Last night while I was watching Joe Dirt with Jeff, Gary Lamb popped up on my Google Reader. He heard a quote from a guy named Chris Elrod and he has this to say.
“Christians hang out at Starbucks…disconnected people hang out in bars.”
Well I live in Wilmington so I go to Port City Java all the time. Starbucks just isn’t as good, face it! Anyways I can really echo Chris’s statement. Every time I go to a PCJ I run into someone on staff at another church in town or other people from church. It never fails. I love coffee so I’m not planning on not going anytime soon but it does make me think. A lot of Christians hang out in places that they think will get them into the world but could it be that the Christian culture has just moved out of the church and into a coffeehouse? What would it take to really hang out with disconnected people and get to know some of them? We should stop fooling ourselves and go into a place where there are really messed up and hurting people. Maybe just having lunch at a bar could be a first step. Makes you think what places Jesus would go today…
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OMG! Jeff laughs at me because I love Joe Dirt & have watched it a hundred times!!!! He’s just too pitiful not to love!
Anyhoo, I’ll hit the bars with you and pass out literature anytime!! It’s been a while since we’ve been bar-hopping anyway! lol:)
Have a good one! Let me know if I need to do anything for Sunday!
Lisa
and some times as relevant, and grace-giving, and christ-like you are, those people still suck. they will still be disconnected from God b/c they don’t even realize that they are, and worse- if they do know, they don’t even care. no matter how “good” you are to them. they’d rather be independent, what can i get, what pleases me, and if it doesn’t work for me than screw it, kind of people. and it doesn’t matter how many bars you go to….it comes down to prayer and the Holy Spirit’s conviction. and that can be a sad and defeating feeling- but you can’t take it personally. you can only do what Jesus calls you to. just goes to show, sometimes it doesn’t matter HOW relevant, and God-honoring, and cool your church is, or even the fact you do cover radio songs during your service- people will be and live the way they want.
see chad’s recent blog. =)
bar food is icky
regardless we should go to break time & shoot some pool son, so i can school you!
Well I would say we pretty much all tend to suck as humans including myself. I think the most important thing is to love them and befriend people because they’re people made in the image of their creator and he loves them dearly. And we’ve gotta do all this without an agenda of trying to get them saved. Yeah of course we want to see them come to know Jesus but thats because we love them so much and know how fulfilled they could be.
i whole heartedly agree… it can be one defeat after another sometimes though. i think what breaks my heart more than their disregard for my love, or Jesus’ love shone thru me, is the sad fact that they just don’t know… they don’t have a clue how all-satisfying, fulfilling and deep their creator’s love is for them- and they miss out and wonder why they’re miserable and wonder why nothing they “try” seems to fill them up. i go thru this daily. and it is a sobering fact and a sobering experience. the good news is that it reminds me daily that there is nothing that i can do, but EVERYTHING to do with what christ does THRU me.
i heard a quote somewhere once and i think of it every day, “you have to love people simply b/c you love them and genuinely want to be their friend, and because JESUS loves them. not just to modify their behavior.” and that is the hardest thing to do daily- most people have to re-train their head to think this way, b/c all we’ve ever known is to do or not do something to modify a behavior.
sorry this is so long…hmm much to ponder. …i have not laid hold of it yet…i press on toward the goal to win the prize in which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus… =)
“Dang!”
Joe Dirt
Jesus would probably be wherever the hookers, drunks, and thieves are….
And the religious types would crack on him for it.
I couldn’t agree more. The self-righteous religous types still crack on people who reach into those places. Not much has changed huh?