group of senior high students a "question of the week" to ponder. Each week now for about four months, I've presented them with a different question to consider. The goal is to encourage them to think critically and objectively about their life and faith.

Often before I present the question to the students, I'll bounce it off a few people to get a reaction. This week my question of them is particularly demanding. I'm asking them, "What bothers you most about American Christianity?" As I've presented this question in numerous contexts prior to giving it to them today, what has surprised me is the wide diversity of answers.

There appears to be a keen awareness that there is something wrong with the way we do church and claim Christ. As Francis Chan has commented, if someone was given a bible in isolation and then came to America and saw how we do church -- they would certainly be surprised. We miss out on so many things and add so many extraneous details to our faith!

We may be a generation away from fixing any of this. But it begins today, now, with me. With anyone reading this blog. We cannot merely project our frustration with all "those people" and not embrace our own culpability. If we are in it, we are part of it, unless we openly rebel against an unscriptural status quo. There is a right and a wrong way I suppose to do this, but Jesus certainly didn't let offending others stop him from proclaiming the truth of the kingdom. I believe people listened because they could tell He really loved them. May we be no different.