Branded as…

After years in church ministry, I have noticed that one of the most common struggles among church people is in the area of community. We simply struggle to maintain relationships that allow us to be ourselves. It makes me wonder if we are afraid of being branded as ‘less than.’ Less than a good Christian. Less than a man of character. Less than a someone who has it all together. The risk of ‘less than’ inhibits us from becoming ‘more than’… more than we can be on our own.

“To belong to a group of real friends is to be armed against influences from without.” – C. S. Lewis

Britney Spears and Barack Obama

Why is E! or even the TV Guide Channel such valued channels? Why are People Magazine or Seventeen or Entertainment Weekly so popular? Is it because the people featured within the pages are so much better than us? Do they have less problems or more answers or greater wisdom? Do we really think Britney Spears or Taylor Swift or Brad Pitt or Barack Obama have it all together? Let’s be honest… in today’s world the majority of people who get ‘admired’ are the wealthy, or the famous, or the guy who is ‘bigger-than’ or ‘ better-than’. I think we look to these people hoping they know something… something that can effect our lives.

Remember the movie Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade? In one of the scenes, Indiana had to choose the ‘cup of Christ’. The cup  was supposed to be what Jesus drank out of at the last supper. The choices were immense. Which of the dozens of cups could it be? One of the golden cups gilded with jewels? No. It ended up being a simple cup. A wooden cup. A carpenter’s cup. According to the movie, drinking from this cup had healing powers. A simple, unassuming cup had the power to change a life.

We can certainly find people who embody the ideals, the foundational ideas, that mark who we are as individuals. I would think we should be more careful about who we choose though. Not only can we look to people like Abraham Lincoln, John Adams, Martin Luther, Marie Curie and Thomas Edison, but we can look to Mr. Theis, Carol Kessler, Melissa Larimore, KC Maddox, and Al Lewie. People who are closest to us have the greatest impact on us.  I will take Mr. Theis who believed I could do more than I thought I could, or Carol Kessler who invests in the lives of girls who are decades younger than she is, or KC Maddox who challenges me to think more than I sometimes want to. I can admire, and even emulate, some of the more famous people I find significant in history. If I am honest, however, others have made a deeper impact on who I am becoming. These unassuming people have the power to change a life… my life.

Friday morning breakfast

I currently meet with a friend of mine every Friday morning for breakfast. He is baptist. I am not. And I wouldn’t change that. We hang out, talk about life, laugh about our differences and work at becoming more than we could on our own. Our main intention is to think our way through a book. Most times we get to the book. Sometimes… not so much. However, the exercise of reading, thinking and discussing challenges me to grow. That is something I don’t ever want to stop doing. Growth helps me discover more about God’s intention for my life by realizing more of who God made me to be in the first place.