I just watched Francis Chan's Basic.Fellowship. This stuck out to me over all the other Basic videos because Francis talks about how this kid who went to his church to get baptized stopped going because he thought it was going to be like the gang life. When he was initiated into the gang, he had people who cared for him, and had his back. When he was baptized, however, people were only behind him on Sunday mornings or Wednesday nights. They didn't care about him 5 out of 7 days of the week.
I don't know if it's just because all of my friends have forgotten about fellowship, but it seems that my entire group of friends that I had 2 short years ago have all faded away. Myself included. They aren't sharing in fellowship with the occasional exception of Sunday Morning, and MAYBE at Wyldlife. Whenever Christ is not the center of focus for anyone, they seem to forget Him. At school, mostly at lunch, we aren't asking each other about how we can be praying for each other, and we wonder why no one wants to go to Young Life or other things with us. Because we have allowed ourselves to become like the world, and started living to the world's standard. I don't know about any of the other guys, but I'm sick of it. People aren't going to want to go to things unless they see that we are real about it, and Jesus told us in John 13:35 "By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." If you ask me, we do a crappy job of loving each other. My friends and I suck at it. We used to have some of the best fellowship ever, and I still believe that Roanoke has the best, but between my friends and me, we are not doing well at all. They probably don't think that this is so, because they can just go hang out with each other at will. I don't know if it's different when I'm not there, but I've been with them outside of school, when they are around just each other. There is no change. It seems that we have forgotten that even though we are not in the center of our ministries, we are still in the mission field. People hound on Christians for not acting out their beliefs. So basically my friends and I should be hounded like no other for it, because we suck at it.
Chan's video said that the gang that boy was in did a better job of showing family than the church did. There is NO reason a GANG should be a better family site than a group of believers. It's not acceptable. I don't see why everyone who is a believer sits back and watches this happen. We need to call each other out on this, (With love, not anger), because it seems that because there is no way that we can recover from this if we are unaware. There is also no way we can get stronger from this unless we are pushed by each other to actually make something of it. I view this just like I view football practice. There is no way that a player can get better at football if he isn't being pushed by his teammates. Neither can we get better with not falling to temptation, or loving lost kids, if we are not pushed by other believers to want to get better. We have a team in this fight. It's the body of Christ. We are all in this together, so I don't understand why we think that we have to go it alone. There is no reason that we should be okay with just going through life without Christ, or even without the body to help us through. In the Basic video, Francis says that we were not made to go through this life alone. We were made to have fellowship with other believers. Our teammates are meant to be there for us to the very end. Just because we are different ages, or anything like that is no excuse. I don't believe that my friends and I have done a very good job of pushing each other to be better Christians.
Just something that has been on my mind, and was confirmed when I watched the video.
I love you guys.
TJ
No comments:
Post a Comment