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I'm not sure I'm using this correctly. I'm go to blogs and websites and messageboards for hours each day and this is the only one that confuses me. (-:
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Larry and I have struggled with this. We also had a recent similar experience with the guy in your book. One of the many times we've lived somewhere for a very short time,due to Larry's work, we lived in an RV park. Some people lived there year round and some people only came for winter. Some came just for weekends. Almost none were saved; in fact, most were either not intererested in such things or very new age-y. But, still, this RV park was like a little community, or maybe a small town. You had people with money who wanted to run things, you had people who liked to smoke dope all the time, you had people who were jocks, people who were nerds; we even had a two deaf gay men who lived together and a group of women who were bi-sexual. Of course, we didn't hang out with all these people but we knew most by name. We would see them and say hello at the pool or in the hottub or at the weekly pot luck or dance, if we decided to go.
Lar and I were amazed at the amount of community we felt there. People were really non-judging and willing to be inconvenienced, which at the moment, seems like a good definition for love. Also, I noticed, I felt really comfortable. Since I'd been living in the Christian "ghetto" for years, I though, "Uh, gee -- maybe I'm backsliding! I'm enjoying these people more than I do most Christians." How could this be?
The Village isn't so bad, I don't think, but most churches I've been in have these standards. I'm not talking about rules anyone says out loud ---like don't drink beer in a Baptist church, although they have too many of those, too, imho. But in many churches (at least, in the Bible belt, where I came from only a little over a year ago)there's just this lack of freedom to be yourself. You have to be "spiritual." Even if you are feeling unspiritual and say so, you must say you are feeling unspiritual in what is the acceptable spiritual way. I'm not sure if you undertand what I'm saying -- you'll have had to experience it to know, I think. But it's not real. Sometimes I think people are so, well, uh.. constipated about God that that's the way it is. And of course, if a person is like this with believers, how much more will he/she feel lack of freedom with non-believers? I think the only reason why Lar and I finally changed and felt comfortable, was because we'd experienced a very, very hurtful situation at our former church where we'd felt let down and betrayed. So, we were more sensitive to other people, whether they were Christians or not.
Many people make non-believers into projects. And people aren't dumb -- they know if you really care and will continue to care even if they NEVER accept Christ. But we must! God causes rain to fall on the righteous and the unrighteous! Others (again, I've not seen that so much here)expect nonbelievers to act like Christians. They see some people getting wasted all the time -- and they go, "Oh, no.! They shouldn't do that and maybe i shouldn't hang out with them." But what do you expect? You can't expect a nonbeliever to act like a believer. We need to communicate with them on their own ground. I don't mean you have to get wasted, but you can't judge it. After all, it's perhaps the best they have to cope with life until they meet the One with the easy yoke and light burden. We need to accept them as they are until they find Christ. But our treatment should be the same before they find Him as after.
Even though my calling has normally been within the church, I've really been praying that God will open some doors for me to have some good relationships with unbelievers here in Tucson, too. It's hard because my neighborhood is very anonymous and I don't work. But I have gone a few times to the neighborhood pool and met a few people that I hope a way to show them Christ's love will develop. Most people are so needy for both spiritual and practical things. But they they won't usually tell you the spiritual thing right off for fear of being preached at and/or condemned. So, you listen to practical things (my my job sucks, we can't afford anything, my kids drive me nuts, I have to smoke some weed to get relaxed). And when you help meet those practical needs and they know you're doing it out of true caring and not as an evangelical project, they will sometimes start sharing about spiritual things.
Reminds me of when Larry and I went as missionaries to Honduras -- the fact is, the country is flooded with missionaries, not be mention Honduran Christians who can often do the job better. After we came home (it was a temporary thing) Lar started a business outsourcing to Honduran programers. Honduras is a poor country so this met a practical need and many Christian families were blessed and some people became Christians, too. But even those who didn't, I think realized we weren't nasty American imperialists but people who loved their people-- and who knows what will happen in time? Sometimes, one sows and another reeps. BTW With Lar's new job, he gets to outsource to Honduras again!
Lindy |
