Make me a Christian!

I've been watching a documentary here in the UK called 'Make me a Christian'. The basic premise is that a group of unlikely volunteers are put through a two week programme entailing church like Christian activities. The volunteers are all expected to tow a line, and leave their normal lives aside for the duration. The group are comprised of homosexual, gothic, ladies men, a pregnant & living together couple, an Islamic Muslim - to name a few. You get the idea.

Anyway, I watched the show with my head in my hands, totally embarrassed. Why? Not that I particularly disagreed necessarily with the beliefs of the mentors, God bless them (although I did on some issues). What made me cringe was their idea of being a good Christian was singing songs led by two acoustic guitars on a mountain, washing peoples feet in public, retreating to a forest and trying to make nettle soup in the rain... etc.

Now I know the intentions are good, and I'm probably a bad man for being a critic, but please, this isn't hard. How can people relate to Christianity, when it's presented in ways that are quite frankly, weird and irrelevant? Oh but Jesus washed peoples feet - yes I know, He did it because they wore sandals and walked around dusty roads. What would have been a cultural modern day equivalent would be washing someone's shop windows, handing out free tea & coffee. The only part of the documentary the volunteers seemed to respond to was working in a soup kitchen, cooking food and showing someone that they cared about them - magic.

I've blogged before about wanting to get my hands dirty, but whatever that looks like has to be relevant and practical. It's not hard to show God's love to a world in practical need. It's simple as if they're hungry, feed them, thirsty, give them a drink etc. Sorry to be negative about this, but I was half hoping that I'd watch that show and see some new relevant examples of practical modern day Christianity. All I saw was dogmatic, judgemental and irrelevant. If it were presented to me in that way, I'd run a mile as well!! Fortunately I know that Jesus is alive today, and He's not safe, He's dangerous.

To bring it home, I suppose what we're working out in this band is how can we make our music relevant. Does it stand up against commercial standards? It needs to, in fact it needs to be better. We (the church) need to be paving the way, setting the standard. It's time to put what we know in to practice in real ways, practical ways. Let's not sit back and beg God to change the world, we are the answer, we can make a difference through our Christ purchased appointment, and only with Gods help.