Freaks, Geeks, and Believers

I have to say, I love church dorks. I was just listening to a message by one of the pastors at Substance Church*, and there was some point where he did the "dramatic southern baptist preacher" bit, saying "I always wanted to do that in a church service."

I liked that for two reasons. First, because I love people who unabashedly geek out about things they're interested or involved in. Second, because I was raised in a church environment and I think church jokes are funny.

Interestingly enough, that second reason was more or less what the message was about. It was about Christian subculture, and how people perceive Christians based on how we behave when we talk about what we believe. It was about stereotypes and being raised in or out of the church.

Pastor Nick was talking about being approached by a woman who, without pretext or preamble, took him to task about his tattoos, which included a cross, but which the woman considered to be sinful. Instead of sharing her beliefs, she was imposing them upon someone. What's more, imposing them on a stranger. She wasn't interested in getting to know Nick. And I want to know, how can you claim to be interested in the state of a person's soul when you're not even interested in learning their name?

You can't. Maybe you can be interested in the idea of the state of people's souls, in the net gain of converts or whatever motivates those kinds of conversations. But you can't claim to care about what a person believes when you don't care who they are. And, you can't expect that person to care about what you have to say when you're treating them like a number.

Here's an interesting number. According to a 2007 survey, 85% of Americans consider Christians to be hypocritical.

I'm not going to say I'm not ever hypocritical... that would be stupid. But I'm not going to say that this statistic doesn't bother me in a huge way, either. Going to a public university, I run into myriad people who think Christians are full of it, are crazy, are judgmental, are fundamentalists, are hypocritical, are just in it to rack up points by converting people out in front of the library. People who think Christians are just about furthering their own little agendas.

As a Christian, I do have an agenda. I want to change the opinion of even one person out of that 85%. I want people to see Christians who are open-minded and compassionate and engaging and sincere and real.

Part of being sincere and real is admitting that I, like any other person, am vulnerable to hypocritical and judgmental behavior. I want people to know that, because if I'm talking to someone about my faith, I want people to know me and where I'm coming from just like I want to know them and where they're coming from. Because chances are, we're not coming from the same place.

I'm coming from a place where I was raised in a megachurch that felt like a house church because I spent multiple days a week there, playing tambourine and Capture the Chicken, learning to operate a sound board and how to get ring-pops out of burning hot light fixtures, and where I learned to find humor in the absurd subculture of church.

I'm a church geek, and I don't care if people know it. But, I also want people to know that being a church geek doesn't mean I'm also a closed-minded hypocritical bigot.

Of course, a big part of that is on me to not actually act like a closed-minded hypocritical bigot...

*If you want to listen to a podcast of this message, click on the Substance Church link above. The message is by Nick Foulkes - it's maybe the ninth or tenth down in the list as of Aug. 9.