There are three things which Leisha hates, yes, four which are an abomination to her

ABOMINATION NUMBER ONE

my own lazy assI've been convicted consistently over the past few weeks that I need to get my butt up in the morning in time to spend some quality time with God. Yet, consistently I wake up when my alarm goes off, and talk myself into snoozing for ten more minutes, sometime like, twenty times! What is up with that? One the one hand I think "just try harder!", but that's just not what God wants from me. He wants me to desire that time with Him, to look forward to it as a precious part of my day. Unfortunately, Pastor Pillow is sooo seductive, which leads me to...

ABOMINATION NUMBER TWO
My addiction to comfort

This is something I've been battling for ages, this addiction to making my life as child-proofed as possible. No sharp edges, no places where I might fall and get a boo-boo, no discomfort of any kind. It reminds me of this Archie comic tract thing I saw one time where Archie's car breaks down and he and Jughead end up at this creepy mansion (all Dracula-slash-Hotel California style) where all of their desires are offered them. Archie is sent to this room full of cushions and beautiful women who feed him grapes, and Jughead is sent to this room full of food, all of his favorites. Eventually they come to realize that it's a prison, and escape by the power of Jesus somehow. (I'm a little fuzzy on that part, although the owner of the house was called Beelzebub.) Anyway, I see my life very much like that prison cell full of pillows and cushions where the more I settle in and get comfortable, the more isolated I become from the real world, and more resistant I am to change, especially change that attacks...

ABOMINATION NUMBER THREE
How cool I apparently think I am

A couple of weeks ago in church I was struck by the amazing potential God has put in me. I mean, if I were wholly submitted to God, He could do phenomenal things through me. I think of the incredible work that He's done through truly humble vessels, and I marvel that He could do amazing things in and through me as well. Even my imagination of what that could be is only a tiny fragment of God's imagination for me, but that fragment astounds me. As I was envisioning that, I was struck with the thought "What is it about me now that I think is so cool that I'm fighting to maintain this current state?" Apparently there's something about me now that I am so impressed with that I would rather preserve it than to abandon all and just run hard after Jesus, but in reality, that something is nothing. There is nothing about me now that I can boast in, because what is good is already a gift from God, and what is bad is ugly and petty.

If only knowing these things in my head was enough to make them active in my life, but alas, it's not.

Oh, yeah, the fourth abomination:

ABOMINATION NUMBER FOUR

Eating a supposedly healthy snack, a fruit cup, then finding this on the back

Seriously?! It's the fifth ingredient behind the chunks of fruit, but AHEAD of the cherries! Also, this pre-packaged serving is not, in fact, one serving, but two. Why? What the crap is the point of putting two servings in one un-resealable package?! (Who knew fruit could enrage me so much?)

Review of the Wednesday night party, cause the Wednesday night party don't stop, no

And when I say "party" I mean "discussion of the sermon."

The sermon from last week focused on common objections to Christianity, specifically identifying its relationship to both science and violence. The long and short of it?

1. Christianity does not have to work in opposition to science. Realistically they're not on the same spectrum for comparison; science attempts to explain the physical world whereas faith is trying to tell us the meaning/value of that physical world. The problem is that both the church and science act with a great deal of hubris; science believes it can somehow disprove God's existence simply because by conquering certain complications of the physical world. Meanwhile, the church attempts to explain every bit of biology using the Book of Genesis, a document that is thousands of years old.

2. Yes, there have been a number of violent acts committed in the name of Christianity. We can't change that now. We can only apologize. There will always be a certain amount of violence associated with any strong belief (think environmental terrorism) and events like the Crusades (as an example) are not those we should be proud of. Jesus did not preach a gospel of violence. His reaction to violence would be one of forgiveness.

On Wednesday night we added more objections, based on our own conversations and on things that, quite frankly, we have trouble grasping ourselves:

• History -- the Old Testament reads like a fairy tale sometimes. People living to be hundreds of years old? Women having babies at age 75? God physically wrestling with Abraham?
• Authority/free will -- it's easier to live life if you're the one who's ultimately in charge
• Christians not setting a good example for the religion
• Putting off conversion, thinking "I'll become a Christian later", overly valuing the me-centered life
• Just maintaining a diet is hard enough...Christianity asks you to change your entire lifestyle.
• Christianity seems hokey
• Christianity and the church in general does not seem safe. You need someone to interpret everything for you, traditions don't make sense, and it's intimidating to enter a new culture within the same physical area where you already live
• "I'm already a nice person" so why do I need Jesus?
• Stale, legalistic churches for people who are more artistically-centered churches
• Lack of human interaction with Christians (so perception is derived from the media, rather than interpersonal relationships)

Before I became a Christian I remember thinking about how arbitrary Christianity seemed. If I'd grown up in India, I would have been Hindu. In China, I'd have been Buddhist; in Jamaica, I might have been Rastafarian. Somehow it seemed improbable that the dominant religion -- the one deciding the world's calendar, days to celebrate holidays, etc -- would be the "right" one. Of course, little did I realize that God and Jesus work through the improbable. The tomb was empty, after all.

1000 Conversations, part one

Last week's sermon (notes available here) centered on the idea of witnessing and whether
a) It's a legit thing to do in a society where truth is relative; and
b) It's legit to convert people in this same society

On Wednesday night we discussed a number of reasons why we have trouble witnessing. Among them:

• General fear
• Seems like most people know the gospel already, so we should really be able to witness simply through the way we live our lives
• The belief that people should be able to think/do whatever they want and I shouldn't push them in any particular direction
• Feeling as if we can't witness unless our life is somehow "complete" and impressive. This is basically saying that we can't witness unless we feel like our life is not broken.
• Unsure of actual motivations. In other words, are we witnessing for God or for personal satisfaction? Are we trying to add a star beside our names because we saved someone when the focus should not be on US in the first place?
• Unable to find the right time/place to bring it up
• The whole witnessing thing feels salesy. Not exactly the word you want to associate with your deepest values and beliefs.
• Lack of immediate gratification/satisfaction. In our now now now society, it's somewhat counterintuitive to simply be a seed-planter

We also challenged each other to think of a deeper reason why we don't witness as much as we "should." People talked about having to shoulder the load of successful conversion, about general fear, about feeling like it's a lost cause. On a personal level, I think my witnessing weakness occurs because the whole idea of having serious conversations is somewhat foreign to me. As I said the other night, I live in a world of jokes, video games and Anchorman quotes. As such, the problem isn't as much witnessing as it is about being serious.

Anyway, if you're looking for an end conclusion...Well, we didn't exactly come to one. I do think if you recounted the night's discussion, though, what we'd agree upon would sound something like this: our most effective witness is one that's based on being relational -- not on "winning" a sale, not on a scripted persuasive speech, but on actually listening to the other person and reacting to their needs. We'll always screw up -- we are human, after all -- but if we're aware of the Truth, we should probably share it. Ya know?