A Changing Atmosphere

I'm loving the weather recently! These crisp, sunny days are absolutely awesome. Especially when it seems like only yesterday the humidity and heat were ridiculously unbearable, and the thought of freezing, ice-covered roads in the short days ahead make me cringe. But right now... perfection. It's been a welcome change.

It seems much more has been changing recently. The atmosphere has changed, and I think it's a good thing. Not just at our local church, but all over the world. I'm running into more and more people who are noticing this change. Many of us have observed the Christian-Religion that dominated much of the 1970's, 1980’s, and 1990's as not much more than an argumentative and aggressive political attitude, mainly known for being totally intolerant about homosexuality and abortion. That posture led to a perception of moral and religious superiority for Christians. This attitude bullied through certain initiatives as being the most important things ever, but at the exact same time alienated countless people from genuine relationship with Jesus Christ.

Being associated with those who call themselves 'Christians', but who don't embrace this change, is something many of us can no longer do.

I kinda think that the atmospheric change that has happened around the world concerning these things has actually liberated and empowered us Jesus-followers. It has forced us to re-evaluate how and when we engage culture.

It's like now we are finally getting it.

We’re seeing that the mandate of Jesus is simply to love and accept people one on one, caring for them where they are. Our role is revolutionary, as we carry the light and love of Jesus into our work-places, schools, and even into the streets of our city. We're trying to flip that perception of superiority and hypocrisy by being honest and straightforward about our faults, as well as our sincere hope for transformation in Jesus. And we're doing our best to join our community in much different ways than we’ve done in the past. We’re not interested in fighting anymore, unless it’s in a war against the enemy of God – an enemy that promotes poverty, crime, addiction, and pain.

Rather than seeing ourselves against or above our culture, we are seeing a stronger impact from adopting several important attitudes concerning our culture. Let me explain:

1. An attitude of grace over judgment

I was reading a story of a guy named 'Sonny' in Las Vegas. When he first walked into a church, he had been living on the street as a crack addict for nine months. He was a mess. But the people didn't judge him, they cared for him. Sonny became a Christian, he was baptized, and began a spiritual journey. Eventually people in the church helped him get a job and gave him a car. He went on to grow and mature and even start his own business and get married.

Fast forward four years from the time Sonny walked in off the street. The mayor of Las Vegas tries to pass a law that says you can no longer feed the homeless in any public place in the city. Vegas does not have the social services of many cities already, and it has been voted the meanest city in America to the homeless.

Sonny gets ticked off and decides he cannot sit by and watch this happen. He actually sues the Mayor, contending that the law is unconstitutional. The first hearing finally comes. Picture the courtroom. All the attorneys for the Mayor on one side in their power suits. An average guy standing alone on the other side in his street clothes. The judge looked over the case and looked to the Mayor's attorney's. He said that it was unconstitutional to single out one group of people and discriminate against them in this way and he threw the case out! The reason you can give a homeless guy a sandwich on the streets of Vegas today is because one former homeless guy named Sonny used his influence.

Here's the question: Would that have ever happened if he'd first encountered judgment rather than grace when he walked into a church?

All of it starts with grace, God's grace, which can work in our lives powerfully over time. Are you living in that grace? Am I? Are you and I quick to share it or are we quick to judge? Are we meeting our friends and family with that grace? Are we envisioning them to accomplish their dreams for God through that grace?

2. An attitude of love over inaction

Love is not simply the opposite of hate. Love is the opposite of inaction as well. If we say we love our neighbors, but we don't act with love toward them, we're a joke and only kidding ourselves.

This past weekend I joined hundreds of Jesus-Followers who were acting out the love of Christ in practical ways. Many of them went to a nursing home and worked their rears off. They cleaned windows, they scrubbed and straightened, and they visited and loved on the forgotten. Others went to a neighborhood that had been hit harshly by a recent wind-storm. This group, consisting of young and old, trimmed trees, hauled away debris and downed limbs, and served many as, I believe, Jesus would have. Still others of us went downtown and picked up garbage that had been left over from the Liberty Fall Festival that had been taking place in that area for two days. I was amazed to watch Christians bending over and picking up everything from cigarette butts to half-eaten, soggy hot-dog buns, all for the glory of God in an effort to show His kind of love to our city.

Rather than picket the moral failure of our communities, what would happen if we began to serve the community? Won't our actions of love and mercy make a greater impact than our picket sign? Won't what we do be so much louder than what we say?

3. An attitude of truth over inauthenticity

Jim Gilmore, author of an amazing book entitled Authenticity, said, "Authenticity is a big buzz word in the church, but the Bible does not use the term. It doesn't talk about authenticity as we do today. The Bible talks about truth. Living in the truth and sharing the truth."

That statement will make you think. The Bible absolutely speaks in terms of truths that make unconditional claims on our lives. What I mean is; I should be more concerned about knowing this truth and living in it than I am about simply being authentic.

By living in the truth honestly, the authenticity side of things will take care of itself. I'm learning that people won't really listen to you until they trust you. By the way, trust comes from grace and love. When people trust you, and you tell them the truth, they will trust you even more, even if the truth is hard to swallow.

Truth must be at the center of our lives.

So, the mandate for me as a pastor, actually for any and all Jesus-Followers, is to be real and preach truth.

I pray that by taking an attitude of grace, love, and truth we can continue to see the atmosphere of our culture change in significant ways.