Bubbles

Warning: "Soap-box" issue at play.


 Bubbles. When you are a kid they are one of the most mesmerizing things you can play with. When you are a parent they are cheap and hours of fun for your kiddos. Winning! (not in the Charlie Sheen sense of course) My favorite was to watch the really talented people who could blow a bubble within a bubble. Even if you popped it - there was still a bubble. Cool! 

At one point in my life, many many years ago (yes - I am old), I remember watching a movie called The Boy in the Plastic Bubble. He had a disease that caused him to risk death if he came in contact with germs and therefore was place in a sterile "bubble room" to live. He even had to be in his bubble if he went outside for fear he would contract something that could end his life. To live secluded from other human touch and contact with the outside world was what he needed to survive. 


Some of you may have heard  people talk about the "Christian bubble". This phenomenon takes places when Believers (those who have decided to make Jesus Lord of their lives and accept His free gift of salvation) decide that in order to survive in this dirty, sickness filled world - they must seclude themselves from all things that could contaminate their Christian walk. Christian books, Christian music, Christian clothing, Christian friends, and the list could go on. Nothing that is not "of Christ" is allowed in if we can at all help it. It is to dangerous. In fact, I loved the bubble. It took time and effort on my part to create this safe haven and it was amazing.


I took part in the purging of all my Cd's that were not "Christian". I surrounded myself with the "bubble" and it was good. All my friends were believers, all my music spoke of the One that I worship with my whole life, I had plaques and reminders everywhere I looked of the One who is most important to me. Great! Awesome! Good for me! Except I slowly began to realize that the story I was telling with my life only had listeners who had the same story. I was preaching to the choir, so to speak. 


Now, I do believe with all of my being that one of the things I am called to is to disciple and spur on other believers in their walk with Christ. But I began to see the walls of my bubble and started to feel very claustrophobic. I began to realize that I couldn't think of the last time I had a spiritual conversation with someone who didn't share my love for Jesus, the last time I had had personal contact with someone diseased and dying. I began to see that although my life was sterile and as uncontaminated as a life on this earth can be - it was not the life that Jesus led and therefore calls me to as one who desires nothing more than to be like him. 


In fact, I slowly realized that Jesus had great disdain for people like me in His day.  Those that wanted nothing more than to immerse themselves in their religion and not let any of the "sinners" in to the bubble they so carefully created for themselves. I began to wonder at what point "Christian" became and adjective to describe the "things" I surrounded myself with and ceased to be the noun that told others who I am and the verb that described how I live my life. I began to hate my bubble and want desperately to escape it. 


I remember one particular day, driving down the road listening to my favorite Worship band on the radio and heard the Lord ask me how I could possibly relate to the lost and dying in this world who have the same passion for music that I do if I didn't speak their language. I couldn't name secular bands. I didn't know secular songs. It was that day that I turned my car radio to a non-christian station and there it has remained for the most part for the last several years. I decided to learn a new language for the sake of being able to open doors with other music people and hopefully share Jesus with them at some point. I had popped the bubble.


At the end of the movie I describe above, the boy decides it is worth losing his life to be in contact with the world. And so he does. He leaves the protective confines of his sterile sanctuary and braves the germ filled outside world. And his reward was more than he could ever have imagined. (you should really watch the movie some time)


1 Corinthians 9:19-23 says this: For though I am free from all, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win more of them. To the Jews I became as a Jew, in order to win Jews. To those under the law I became as one under the law (though not being myself under the law) that I might win those under the law. To those outside the law I became as one outside the law (not being outside the law of God but under the law of Christ) that I might win those outside the law. To the weak I became weak, that I might win the weak. I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some. I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share with them in its blessings.





How about you? Are you in the bubble? Do you need to get out? Ask God where to poke - I promise He will show you.

Are Your Comfortable with Church?

I am not usually one who is big on seeking out new experiences. In fact - I kind of HATE it. I am a wall flower by nature and a self proclaimed extroverted-introvert. There for, my "comfort zone" is usually very small and I am in control of what happens there.


Church is a comfort zone for me. I have been "in church" all my life and have worked at a church for almost half my life. I am VERY comfortable here. I know what it looks like, I know what is supposed to happen and there is control. But God has been changing that zone of late. The once controllable world I call church has become less so. 


Last Sunday was one of the rare occasions I find myself out of my local church. In a city that is unknown to me a friend was used by God to take away just a little more of my comfortability with church. He asked me to visit Church Under the Bridge with him. 


I had never heard of such a thing but he explained that it began as a ministry to the homeless (not in my comfort zone) and 30 years later, there is a full blow church that literally meets under the overpass bridge of a major freeway every Sunday (really not in my comfort zone!) 


My first instinct was to use my sleeping daughter as a reason for not going. But after a good breakfast, we decided to leave the comfortable and experience something new. And boy did we. I will try my best to paint the picture for you.

Church was a place where everyone served, setting up folding chairs, plastic tables, a portable stage and port-a-potties. Church was a place where they served a hot meal to anyone who came. Church was a place where the dividing lines of race and social status no longer existed - being under a bridge has a way of leveling things. Church was a place of worship in song so pure with no agenda, sung by a homeless man with mental challenges and a woman who sung in a language different than mine and yet every word spoke to my heart. Church was a place of being washed by the Word of God spoken with the passion of a woman who really KNOWS God. Church was a place of honest discussion about the things that we let divide us as we pondered MLK's dream. Church was a place of communion remembering the ultimate sacrifice made to rid the world of the division between God and man.

Church was reaching out and hugging a homeless man who just wanted to know he is loved (I think he may have been the church's self proclaimed greeter.)  Church was shaking hands with Richard, who was so very proud of his "church" that he picked up all the small bits of trash as they blew in the wind under the bridge, which was somewhat of a futile effort. Rain, snow, or summer Texas heat - these people meet here to be the Church. 


The word 'challenged' doesn't seem to quite encompass what I feel about this experience. But it is causing me to deconstruct what I have always known to be "church" and to question if it is OK for me to be comfortable there.


My daughter and I were debriefing our experience on the way home and as usual, she was an inspiration to me at the ripe old age of 13. She explained that on their summer mission trips to Mexico there are a lot of homeless people, and that she thought maybe God showed her this to somehow minister to them when she goes again this coming summer break. She said that her Student Ministries pastor (who is very wise) has told them to "get comfortable with being uncomfortable." 


I think I might need to work on that a little bit. How about you?