Is a Christian Worldview Enough?

For awhile now I've been finding myself cringing when I read or hear people talk about the importance of having a "Christian worldview." I didn't always have this reaction, but in the past year or so it seems that whenever I hear someone talk about Christian worldview I sense that their ultimate passion is to be right. There's also an unattractive and not-so-subtle "us" versus "them" mentality.

I heard someone say that most Christians today have made "right thinking" their highest goal. I find this very disturbing. It's not that I think truth isn't important. I just think something fundamental is missing from the attitudes, conversations, and actions of many Christians today.

I remember Donald Miller saying in his book Blue Like Jazz that whenever two people are talking there are always two conversations going on - the one that's happening out loud and the one that is happening beneath the surface where we sense what the other person thinks and feels toward us. He says that if a person senses that the other person doesn't like them, they are highly unlikely to accept anything that person says. But if the person senses that the other person genuinely likes them, they are likely to be open to just about anything that comes out of that person's mouth.

Here's my attempt to summarize this concept: Unless your world view develops into a world do no one is going to listen to you. (OK, I admit the rhyming element is a little cheesy.)

I can see why Christians have become better known in this country for their love of their views than for their love of people. I once heard Leonard Sweet say something along the lines of, "We hear a lot about worldview; but how's your worldlive?" (That's "live" as in "give," not "live" as in "jive".)

Truth and love - I think we're missing the kingdom if we have one without the other. In her book Parenting the Heart of Your Child Diane Moore says,

Pure truth cannot be separated from love. Truth without love is a "resounding gong or a clanging symbol" (1 Cor. 13:1), while love without truth is dysfunction.

What would happen if all of us worldviewers became worlddoers, worldlivers, or better yet, worldlovers?

Planning, Preparing, Surfing and Jazz

Recently I've come across two analogies for life.

1. Jazz (As summarized by my friend AJ)
Jazz is very go-with-the-flow. The performer knows the basic elements/structure of the song but doesn’t know specifically what special distinctives it will take. Jazz requires that the player learn to move with the direction that the piece takes in the moment, interact with both the music and the other players, and improvise.

2. Surfing (As described in The Present Future)
"In the weeks I observed surfers I never saw one surfer plan a single wave, but I did see them prepare to ride the waves when they came." God is making waves all around us. The people busy making their own plans won't get to ride them. It will be the people that are prepared to get in on what God is up to that will get to ride them.

Basically the message that I think God is trying to get through to me with these analogies is firstly, "Control is an illusion so quit grasping for it." Secondly, "If you must make your little plans, hold them VERY loosely and be prepared to see all obstacles to your plans as waves that I'm inviting you to ride."

If obstacles are waves then waves are my kids. In my daily life it's my kids who most often thwart my best laid plans. Seeing their ill-timed accidents, neediness, and tantrums as fun waves to ride would be a stretch. But not all waves are fun rides, I suppose. Quite a few of them kick your butt and leave you wondering which way is up while ingesting salt water through your nose. Since we can't know which waves will be exhilerating and which will be humiliating, we have to keep getting on which ever ones come our way lest we miss the ride of a lifetime.

I long to hold my plans loosely; to give my days to God and say, "Not mine, but your plans be done." The best days are rarely the ones where everything goes according to my plan. The best days are more often the ones where by God's grace I go with the flow, move in the direction that the piece takes, and experience the beauty and blessedness of improvisation.

Which word best describes you: surfer, jazz musician, or control freak? I'd love to hear how you are working this out in your life.

The Church Club

Andy and I are reading a book called The Present Future with a group of 40+ others at our church who are exploring new ways of showing and sharing God’s love with others. We’ve only read the first two chapters but, WOW!

The author says that churches have been asking the wrong question: How do we do church better? (How do we get people to join our church?) The right question, he says, is: How do we deconvert from Churchianity to Christianity? (How do we connect people to Jesus?) Check out these two excerpts.

The church culture in North America is a vestige of the original movement, an institutional expression of religion that is in part a civil religion and in part a club where religious people can hang out with other people whose politics, worldview, and lifestyle match theirs. As he hung on the cross Jesus probably never thought the impact of his sacrifice would be reduced to an invitation for people to join and to support an institution.

People may be turned off to the church, but they are not turned off to Jesus. Jesus is popular. He still makes the cover of Time and Newsweek every year (generally around Easter). Church people sometimes get excited by this but fail to understand that people in the nonchurch culture don’t associate Jesus with the church. In their mind, the church is a club for religious people where club members can celebrate their traditions and hang out with others who share common thinking and lifestyles. They do not automatically think of the church as championing the cause of poor people or healing the sick or serving people. These are things they associate with Jesus. They believe the church is out for itself, looking out more for the institution than for people.

For any of my friends outside the church culture who are reading this, I want to offer a personal apology for the church’s gross misrepresentation of the person we claim to follow. I have been part of this institutional blindness and negligence and am guilty of putting my focus and energy on things that Jesus did not center his attention on. Please forgive me and the church.

May God also forgive us. May God give us the humility to admit that we’ve been more of a self-serving club than the hands and feet of Jesus. May God help us make the radical, downwardly mobile shift from lives of preoccupation with the institution into lives of service to people.