I used to want to be cool. I wanted to be cool so bad it hurt. I concocted elaborate plans to perpetuate my own coolness (using the word "perpetuate" daily was part of the plan to become cool), I wanted so badly to be accepted by those who were accepted by other people. I wanted to be cool. I bought the clothes, did the wooshy thing with my hair so it spiked up all nice, talked just right, and I watched mtv just so I could bag on it (all while knowing I was supposed to secretly like it, but even deeper down hating it, and hating more that I had to like it but pretend to hate it... it was complicated... recovering cool wanna-bes understand).
Then I realized a few things:
1) this isn't me, this is me doing an impression of what I think other people think everyone else thinks is cool. Confusing ain't it?
2) Its too much work and I am unhappy doing it.
3) Its all so ridiculous to the point of being an easy satire of itself, this being cool or hip business.
4) the gospel, and Christ Himself leaves no space for this vain attempt at coolness or social acceptance.
5) I'm gonna die soon. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, maybe not for another 60 years but soon enough I'll be dead. There is precious time left and I don't want to waste it doing stuff I don't want or being someone I don't want to be.
Which brings me to my current point: We need to stop trying to be cool. This could be seen as a challenge to emergent/emerging people but more than that this is an appeal to regular guys who are standing at the edge of the pool, testing the waters to see how warm this new bath of Christian coolness really is. Trust me boys (and girls... i should be more gender inclusive in my writing I am sure...) the water is warm and calming. And we all know what warm water does to us: it sings us to sleep like a soft and beautiful siren until we're one with the rocky coast from which the siren sings. It puts us to sleep, it makes us comatose.
We have no time for sleep. The time is short and there is work to do.
I heard a Christian young man the other day, just fresh from graduating college and ready to take the world on (so to speak), talking about how "post modern" he is and how he was going to make the Gospel relevant to this generation.
See, post moderns (or "poe-mods" as I like to call them) are concerned that the Gospel is losing its vitality in this new age of relativity. It needs to be revamped, repackaged, and redistributed to make it more palpable in this new "emerging" generation. We need to see the faith different, through a post modern lens, so that our faith will last beyond this current existential crisis.
So we embrace relativity.
We embrace tolerance.
We become cool.
In doing so we must part ways with absolute truth. We abandon certainty. Instead of providing hope and certainty in an uncertain world we stand amongst the lost and say "I'm just as lost as you, but thats okay, we have one another."
I see our attempts at making Christianity relevant and appealing to my generation and I am insulted by it. Perhaps I am the uber-cynic and others don't feel the same as me. But I see pastors with their bleached hair, their stylish clothing, their edgy vocabulary ("my pastor said 'shit'... my church is SOOO poe-mod") and I feel like I'm being talked down to. Don't try to be like me Christian! Be yourself. I understand there are those who are being genuine, but they are few and far between. Make no mistake this is an attempt at surface coolness in order to appeal to this generation. Its a sales technique. We should be insulted.
Christians, its a lie to think that you have to look/talk/act like those with whom you're ministering in order to affectively reach them. You're doing nothing but perpetuating the myth of coolness. You've been suckered into believing the lie this world has created that the cool people are the ones who are more valuable in society.
By trying to make the Gospel cool and relevant we act like we're are saving it or something. Thats a ridiculous proposition! Picture reading a Superman comic where Superman saves a woman from a collapsing bridge. Her very foundation was crumbling beneath her and she was about to fall hundreds of feet to her death when Superman swept in and saves her life and brought her onto solid ground. She thanks him, nobly he says "its my pleasure" and prepares to fly away when she grabs his arm and says "Superman, be careful today, theres reports of salmonella poison in tomatoes right now, so you should probably not eat any for a while." And she walks away proud that she saved Superman's life, while he flies off confused thinking to himself, "I just saved this woman's life by flying in swooping her away from certain death, I'm faster than a speeding bullet, I think I can handle a little tomato... Plus, I don't even eat tomatoes." She didn't save his life, she didn't accomplish anything but making herself feel better.
That is kinda like what we can do when we think we're saving the Gospel. The Gospel doesn't need us to save it. Its lasted for nearly 2000 years without any of our help. And when we're all dead the Gospel will continue. You know why? Because it has nothing to do with us. Its exists beyond and outside of us. We are the bearers and presenters of it but it does not endure because of us. It is God's Gospel, and just as He is eternal so is His Gospel.
