Unfollowed For Being Unfollowable (or Why I’m a Terrible Christian)
My friend unfollowed me on Twitter. Not the sort of thing a friend does, I thought to myself, but apparently she had a good reason. You see, I was hurting her heart. All my talk about the Church and the Christians that make it up, all the pointless questioning and vitriol, it was causing others to stumble. I had become what Paul called a stumbling block, what Jesus described as a Millstone. I emailed her and when she told me what I had done, my heart was crushed by the weight of it. My friend is savvy enough to know when to get out, to stop listening so the words didn’t have their...
Read MoreWhen Sending a Postcard Says You Don’t Care
Recently my friend received a postcard from a church that he no longer attends. It seemed like the old church was just trying to keep in touch. A Postcard From the Old Church Is Nice, Right? It certainly looked nice enough. On the front of the postcard was the church logo and next to that a suitably retro-distressed font type telling her “Happy Birthday”. Then the handwritten note on the back read thus: Have an amazing Birthday! We are so glad you are a part of our [church] family! Many blessings on your Birthday! The note, even though handwritten to convey a more personal...
Read MoreHow You Know That You Are a Good Christian
Would you feed a slice of pizza to a baby? Would you expect the tiny tot to gum the whole thing down, peperoni and all? Of course not. Pizza is not baby food. But why isn’t it? The baby could probably handle it (although I’m not cleaning up afterward), why not feed babies pizza? If a baby eats pizza then it becomes baby food, right? When we say that pizza is not baby food, what we are really saying is that pizza is not GOOD baby food. The Difference Between Existing and Being Good I think there is a similar distinction between being a Believer and a Christian. We are Christians,...
Read MoreChristians Should Tell the Best Stories
I’m tired of living out moments that easily slide out of my memory. Unfortunately I often find my time at church to be just that, forgettable. It’s just so insufferably mediocre and boring, no matter how fancy you make the packaging. And I blame myself for that. I’m not living a great story. If our lives were made into stories, would any part of your Christian walk be an action sequence? What about your time at church? Or would all those moments be included in a montage, the kind authors and directors use to skip over the bits that drag and bore the audience to tears? As...
Read MoreShould Chrisitians Ever Be Rich?
Is it better to be rich, or is it better to be poor? Can a Christian own a BMW and still claim to be following Christ? The problem is that the rich have everything they need, which tends to make them less grateful when good things come around. Their expectation of what life should give them is skewed. How can you rely on God’s mercy when you have everything you want? The poor on the other hand are grateful for everything they receive in love. This must be why Jesus said the poor are blessed. If you are rich, live as though you are poor, so that you might be grateful for what you...
Read MoreShould Church Pastors Practice Marketing?
A little while back I had coffee with a local pastor. As I told him about my passion for business and marketing, his eyes practically sparkled. He told me that he thought of his job as marketing too, basically trying to persuade people to come to church. I felt an immediate negative reaction to his philosophy but I really couldn’t figure out why. Marketing is Too Dirty For the Church Later, as I thought about it, my reaction was very natural. The problem is that most ‘marketing’ is synonymous with tricking people to buy something they didn’t really want in the first...
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