Hacking Christianity

Faking Christianity for Social Acceptance

Via Richard Beck, here's an interesting social phenomenon: faking being a Christian so Christians don't ostracize you from your child's playdates.

We are agnostics living deep in the heart of Texas and our family fakes Christianity for social reasons. It’s not so much for the sake of my husband or myself but for our young children. We found by experience that if we were truthful about not being regular church attenders, the play dates suddenly ended. Thus started the faking of the religious funk.

It seemed silly but it’s all very serious business down here. We don’t go to church or teach or children one belief is “right” over another. We expose them to every kind of belief and trust that they will one day settle in to their very own spirituality. However, for the sake of friends and neighbors, we pretend we are Christians. We try not to lie but rather not to disclose unnecessary information. As the children are getting older, this isn’t so easy for them and an outing is probably eminent.

Fascinating: people who fake being Christian so that Christians will accept them. I'm much less insulted by the fakers than I am by the Christians who don't express radical hospitality to other faiths/agnostics. There's more than one person faking Christian values in this story.

Thoughts?

(Image credit: Nonnetta on DeviantArt)

Your Relationship with God is Misdirected

Quick hit (and trying out this "blogging from google reader" thing)...Professor Richard Beck writes the following great article on what practical ways that Christians might want to start working on if they truly want to embody the love of Christ.

The Bait and Switch of Contemporary Christianity: "

A few years ago a female student wanted to visit with me about some difficulties she was having, mainly having to do with her family life. As is my practice, we walked around campus as we talked.

After talking for some time about her family situation we turned to other areas of her life. When she reached spiritual matters we had the following exchange:

'I need to spend more time working on my relationship with God.'
I responded, 'Why would you want to do that?'
Startled she says, 'What do you mean?'
'Well, why would you want to spend any time at all on working on your relationship with God?'
'Isn't that what I'm supposed to do?'
'Let me answer by asking you a question. Can you think of anyone, right now, to whom you need to apologize to? Anyone you've wronged?'
She thinks and answers, 'Yes.'
'Well, why don't you give them a call today and ask for their forgiveness. That might be a better use of your time than working on your relationship with God.'

Professor Beck ends with this nugget:

I truly want people to spend time working on their relationship with God.
I just want them to do it by taking the time to care about the person standing right in front of them.

Yeah. Ow. Nailed it!

I don't mean to say that one is better than the other. But time spent embodying kindness even in the most mundane of situations may offer you greater blessings and opportunities to share Christ than hours in prayer could do.

Thoughts?

What if Starbucks marketed like the Church? [video]

I post a lot of videos. I apologize. But for some reason, I've gotten to see a lot of great videos lately. But this one is by far my favorite at the moment.

New blog BeyondRelevance.com has a video on what if Starbucks marketed like the church. It is both damning of the church's failures in people-skills...and hilarious. (hat tip ThinkChristian)

Did you see the...

They had to park far away because the regulars took the close spots
Reserved parking spaces for the "Managers" and "Baristas"
Greeters ignoring people. Locked doors, only a few actually open.
HILARIOUS HILARIOUS POSTERS!!! BWA HA HA!
coffee is good. ALL THE TIME. And all the time...COFFEE IS GOOD.
Pointing out the visitors and embarassing them.
Making visitors fill out forms and such, instead of just feeding their souls.
"Java-lluia!"
"deep down inside, I know the beans been planted"
"I couldn't find the bathrooms."
"so, we'll see you next week, right?"

Thoughts? What do you think about the stereotypes? And what about your church...does it struggle with these same issues too?

Stop Being a Friendly Church [mission.hack]

A mission.hack is defined here. We look at mission statements or at mission initiatives and examine different ways of expressing them. Hacking them...if you will.

Yesterday, I attended a presentation by Doug Ruffle, PhD, of the New Jersey area of the UMC who came and did a presentation on church growth and tools for evangelism. He said (at least) one thing that really stuck with me and reminded me of many UMC Mission statements. He said this:

Stop being a friendly church.

Seriously...stop it.

A friendly church is not what God calls us to be.
We are called to be a church where people can make friends.

Dr. Ruffle writes...

My mother had to move over 10 times during her first 12 years of marriage. My father worked as a salesman and the companies he worked for were constantly assigning him to new places. We asked my Mom how she had managed to pick up everything and move with a family of five to a new town or city where she didn’t know a soul.

“I would find a Methodist Church,” she replied, “because there I knew I could make a friend.”

I thought it interesting how she worded her response. She didn’t look for a “friendly church,” but rather a church where she could make a friend. There is a big difference.

The difference was underscored for me recently upon hearing of a colleague who moved to a new town and sought out the closest United Methodist Church. He found a “friendly church.” People were kind. They smiled at him. Some greeted him during the after-worship fellowship hour. But, he wasn’t making any friends. He even went so far as to invite some of the church members he met to his home — to try to build a relationship — but they couldn’t find the time to come over. My colleague had found a friendly church, but not one where he could make a friend. He has given up trying and now is attending a church of another denomination where within two weeks of his first visit he was invited over to a member’s house for dinner.

To me, this is not mere hospitality, but a discrimination issue too. Too often we are only "friends" with people similar to us, and "friendly" to people who are not similar to us.

You know...those people.
The ones who you will talk to in coffee hour, maybe even wave back on the street, but otherwise outside the church walls you aren't connected to their lives.
The ones of a different race or, perhaps more likely, economic level than you.

We are called to be friends and accountability partners, not just "friendly" people who greet you with a smile, but keep you at arms length.

The statement on a plaque on the front steps of my church says this: "A friendly Church in a friendly town." I'd rather it say "A Church where you can make a friend."

But maybe friendship isn't what you are looking for. Perhaps you are one of those wounded ones who just wants Sanctuary, a time alone with God. Emphasis on alone. That's fine too, and churches that take "to make a friend" to borderline-stalking are out of the loop too.

So, where is the sweet spot between being "friendly" and "making friends" that churches welcoming and hospitality committees can address? And how can pastors and laity alike help move their church from being friendly to actually treating one another like the brother and sister in Christ that they are?

Ruffle concludes his talk with this nugget:

My mother taught me a valuable lesson about the difference between a friendly church and a church where you can make a friend. It's a lesson of which our churches need to be reminded.

When I see the words "a friendly church" that just reminds me to be friendly. If I instead saw "where you can make a friend" I might remember, hey, that's ME. I might be the one making a friend today.

Mission.hacks examine what effect mission statements have on people, and what our mission statements betray about us. Perhaps the "country-club" stigma of the UMC could be a bit more eradicated if we stopped being "friendly" and started trying to offer to be "friends."

Thoughts? Other "friendly" manifestations that you want to note of?

Discuss.