Sorry, everyone. I know I'm probably beating this whole "Blue Like Jazz" thing into the dirt. But this book is quite amazing and every time I read something that I think is amazing, I like to share it.
"In a recent radio interview I was sternly asked by the host, who did not consider himself a Christian, to defend Christianity. I told him that I couldn't do it, and moreover, that I didn't want to defend the term. He asked me if I was a Christian, and I told him yes. "Then why don't you want to defend Christianity?" he asked, confused. I told him I no longer knew what the term meant. Of the hundreds of thousands of people listening to his show that day, some of them had terrible experiences with Christianity; they may have been yelled at by a teacher in a Christian school, abused by a minister, or browbeaten by a Christian parent. To them, the term Christianity meant something that no Christian I know would defend. By fortifying the term, I am only making them more and more angry. I won't do it. Stop ten people on the street and ask them what they think of when they hear the word Christianity, and they will give you ten different answers. How can I defend a term that means ten different things to ten different people? I told the radio show host that I would rather talk about Jesus and how I came to believe that Jesus exists and that he likes me. The host looked back at me with tears in his eyes. When we were done, he asked me if we could go get lunch together. He told me how much he didn't like Christianity but how he had always wanted to believe Jesus was the Son of God.
For me, the beginning of sharing my faith with people began by throwing out Christianity and embracing Christian spirituality, a nonpolitical mysterious system that can be experienced but not explained. Christianity, unlike Christian spirituality, was not a term that excited me. And I could not in good conscious tell a friend about a faith that didn't excite me. I couldn't share something I wasn't experiencing. And I wasn't experiencing Christianity. It didn't do anything for me at all. It felt like math, like a system of rights and wrongs and political beliefs, but it wasn't mysterious; it wasn't God reaching out of heaven to do wonderful things in my life. And if I would have shared Christianity with somebody, it would have felt mostly like I was trying to get somebody to agree with me rather than meet God. I could no longer share anything about Christianity, but I loved talking about Jesus and the spirituality that goes along with a relationship with Him." (Blue Like Jazz p. 115-116)
How awesome is that? How awesome would it be if Christians stopped talking about Christianity and religion and started talking about Jesus instead? I do believe we could change the world.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Monday, July 11, 2011
Blue Like Jazz
Those of you who are my Facebook friend have probably noticed that lately I've been posting a lot of stuff from the book Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller. I have only recently started reading it and I am not even finished with it yet, but I highly recommend it. I wanted to share an excerpt from the book that was too long to post in a Facebook status. So here it is:
Penny wanted nothing to do with religion. Her perception of Christians was that they were narrow-minded people, politically conservative and hypocritical. Penny dislike Christians because it seemed on every humanitarian issue, she found herself directly opposing the opinions held by many evangelicals. She also felt that is Christianity were a person, that is all Christians lumped into one human being, that human being probably wouldn't like her.
...During those first three weeks in France, it was comforting for Penny that Nadine cared so much about her past and her story. This helped Penny listen to Nadine's story, and one night while walking on a beach in the south of France, Nadine explained to Penny why she was a Christian. She said that she believed Christ was a revolutionary, a humanitarian of sorts, sent from God to a world that had broken itself. Penny was frustrated that Nadine was a Christian. She couldn't believe that a girl this kind and accepting could subscribe to the same religion that generated the Crusades, funded the Republicans, or fathered religious television. But over the year at Sarah Lawrence, Nadine's flavor of Christianity became increasingly intriguing to Penny. Penny began to wonder if Christianity, were it a person, might in fact like her. She began to wonder if she and Christianity might get along, if they might have things in common.
..."Nadine and I would sit for hours in her room," [Penny] began. "Mostly we would talk about boys or school, but always, by the end of it, we talked about God. The thing I loved about Nadine was that I never felt like she was selling anything. She would talk about God as if she knew Him, as if she had talked to Him on the phone that day. She was never ashamed, which is the thing with some Christians I had encountered. They felt like they had to sell God, as if He were soap or a vacuum cleaner, and it's like they really weren't listening to me; they didn't care, they just wanted me to buy their product. I came to realize that I had judged all Christians on the personality of a few. That was frightening for me, too, because it had been so easy just to dismiss Christianity as nuts, but here was Nadine. I didn't have a category for her. To Nadine, God was a being with which she interacted, and even more, Nadine believed that God liked her. I thought that was beautiful...So she asked me if I wanted to read through the book of Matthew with her, and in fact I did. I wanted to see if this whole Jesus thing was real. I still had serious issues with Jesus, though, only because I associated Him with Christianity, and there was no way I would ever call myself a Christian. But I figured i should see for myself. So I told her yes."
Penny's story really got me thinking. How sad is it that Penny felt that Christians wouldn't like her. I think that Christians get so caught up in the fact that we are supposed to hate sin that we come across as hating the sinner as well. We need to be careful of this. There is a fine line between being accepting and loving of people, while at the same time not loving or endorsing their sin. This can be a hard line to walk, but Jesus shows us how to do it.
