Urban Reformation

Real isn’t a word that I would have used to describe Christianity when I was growing up.  I think in the 80′s the generation raising us was doing the best they could, but the topic of “compartmentalization” grew out of this generation.  Perhaps it’s always been a part of life, but it was definitely a growing trend when I grew up.  What I mean by “compartmentalization” is something like often when you hear the term “Sunday Morning Christianity”?  This is very similar.  The idea that Church and Christianity are things that are done like mass for Catholics often when you go once a week and your supposed faith doesn’t inform the reality of your life.  It’s an activity to go to, to ease conscience vs. being with other believers for the soul purpose of biblical worship, fellowship, and equipping in the word.

One of the most memorable times in my life, is when I came to the realization that Christianity was REAL.  And not just in an intellectual way, where all the facts were real, but in the way that God really is real, and that He’s really here, and that He really cares about His people.  Intellectually was one thing, but when I began to attend a bible study every Thursday evening I was blessed to be introduced to a family who was what I called evidence of the “real deal.”

That’s layman terms for I met someone who was really living the Christian life successfully.  When I say successfully I don’t mean without failure, I mean someone who demonstrated weakness, who admitted mistakes, who studied the word, and then attempted to apply it in many and most areas of his life.   This was a completely foreign concept for me.

I would not have articulated that Church was something I did along side everything else, just another box in the schedule but this is how I viewed life even though God had granted me a new gnawing feeling inside that there must be something different something more to real faith.

At that time in my life, I had longed for nearly two years for discipleship relationship of some sort.  I looked around the church I was in at the time found it very difficult to even get invited over for dinner.  Someone said to me later on, it’s the people of the home that make the guest feel welcome not the guest who need to try to make or accommodate the people of the home, in the context of church I was seeking someone’s hospitality and little was to be found.

It’s difficult to be indiscreet but I remember posting on the public church board at the time how my wife and I would like to meet another family for dinner and get to know people, and found that no one would take us up on it at the time.

Strange, people seemed friendly enough on the outside but the inside was perhaps the untold story.  So we not knowing any better at the time rested there until we met the family that would disciple me over the next 7 to 9 years or so.

They took us in their home at least 2 to 3 nights a week, we had purchased a home in the city near theirs and we gutted it.  The problem was we didn’t have the $ at the time for all the remodels so we waited and waited to complete things.

We didn’t have a kitchen for more than three years.  My wife endured me and this family who was unoffically discipling us (In other words we weren’t going through a book or program it was just life ) .  This was an oasis of kindness and mercy at that time.  Over the course of the next 4 years or so they allowed us to eat in their home and watch how they raised their children.

All the while I was meeting the men for bible study and watching this man apply biblical principles and scripture to his life. And I saw him grow, even though he was so much further along in his understanding than I, I saw what I considered fruit, and sanctification taking place and it was right before my eyes.  This is where I saw the words from the Gospel, and God’s word brought to real life.  In otherwords the reality of the faith played itself out before me, who had little faith through these men.  This wouldn’t have happened from a book or a sermon but they shephereded and guided a very misguided or unguided heart of a young man.

I remember one of the earlier nights at the bible study, perhaps I had been attending two or three months, but I left the home going, ” You’re real, you’re really real!!!”  The joy of the reality of the faith was so real and so apparent, like it had never been before.  This was finally something I saw being lived out beyond the theoretical, beyond the intellectual understanding.    I fully realize how important understanding is, so don’t mis-understand me but the power of the word was demonstrated by the witness of the lives and hearts of these men toward God. It was seeing this example, along with scripture that helped me see that the Gospel was something that was REAL to be lived out.  It was not just intellectual rhetoric, to be believed, but this was REAL.

Though the nearly 4 years without a kitchen was probably some of the more tough times in our marriage, I believe God used it to humble me, and to change me for His glory.   God used it to help me change my mind about life, and my heart about my wife, and my understanding about discipleship.

So do you ever wonder why you don’t often see older men teaching the younger?  or why young ladies only hang out with older ladies occasionally to teach them (although I confess it happens more with women than men ) ?

I mean really where did we stop obeying the simple things in scripture  and what’s missing?  I think it’s really simple, yet not easy to do.  I think we’re missing each other? But most of all we’re missing God’s word, the word that we know the words to so well.  We have missed the understanding and application of it.

What’s more we have desensitized our lives with email and cell phones, and little conversation except through non relational / emotive ways over these media mediums and we are taking this right into the church.

We need the understanding of the Word which comes from preaching, and then we also need the life of the Body which comes from the Body loving one another and living and doing life with one another.

That’s the real deal!

—- I may have to do a part 2

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