We may talk about pain, but such talk often ends up being a sanitized conversation that sounds and looks good on the outside but lacks the honesty and transparency necessary to effectively offer healing to a world crying out for help.
I’m Tired
I can’t speak for you, but …
- I’m tired of being forced to smile on the outside in an attempt to look the part, instead of giving myself the space to be vulnerable enough to express how I truly feel on the inside.
- I’m tired of a plastic Christianity that tells us to wear a cookie-cutter, permanent smile, with veneers showing, to give the appearance that ‘all is well,’ when in reality we’re all tired, wishing we could just talk to someone about our pain.
- I’m tired of Ken and Barbie pastors who love the stage and the bright lights, who love to talk about healing and restoration, but who lack the authenticity and depth to actually do anything about it; who minister ‘from a distance’ rather than become intimately involved in the mess of the common.
I’m just tired. And I think you are too.
What do I want?
- I want the church to grow into a genuinely caring community who aren’t afraid to be real and honest about their faults, failures, pain, questions and doubts.
- I want the veneered Christianity we’ve become so comfortable with to quickly dissolve and to finally be honest with ourselves about how far removed we are from real-life, down-to-earth, biblical Christianity.
- I want the church to become forever dissatisfied with plastic Christianity and intentionally seek to replace it with a Jesus-centered, Jesus-shaped Gospel that allows love, humility and grace to inform and shape its identity and expression so that we can reach out to a world in pain with a message of hope, healing and restoration—and mean it.
And I want Jesus to take center stage so that the spotlight will shine upon Him, and through Him, to the church that bears His name, unto a world waiting for us to finally begin to show our true colors.