"When Penny and Nadine first met, Penny wasn't a Christian. They had both spent their freshman years at Reed but never knew each other. Individually they decided to study at the same school in France during their sophomore year.
Penny wanted nothing to do with religion. Her perception of Christians was that they were narrow-minded people, politically conservative and hypocritical. Penny dislike Christians because it seemed on every humanitarian issue, she found herself directly opposing the opinions held by many evangelicals. She also felt that is Christianity were a person, that is all Christians lumped into one human being, that human being probably wouldn't like her.
...During those first three weeks in France, it was comforting for Penny that Nadine cared so much about her past and her story. This helped Penny listen to Nadine's story, and one night while walking on a beach in the south of France, Nadine explained to Penny why she was a Christian. She said that she believed Christ was a revolutionary, a humanitarian of sorts, sent from God to a world that had broken itself. Penny was frustrated that Nadine was a Christian. She couldn't believe that a girl this kind and accepting could subscribe to the same religion that generated the Crusades, funded the Republicans, or fathered religious television. But over the year at Sarah Lawrence, Nadine's flavor of Christianity became increasingly intriguing to Penny. Penny began to wonder if Christianity, were it a person, might in fact like her. She began to wonder if she and Christianity might get along, if they might have things in common.
..."Nadine and I would sit for hours in her room," [Penny] began. "Mostly we would talk about boys or school, but always, by the end of it, we talked about God. The thing I loved about Nadine was that I never felt like she was selling anything. She would talk about God as if she knew Him, as if she had talked to Him on the phone that day. She was never ashamed, which is the thing with some Christians I had encountered. They felt like they had to sell God, as if He were soap or a vacuum cleaner, and it's like they really weren't listening to me; they didn't care, they just wanted me to buy their product. I came to realize that I had judged all Christians on the personality of a few. That was frightening for me, too, because it had been so easy just to dismiss Christianity as nuts, but here was Nadine. I didn't have a category for her. To Nadine, God was a being with which she interacted, and even more, Nadine believed that God liked her. I thought that was beautiful...So she asked me if I wanted to read through the book of Matthew with her, and in fact I did. I wanted to see if this whole Jesus thing was real. I still had serious issues with Jesus, though, only because I associated Him with Christianity, and there was no way I would ever call myself a Christian. But I figured i should see for myself. So I told her yes."
"So then you started reading the Bible?" I asked.
"Yes. We would eat chocolates and smoke cigarettes and read the Bible, which is the only way to do it, if you ask me...We started reading through Matthew, and I thought it was all very interesting, you know. And I found Jesus very disturbing, very straightforward. He wasn't diplomatic, and yet I felt like if I met Him, He would really like me. Don, I can't explain how freeing that was, to realize that if I met Jesus, He would like me. I never felt like that about some of the Christians on the radio. I always thought if I met those people they would yell at me. But it wasn't like that with Jesus. There were people He loved and people He got really mat at, and I kept identifying with the people He loved, which was really good, because they were all the broken people, you know, the kind of people who are tired of life and want to be done with it, or they are desperate people, people who are outcast or pagans. There were others, regular people, but He didn't play favorites at all, which is miraculous in itself. That fact alone may have been the most supernatural thing He did. He didn't show partiality, which every human does."(Parts of Chapter 4)
Penny's story really got me thinking. How sad is it that Penny felt that Christians wouldn't like her. I think that Christians get so caught up in the fact that we are supposed to hate sin that we come across as hating the sinner as well. We need to be careful of this. There is a fine line between being accepting and loving of people, while at the same time not loving or endorsing their sin. This can be a hard line to walk, but Jesus shows us how to do it.
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Open Doors
In case anyone was doubting, God really does open doors and lead the way. And sometimes He speaks so clearly that you wonder if you hadn't just talked to him face to face. I've been trying to figure out what my next step in life is going to be and now I'm pretty sure I know what it is.
I've been considering Teaching English as a Foreign Language, and I've been looking around for ways to get certified. Well, two days ago my Dad (who is in Phuket, Thailand) was talking to a British man whom he had just met. He discovered that this man is the owner of The International TEFL Corporation (www.teflcorp.com). They have schools all over the world that certify people to teach English as a foreign language. The program is a 4 week, intensive course and cost around 1500 dollars.
So my dad was talking to this man and telling him how I am about to graduate college and how I'm interested in getting my TEFL certificate and this guy, whom my dad had just met, said, "If your daughter will come to the school here in Phuket, then I'll let her take the course for free." Just like that: a 1500 dollar course absolutely free. Still doubting that God leads and directs and opens doors? I'm not.
Details are still to be worked out, but I am quite excited about this amazing opportunity.
"I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will guide you with My eye." Psalm 32:8
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