"For so much of my life I had been defending Christianity because I thought to admit that we had done any wrong was to discredit the religious system as a whole, but it isn't a religious system, it is people following Christ; and the important thing to do, the right thing to do, was to apologize for getting in the way of Jesus."
I know that I get in the way of Jesus every single day. Probably in every possible way too. I know that I've been struggling with defending Christians and our religion since I was in Jr. High. I was so proud to wear the Christian t-shirts and try to explain to my friends what I was all about. But in the midst of "explaining" what Christianity was about, I was getting in the way and only explaining our system. I can't blame myself for not knowing what being a Christian meant and that it wasn't about the system I had learned so well, I was only 13 years old. But in the last couple of years, It has been the biggest struggle for me to even go to church. I have found myself hating Christianity, hating the church, and worst of all... hating the people in the church. I feel like it is their responsibility to know the truth! They should know better not to play the game of religion and politics. Yet, Every single Sunday, I still walk into our huge church filled with nearly 500 people and it seems as though no one even cares that it's about a relationship. A relationship with Christ and a relationship with the people around you. It breaks my heart. Yes, they say it's about a relationship, but it's not. Last night in class we spoke about the chapter this quote was from. My husband was in the class because he was talking about our website and then decided to stay for the discussion. He started to say that we refer to the church as the four walls we meet in. That it has nothing to do with the church building but it should be about the people, the community. I agreed with him and then told the class that I don't think we need to keep bringing up the 4 walls anymore. Because even if we were meandering all across the nation w/out a building to meet in, we would still act the way we do. Because Christianity has become about a system, not relationships and people. Phillip told a story of a man that was over in another country. The church he was going to didn't actually have a church. They had a rug that they would roll out and everyone would sit on it during the service. Well, after service one day, people were standing around and talking and a little boy ran across the rug that was still rolled out. A man grabbed the boy and said, "Don't run in church." What does that tell you? Anyway... sorry I had to get that all off my chest. And I know, all I did was talk about what we're doing and not what we should do. I tell my husband all the time that we need to stop talking about what's wrong, and talk about what we can do to change it and DO IT! So I apologize. I'm sure that in the next few days I will be thinking about what we can do and I will post it. BTW, read Blue Like Jazz! Not only is the writing really good, the words will hit your heart!
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