Wednesday 13 October 2010

No, I'm not religious

Last weekend I was over at Hillsong Conference in London. There were many high points but one particular one that stuck with me was Joel Houston's message. He spoke of how he met a guy in a cafe... (stay with me on this one.)

"Do you know who you're talking to?" the owner of the cafe asks the guy. "Who?" "He's Joel from Hillsong Church!" "What do you do?" Joel asks the man. "I'm a criminal," he replies. "How's life as a musician?" he continues. "Good... how's life as a criminal?" asks Joel. Over the next few hours, they talked about religion. He told Joel how he hated religion and how it just wasn't for him. He couldn't stand it.

So very often, Christianity is presented as "don'ts" and "nots". People know us for the "Go to hell" signs and "God hates fags" banners. They know us for what we stand against, not what we stand for. If you had any idea the truth of Jesus' heart, you have no business brandishing that message of hate around "in the name of God."

I know my God loves. He cares. He heals. He restores. He multiplies. He provides. Jesus was the son of a carpenter - a man's man. He was the people. He had a heart for the people. He was for the underdogs. Of all professions, he picked fishermen and tax collectors as his disciples. He wasn't for a popularity contest. He was for the people. He loved the prostitute and took her as she was in all her brokenness while the religious spewed judgement and condescension. Jesus hated religion the same way the criminal in the cafe hated it.

Which is why I so love this response from president Barack Obama to the question of "Why are you Christian?" His answer was simple and he spoke with far more clarity than I would've ever dreamt of explaining to anyone myself. It presented the love of Christ as it is - that we are all sinful and flawed and can only be perfect in His grace. There was no judgement, no holier than thou attitude, no spit and spat or foaming from the mouth(!) If we can only present His love in the same manner and attitude - to love regardless (tough call, I know) - then we can say we're truly getting the heartbeat of what the church should be about.

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