The liberal church of the early twentieth century tried making the Gospel more relevant. The liberal church has faded. The Gospel remains. Trust me, the Gospel will outlive us all. Stop trying to do it any favors.
The Gospel isn't cool. Its never going to be cool. It doesn't want to be cool. Therefore any bearers of the Gospel will not be and cannot be cool either.
Its just the nature of things.
Deal with it.
Accept your decent from coolness into the world of being all things to all people that you might save some (1 Corinthians 9:22).
The Gospel is offensive. To those who do not want to believe it but want to follow their own path the Gospel carries with it the smell of death (2 Corinthians 2:15-16), they want nothing to do with it no matter how you package it. It doesn't matter what you look like, how you talk; you don't matter! To those who are called the Gospel is a sweet aroma because its brings life, hope, eternity, and a relationship with the creator of the world. It saves us from ourselves and our sin. It saves us from death. How beautiful! But to those who don't want to be saved it is a disgusting proposition they want nothing to do with. It offends them. There is no way to package it differently and make it more appealing. The Gospel speaks for itself. You proclaim it, it does the rest. If it helps, let me encourage you with this: it is God that is being rejected, not you. It does not reflect on you personally that a person rejects God.
If you want to help, pray more. Pray that God changes hearts. Use your time spent programming and packaging to pray.
The Gospel is divisive. Christ says that He will even separate family members by His message (Matthew 10: 34-36)! How can we hope to do any better? We cannot change the Gospel from being what it is.
The Gospel is powerful, it elicits a response. That response can be powerful and life changing; saving a soul forever. Or it can inspire frustration and anger. But its never cool. Nor are those who carry it.
I have no desire to be cool. Nor do I have a desire to learn from those who are. We are at war against the darkness, coolness doesn't enter into it. Bring me men and women ready to fight for truth no matter what the conditions, that is who I want standing next to me; regardless of their social status, style, or ability to quote every Will Ferrell movie*.
In the age of relativity truth is vilified at worst and made out to be an intangible object at best. We are not of this generation Christians. Christ calls Himself the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6). He is the truth, and we are of Him.
The Gospel is able to save lives and it gives us hope for eternity. It gives us a firm foundation to stand on in shaky times. And it unites us with the creator of the universe. But it will never make us cool.
Now lets be at peace and stop trying so hard.
*which is not a bad thing... it just doesn't make us better ministers of the truth.
Wednesday, July 23, 2008
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Christian Currency (or Christianity and the art of tipping with the Gospel)
I work in a restaurant. I wait tables. I make money by waiting tables. I live by waiting tables. Thats all the money I make. I live off of what people give to me. The government expects that people will give me money. They tax me for that money (hypothetical though it may be). Hourly wage? That means very little, in fact it means next to nothing. The government taxes the ever -loving crap out of my hourly wages.
Tips! Tips is where it is at for the server.
Its hard work living off of the generosity of others. Its demeaning at times, at least for me. I provide a service and the amount I am rewarded for that service is completely objective depending on:
1) the sympathy of the customer for my financial situation
2) the class (not social class but class as in the content of their character) of the customer
3) the mood of the customer
4) the customer's knowledge of the inner working of the tipping/waiting world
5) every other employee in the restaurant (getting an hourly wage) doing their job so that I can do mine.
Its a bizarre and unpredictable business. I want out of it as soon as I can! But I've been saying that for 5 years and here I am...
All this to say, the tips servers get from customers are their means of income. Every dollar counts and every dollar is appreciated.
Which brings me to the point of this blog:
Dear Christians:
When you tip using Christian tracks (those little booklets that contain the gospel with pictures and or amusing* anecdotes) you're generally not accomplishing your intended purpose. Do I doubt that a soul can be saved by a track? Absolutely not. BUT in our generation of skepticism people don't read them and people don't care. You have to earn respect before people are gonna take the time to read something like that.
So if you act like a jerk, if you're demanding and short tempered, if you're argumentative, or if you don't tip well it doesn't matter what that piece of paper says. Your server won't read it. If he/she does they will generally have a negative view of Christianity because you contradicted yourself.
All servers want is money. That is the truth. I have seen so many extra pieces of paper thrown away because they had nothing to do with the one thing the server is there for: $money$.
Seriously. It doesn't matter what it is; it gets thrown away at best and ridiculed mercilessly at worst.
