In AND: The Gathered and Scattered Church by Hugh Halter and Matt Smay they make a point that one of the great frustrations for pastors and congregation alike is that the lessons learned are often not integrated into our normal lives. An often-asked question they say is “Why does it feel as if there’s a Grand Canyon-sized chasm between my spiritual life and my real life?” This is a valid question for many a believer, even for those who attend church seriously and honestly believe in Christ there can be a great disconnect in our spiritual development between knowing about Jesus and becoming like Jesus.
I think this disconnect is present because for many of us as much as we can feel the Grand Canyon-sized chasm we know that to be a true disciple of Christ is a difficult life. There is a great deal of tension and struggle involved with being a disciple that when it comes down to it, many of us are plain scared of. We live in a consumerist society which teaches us to indulge ourselves and do all we can to make ourselves comfortable. The basic message of Christ completely counteracts this message and that’s not a reality most of us want to face. And it’s not a message that sounds as if it would be very attractive to the community around us we may be trying to reach. I think that’s why it’s not often on Sunday morning to hear a message discussing the hardships of the Christian walk, we’d rather focus on God’s love and mercy, feel-good words. Unfortunately this is not giving the whole picture of what we are called to do and does not cultivate true growth.
So my question is what will it take to get us out of the mindset of a consumer and into that of a disciple of Christ? And also should we be concerned with softening this message in order to attract nonbelievers or do we just give it to them as is?
Tim
This is hard, I know that I’ve been struggling with the whole-self denial thing since Christmas; I got a whole lot of really awesome stuff like nice clothes and a sweet cell phone. This is stuff I’ve never had in my life, and now I’ve got it. But, is it inherintely bad to possess these items when I could sell them and raise maybe $200 to help poor and impoverished families? At what point does it change from gifts that we can enjoy to excess that is a distraction from God?
I feel that gap a lot. I think that something that would be helpful are spiritual disciplines, like bible memorization, silence, etc.