For me, being a true follower of Christ in 2017 means…
- Lots of prayer. The tragedies in our back yard and close at hand call for countless prayers to be offered and questions to be answered.
- Soul searching. With so much divisiveness and loss and heartbreak that I have faced personally and many people are facing collectively. I have to ask myself what is my role to play? How am I complicit to many of the wrongs around us and how can I make an impact to spread the Kingdom of God?
- Confronting fear. What are Christians so afraid of? We should be the least fearful people on the planet. The strong and unshakeable Kingdom of God is a perfectly safe place to be. Christ has defeated death and we can start to experience the eternal life now.
- Being true to the Gospels. Every time I see Christianity wrapped up in politics I long to return to the Gospels and read what Jesus found to be most important and what he asked us to do. I want that to shape me, not an Americanized version that vaguely uses Jesus as a way to push personal agendas.
- Being counter-cultural. The times in history when Christianity has been the most potent and effective are the times when it was on the margins and not front and center and obligatory. All of the tools that seduce the culture – power, media, institutions and bombast are not the tools that Jesus used. I need to study and embrace prayer, peace, silence, Sabbath, and worship and let these things work through the power of Christ, even if the world sees no value in them.
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