You wanna be a witness? You wanna impact people with the gospel? Live your life for Christ. Care for each person as a individual who's needs and wants are more important than your own. Serve people. Build relationships. You earn the right to share the gospel through it being active in your life. If Christ isn't present in your life than no one is going to want to hear about Him redeeming theirs. By leaving a track (especially if it supplements a decent tip) you only piss people off, it may make you feel better about yourself but it leaves Christians with whom these servers have a relationship picking up the pieces.
Sundays are the worst. I come into work after a busy Sunday to servers grilling me about why some Christian was either obnoxious or demanding or rude or a bad tipper and then they left a track. "Why would anyone do that?"
You wanna share the gospel? Good. You have to earn it. Build relationships. You want to witness at a restaurant? Good. Build relationships, become a regular, earn respect, earn the right to speak, model Christ. It takes work.
Don't misunderstand me, tracks are not bad things. They are a great tool to share the gospel. They should not be used as a shortcut to sharing the gospel! The gospel is DECLARED, not passively laid on a table and left for a busboy to throw away.
At my work we would collect them and call them "Christian currency." The thought was that one day fudamentalist, conservative Christians (a group unto itself) would take over the government and then these tracks would become our currency and we servers would all be rich! It doesn't look like that day is coming. So please just tip your server 15-20%, smile, and come back soon. And please DECLARE the gospel, don't leave it timidly under a 5% tip (unless you really do have ambitions of one day making those our currency than me and all my server friends could finally pay off school and our cars).
*using the word loosely
Tips! Tips is where it is at for the server.
Its hard work living off of the generosity of others. Its demeaning at times, at least for me. I provide a service and the amount I am rewarded for that service is completely objective depending on:
1) the sympathy of the customer for my financial situation
2) the class (not social class but class as in the content of their character) of the customer
3) the mood of the customer
4) the customer's knowledge of the inner working of the tipping/waiting world
5) every other employee in the restaurant (getting an hourly wage) doing their job so that I can do mine.
Its a bizarre and unpredictable business. I want out of it as soon as I can! But I've been saying that for 5 years and here I am...
All this to say, the tips servers get from customers are their means of income. Every dollar counts and every dollar is appreciated.
Which brings me to the point of this blog:
Dear Christians:
When you tip using Christian tracks (those little booklets that contain the gospel with pictures and or amusing* anecdotes) you're generally not accomplishing your intended purpose. Do I doubt that a soul can be saved by a track? Absolutely not. BUT in our generation of skepticism people don't read them and people don't care. You have to earn respect before people are gonna take the time to read something like that.
So if you act like a jerk, if you're demanding and short tempered, if you're argumentative, or if you don't tip well it doesn't matter what that piece of paper says. Your server won't read it. If he/she does they will generally have a negative view of Christianity because you contradicted yourself.
All servers want is money. That is the truth. I have seen so many extra pieces of paper thrown away because they had nothing to do with the one thing the server is there for: $money$.
Seriously. It doesn't matter what it is; it gets thrown away at best and ridiculed mercilessly at worst.
You wanna be a witness? You wanna impact people with the gospel? Live your life for Christ. Care for each person as a individual who's needs and wants are more important than your own. Serve people. Build relationships. You earn the right to share the gospel through it being active in your life. If Christ isn't present in your life than no one is going to want to hear about Him redeeming theirs. By leaving a track (especially if it supplements a decent tip) you only piss people off, it may make you feel better about yourself but it leaves Christians with whom these servers have a relationship picking up the pieces.
Sundays are the worst. I come into work after a busy Sunday to servers grilling me about why some Christian was either obnoxious or demanding or rude or a bad tipper and then they left a track. "Why would anyone do that?"
You wanna share the gospel? Good. You have to earn it. Build relationships. You want to witness at a restaurant? Good. Build relationships, become a regular, earn respect, earn the right to speak, model Christ. It takes work.
Don't misunderstand me, tracks are not bad things. They are a great tool to share the gospel. They should not be used as a shortcut to sharing the gospel! The gospel is DECLARED, not passively laid on a table and left for a busboy to throw away.
At my work we would collect them and call them "Christian currency." The thought was that one day fudamentalist, conservative Christians (a group unto itself) would take over the government and then these tracks would become our currency and we servers would all be rich! It doesn't look like that day is coming. So please just tip your server 15-20%, smile, and come back soon. And please DECLARE the gospel, don't leave it timidly under a 5% tip (unless you really do have ambitions of one day making those our currency than me and all my server friends could finally pay off school and our cars).
*using the word loosely
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