What are you doing today?

What do you do when the Christianity you have always known, you have grown up with starts to fall apart? What do you do when everything you though you knew about how church should be, or what a 'Christian' looks like, or the right way to get close to God is suddenly challenged?

I think it is a phenomenon...no a reality that many people are beginning to discover today. The traditional view that going to church every week and being kind to your neighbours and not upsetting anyone is being questioned. Is that what really makes you a Christian? Or is there something more?

We are entering an era where radical changes in the way we view church, God and Christianity are occuring. I suppose in a way it's similar to what happened when Jesus showed up. He rocked the Jewish world. He stunned people that, at the time, were just like you or me, ordinary Jews (Christians in our case) who thought they had it all figured out. Now two thousand years later, are we really that different? Do we think we have it figured out? And how are we being challenged by the radical message of Jesus?

To give you an idea of the kind of buzz Jesus caused, take Bono from U2 as an example. In his speech at the National Prayer Breakfast he sounded and acted more like a Jesus than most people I know. And he doesn't consider himself a 'Christ-follower'.

Too often we think we have it figured out, we know how to get to heaven, we know how to please God. But then someone like Bono comes along and acts more 'Christ-like' than a lot of us so-called Christians.

"If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others?" (Matthew 5:46-47)

What would happen if we all actually helped the poor and fed the hungry? What would it do to the state of the world? Or the state of our hearts...

Just a thought...

The Dawn Of A New Era

Having recently returned from Zambia, I have been faced with the reality of understanding what the whole experience means to me. Now that I am back, what have I learned? What do I need to learn? How can I apply it to my life? How will my life change?

This new blog is an opportunity to explore some new ideas about Christianity, what a Christian should (or could) look like and how religion in the 21st century is changing. I will be adding posts relating to this subject and if anyone would like to add a comment or a longer post, send me an e-mail and I would be glad to add anything.

And so it begins...