{"id":1436,"date":"2009-04-03T14:09:17","date_gmt":"2009-04-03T14:09:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/?p=1436"},"modified":"2009-04-03T14:09:17","modified_gmt":"2009-04-03T14:09:17","slug":"to_be_different_in_the_right_w","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/?p=1436","title":{"rendered":"To be different, in the right way"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve said similar things (see below) over the last few years, and I think I’m getting close to figuring out something to do.
\nI discovered this sermon via Titusonenine<\/a> and given by the Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen on 3-15-09<\/a>, partially quoted below: <\/p>\n

Rick Richardson is a professor at Wheaton College and the author of a book called Evangelism Outside the Box<\/em>. He tells the story of a pastor named Dan who realized that his preaching was getting stale. So, with the support of his pastoral team, he took a part-time job at a nearby Starbucks coffee shop…
\n…Much to his surprise, all 21 people he worked with believed in God… They were all very positive toward God and toward spirituality.
\nYet Pastor Dan was surprised to discover that while they believed in God and were interested in things \u00e2\u20ac\u0153spiritual,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he also discovered that they were NOT interested in Christians, Christianity, or the church. No one wanted to hear Dan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s proofs for God, his invitations to church, or his ideas about salvation. Most of them thought they knew what Christianity was all about and had decided they didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want it. They were what some people call \u00e2\u20ac\u0153post-Christian.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\nThe people with whom Pastor Dan worked were not interested in the church. The biggest thing Dan learned was that if Christians are to have meaningful spiritual conversations with these people, the first thing that must be addressed is the issue of integrity<\/strong><\/em>. [emphasis mine]
\nDylan Rossi is an ex-Catholic and a native of Massachusetts. He believes he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s typical among his friends. He says, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153If religion comes up, everyone at the table will start mocking it. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know anyone religious and hardly anyone spiritual.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\nYet this one tops them all. Kendall Harmon is an Episcopal priest in South Carolina. He says, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153A couple came into my office with a yellow pad of their teenage son\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s questions. One of them was, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153What is that guy doing hanging up there on the plus sign?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d What is that guy doing hanging up there on the plus sign?… Like I said, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got a problem.
\n…It reminded me of a story in Thomas Cahill\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s book, How the Irish Saved Civilization. In it he speaks of the Roman Empire and the influence of Ausonius, a poet who rose to wield some political power. Ausonius once wrote, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Doing the expected is the highest value \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and the second highest is like it: receiving the appropriate admiration of one\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s peers for doing it.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d
\nAusonius was a Christian. Yet as Cahill described him, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153His Christianity (was) a cloak to be donned and removed as needed.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Did you catch that? \u00e2\u20ac\u0153His Christianity (was) a cloak to be donned and removed as needed.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Do Christians today have a similar problem? Many who are disgruntled with the Christian faith today think so. Many believe there is little difference in the behavior of those who claim to be Christian and the behavior of those who do not. In the book unChristian, 84% of the young people surveyed claim to know a Christian personally. Yet get this. Only 15% see the lifestyles of Christians as being different than anyone else. Have we forgotten that Jesus upsets the status quo? Have we forgotten that we are called to be different?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A huge reason that an increasing number of people no longer consider the Church as relevant to their longings or desires is because of us! There are other reasons, I know, but Christianity in this country and perhaps the West has lost integrity, and really we can’t fool people for very long. We’ve done this – we are our worst enemies. Christians liberal and conservative present a profoundly warped and deficient picture of the Christian Life. Why? Because we don’t experience it ourselves. That’s the problem; we’ve lost our birth-right’; we’ve lost the Promise; we look just like the rest of the world.
\nI want to be different – not just to be different, but because my life is so wrapped up in The One who is utterly different and who promises a life far different than what this current culture provides. But, how to go about recapturing the essence of a faith that changed the 12 so thoroughly that they changed the world.
\nFour questions we need to ask and answer seriously even to begin the plunge into the formation process, a process done sincerely and with the utmost of intent. Such and endeavor cannot help but transform us. We need desperately transformation. Four questions:
\n1. What do you seek?
\n2. Where are you going?
\n3. Who do you serve? – Serious question!
\n4. When will you begin? – There must be a sober, identifiable starting point – no more playing around<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve said similar things (see below) over the last few years, and I think I’m getting close to figuring out something to do. I discovered this sermon via Titusonenine and given by the Rev. Dr. Brian K. Jensen on 3-15-09, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1436\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hypersync.net\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}