BEDA- Day Two

So, day two. (Yes, I know that technically it's April 3, but I haven't gone to sleep yet, so it counts.)

Again, I'm at Spring Conference, and today was such a day to learn and grow in God.
We had two different "breakout sessions" where we went to learn about what interested us.
I went to two: one called "Beautiful Mess" and the other called "Missional Living".

In the first, we talked about what to do when life gets messy, and how to walk with people through their messes to help them see Christ's love. In The Message, the translation says that Jesus "moved into the neighborhood" (John 1:14). This passage shows that Christ didn't come to have a condescending approach to helping us out of our messes, but that He came down inside our messy world to help us. If He is the picture by which we compare  ourselves, then we should do the same for others: to get down on their level and push them out of their "wells of life". We discussed about how Christ came to bring our messes, the darkness inside us, into His light.

In John 4:16-20, we see that this process of Jesus bringing to light our issues can be a painful process, though necessary. John 15:18-25 helps us see that we don't have to have our lives together to come to Jesus. I mean, here was a woman who had been caught in the middle of adultery, and Jesus both forgave and offered her grace, so why do we think that He won't offer us that same grace and love? As "church people", we sometimes forget that people's lives are messy. We get the picture in our head that churches are supposed to be "sterile": clean from the junk and dirt that so easily invades people's lives; that we have to ask those who come into the church to be clean, and then trust God. Jesus couldn't offer a bigger contrast to this school of thought. He tells us to come to Him with our sins and lives, and asks us to trust Him to clean us up for His glory.

Finally, in John 8:1-11, we see that when we start to live like Jesus, it's the church people that are going to start hating. We can see this identification when Jesus talks about "their laws": He's talking about the Pharisees. We, as Christians (myself included!), tend to think we have the concept and practice of loving others, and what it means to look like Jesus down, so when someone (like, you know, the Bible) comes along and tells us that "yr doin it wrng", we don't really like that.

Most of all, what we learned was that God can and will bring beauty out of the messes in our daily lives, even if we don't understand how or to what end He does it. It takes patience and faith, which can be hard, but worth it in the end.


In the second break-out session, we discussed how we tend to see non-Christians. We tend to see non-Christians as "broken and hopeless". While that may be true, we need to change our mindsets. Christians (again, myself included!) see non-Christians as "them". What we need to realize about "them" is that we're all alike, except in our faith. We inhabit the same planet, have a lot of the same hopes, dreams, fears, and wishes. When we start thinking of non-Christians as people to relate to instead of people to save, then statements like this tend to crop up: "You can't be a Christian; you're just like me! Christians can't be as messy as I am!" Then conversations about Christ can take place.

Basically, what I've learned today is that reaching people in Christ's name isn't about beating someone over the head with a Bible, or disassociating yourself from them when they do something (or lots of things) you and God don't approve of, but it's about finding that common ground that all human inherently have. (I mean, we share a dang planet!) It's about helping them see that if God pulled you out of your situation, He can pull them out of theirs too.

I don't mean to preach at you guys, but this is what my mind was filled with today. The teachings of Jesus are absolutely incredible, but they are so hard to unpack. That's why I thank God for the community of believers I'm in contact with here. They teach me every time I'm with them how to be more like Christ. I truly see God's love and how to be crazy for Him. They are such a rock in my life, and God has blessed me beyond anything I could have imagined with the privilege of knowing these individuals.

Thanks for staying with me through the rant, guys! See you tomorrow!
Kayla
Romans 6:14