BOLD

The only revolution I’ve ever experienced personally is the complete takeover of everything tech. If it’s digital, it must be better. Since I’ve been alive, we’ve gone from Beta to VHS to DVD to Bluray. From 8 Tracks to Cassette Tapes to CDs to iPods. From Typewriter to Desktop to Laptop. From Floppy Disc to CD to External Hard Drive to those little things you can lose down a sink drain. I still don’t know what to call them. Stick Drive? Thumb Drive?

So I can relate to someone being a little bit evangelical about their new technological device. Youth ministers do it all the time. I sometimes think we get together to show off our newest tech toys. The first iPad I ever saw was at a Youth Conference in Dallas. As was my first iPhone and my first Bluetooth headset. Actually Bluetooth was introduced to me in seminary... in a youth ministry class.

What I notice about cultural revolutions is that when they become widespread they become commonplace. When they become commonplace they become less exciting. Do you remember when MTV was born? Have you seen MTV lately?

We get used to new and exciting things. That’s just the way it goes.

I’ve been reading about a revolution that I would have loved to experience. My daily Scripture readings have led me to Acts, and even though I’m only through the first 6 chapters, I am so pumped up by what I’m reading that I look at my own life and think, “What’s the DEAL?” How did I ever get so bored in my experience of Christianity? How did it get so commonplace?

I try to imagine what the church under Peter and James and John must have been like, but I think that because of my Southern-American upbringing, I fall short. Christianity is so commonplace, such a part of our culture, I don’t think I can get the full picture of what was happening. I have been lulled to sleep by tolerance and social justice, distracted by technology and the appearance of our building. As important as some of those things are, Acts demonstrates that they are pointless and empty without the bold and selfless and loving declaration of the truth of the Gospel.

The revolution in the church today is not American churches growing bigger and bigger and spending more and more money on themselves. It’s not a social/political agenda. It’s individuals motivated by their love for Christ and their desire to share the gospel who start homeless ministries, go into prisons, give up a week of their summer to serve others, start their own small groups with non-church friends so they can share Christ’s love with regular people who might not experience it otherwise.

We have created a culture in America where Christianity is commonplace. Yet when you talk to an individual, even in Texas, who has caught on to the passionate pursuit of Christ and who is being bold and selfless in their declaration of the Gospel, there is no more exciting time than right now. I can almost see Peter and John speaking in the square after they had been threatened and told to stop. I can almost see Stephen serving with wisdom and grace and confounding the philosophers at the expense of his life.

I would love to see more and more of those kinds of people in Corsicana, and it would thrill me to death if these were the kind of people we are bringing up at Believers Bible Church.