Get it Off My Chest

There are a couple of things that I have needed to get off my chest for a while now but couldnt quite come up the words to explain. But Ill give it my best shot.

One thing that has been bugging me lately is that a while ago I was called a hypocrite for being a Christian and going into a strip club. Im still not really sure how to respond to that. I can see where one might think that way, but I dont really feel like a hypocrite. One response I thought of was to flip it. What if there is a stripper who happens to be a nonbeliever, is it hypocritical for her to be in a church? This might be totally out of context, but thats just a thought that popped up.

I just finished a book called Velvet Elvis written by Rob Bell, and in one section of the book he talks about Jesus going to an unexpected place with his disciples. It reads, "One account in the book of Matthew says that Jesus was talking to his disciples at Caesarea Philippi. This is one of those details that is easy to skip, but is significant. Caesarea Philippi was the world center of the goat god, Pan. People came from all over the world to worship this god. There is a cliff with a giant crack in it that the followers of Pan believed was the place where the spirits from hell would come and go from the earth. The crack was called the Gates of Hell. They built a temple for Pan there and then a court next to it where people would engage in sexual acts with goats during the Pan worship festival.
"And Jesus is there with his disciples. As good Jewish boys, they never would have gone to this place before."

I think that that is a hundred times worse than me going to a strip club. That is like taking a church youth group to a donkey show in Mexico. Isnt Jesus awesome though? Just living the journey, doing the unexpected. Going places 'Christians' wouldnt dare go. If you have never read the New Testament in the Bible, read about Jesus before, I would recommend it. Jesus is a pretty fly guy, not what you would expect. He's not what I expected at all.

Now, I know that I talk a lot about God, Jesus, and Christianity, but I just want to let you know that I am not a Bible-beater. Im not trying to be one of those annoying Evangelical Christians and convert the world. I am not trying to make nonbelievers feel like they are living the wrong way or doing things all wrong. I am not one of those Christians that believes that I shouldnt be a part of the world, that I should just hide in my church all the time, and never expose myself to the sin of this world, and never be associated with Non-Christians, and I have to be perfect all of the time, or at least pretend to be perfect. No, Im not like that. Actually, I am kind of the opposite. For the most part, I like nonbelievers more than I like Christians. The name Christianity has such a bad connotation these days. I am a Christian, and I still think this way. When I think of the word Christian, I think of the person that hides in a church, is never exposed to sin, and pretends to be perfect. They are pretending to be this person who has it all together, who never sins, who has life figured out, and who pretends to be happy all the time. I like nonbelievers because they arent pretending to be someone they arent. They are being themselves. (Now, I know that not all Christians and nonbeliever are like that, Im just generalizing here) But isnt that what God wants from us, to be ourselves. He created us as individuals with unique ideas and personalities, why shouldnt we express it? Now I will be the first to admit that as a Christian, I am far from having it all together, I sin just as much as the next person, and I am a little hazy on how life should be lived, and sometimes, Im just not happy. Do you know why? Because I am human, just like you.

I am from the midwest, the largest area of religous people in the country, so we have quite a few churches and most people claim to be Christian. I recently took a trip to Vermont with a few people from my church, not as a missions trip (because really, there was no mission), just to hang out and explore the land of Vermont. Something that struck me was how different the people are out there. I am so used to being in the midwest where everyone dresses the same, has the same hairstyle, drives the same car, ultimately everyone is trying to 'fit in'. So it was shocking when we went to this college town and saw so many different types of people. These people were individuals. I absolutely loved it. They are accepted for who they are out in Vermont. No one gives them a dirty look if they are sporting a mohawk out there. And the people I had met out there were fabulous. They were real. The people that owned the cabin that we were staying in invited us to dinner at thier main home one night, so we got to know them better that night. And I was taken aback when we walked in and Lynn told us that if we wanted something to drink we had to get it ourselves because she wasnt going to wait on us. Im not youre waitress tonight is basically what she said. I thought that was great, its like she instantly accepted us as family or something. She wasnt being mean about it, just honest. She wasnt trying to make herself look like a little perfect stepford wife and wait on us hand and foot, like im used to seeing. And this is just one example of my encounters with the Vermont dwellers.