Being Negative

Hey Ya'll!

It's been on my heart the past 24-36 hours to write a post about being real, being Christian.

Mel and I have learned a lot in the past 3 years about Christianity, well let me rephrase that. Churchism or Churchology

What do I mean? I mean we've learned how churches and groups within churches behave and think. Essentially the stereotype of churches and church groups has been verified and shown to us.

Where do I start? Well, I'll go back to about 3 years ago when the Recession started to hit the church we were attending. I was on the Missions and Evangelism Council as the Technology person for the purpose of helping gear the website to my generation as an outreach. I was invited to 2 council meetings, after the second one I was never invited back. Why? Because I spoke up in opposition, well I wasn't afraid to say what everyone was thinking. Who else truly agreed with cutting our budget by 25%-50% while giving all paid staff a 4% raise? (We're talking 15-20 salaries!!!!!)
During Sunday School sessions we would openly disagree with people, with an understanding of it being okay to agree to disagree. We would even be real with many answers we gave concerning the Church's perception to the world, worldly views on Christian matters, etc... And the more we were real, the more ostracized we became.

Is compromising your opinions, beliefs, or personality worth having more friends? For us, the answer is simple, no. We stand by our beliefs and opinions and we are proud of who God has made us to be so no, we will not change ourselves to have more friends. We do not look for acceptance from people, we look for acceptance and love from God. The only motive, the right motive, for us to change will be from God. No person, Christian or non-Christian can make us change our beliefs, opinions, or personality.

Recently we told our old Sunday School class we were going to be looking for a new church, one closer to our house, but we thought we still had friends there. I expected to stop getting communications about events and invitations. Sure enough, it happened immediately, but yet the class still said they were inviting and wanted people outside their group to go to events......... hrmmmmmmm we haven't transferred membership yet, so technically we're still members. So explain that one to me....

Well, the straw that broke the camel's back happened extremely recently. I won't go into details but it was quite interesting hearing how one person could invite their outside friends to events, but when we wanted to and did it was a shock that someone was inviting "outsiders". Double standard there if you ask me.

I'm ranting now, but all this has confirmed to me that church and church groups like it when everyone just blindly nods their heads and agree. Nobody understands/knows how to handle real people. Real people who say what the mean, mean what they say, tell the truth (even the ugly truth). It's one thing to be a Christian, hope in the Lord, and believe every Christian thinks and acts like you. It's another to be a Christian, hope in the Lord, and be real in knowing you're unique and it's okay to disagree.

What type of Christian are you? Real or stereotype? Sure it's easy to say real, but seriously study yourself, do you expect all Christians to behave like you, think like you, agree with you?

Anyways, so I'm not writing a completely "negative" post I'll leave with some good news.

Ever since middle school I've had a desire to use my R/C hobby to the benefit of God's Kingdom. I've always wondered if a Christian group existed within the R/C world. Well, last week I accidentally discovered such a group does exist! After reading their website (http://www.fcmodelers.com/fcmindex.htm) I joined. I got my member package yesterday and am stoked! We lead devotions at R/C events, offer prayer while at events, and have a huge email list for prayer requests. Even though the membership is free and I got a great T-shirt for free, I just feel and know this is going to be a great group. This completely confirms what I taught my RAs at church, we are missionaries at home doing what we like to do.

Well, this is a huge post and probably makes no sense at all.

Hasta Luego,
NT