From Telling Secrets by Frederick Buechner

"I have called this book Telling Secrets because I have come to believe that by and large the human family all has the same secrets, which are both very telling and very important to tell. They are telling in the sense that they tell what is perhaps the central paradox of our condition - that what we hunger for perhaps more than anything else is to be known in our full humanness, and yet that is often just what we also fear more than anything else. It is important to tell at least from time to time the secret of who we truly and fully are - even if we tell it only to ourselves - because otherwise we run the risk of losing track of who we truly and fully are and little by little come to accept instead the highly edited version which we put forth in hope the world will find it more acceptable than the real thing. It is important to tell our secrets too because it makes it easier for other people to tell us a secret or two of their own, and exchanges like that have a lot to do with what being a family is all about and what being human is all about. Finally, I suspect that it is by entering that deep place inside us where our secrets are kept that we come perhaps closer than we do anywhere else to the One who, whether we realize it or not, is of all our secrets the most telling and the most precious we have to tell" (p. 2-3).

Scary, yet comforting, to read the thoughts of your heart written by another human being. Could possibly rename my blog to "Telling Secrets" as that is precisely what I have been trying to do - tell my secrets so as not to lose myself in the facade and hopefully in the process to connect in a real, authentic manner to my fellow members of humanity. The inability or unwillingness to be real with each other and ourselves is one of the tethers that I believe is holding the Church back from experiencing the gift of true community we have been given through the shed blood of Jesus Christ.

How much is enough?

A recent post from LittlePurpleCow Productions a photography blog by Stephanie Roberts that I read regularly. From what I can tell, this lady is not a Christian - but like many "outsiders" she seems to get it better than many of the people I encounter in the church.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009 at 12:00AM



"I love it when my priorities are challenged. Seeing homes like this in the villages of Umutara in Rwanda reminded me that home is what we make it. And that we really don't require much.

Growing up in a working class neighborhood in New Jersey, our family of four lived in a home that would be considered modest by current standards. Three bedrooms. A living room. A kitchen. A laundry room. And one bathroom. We didn't have a fireplace, or a playroom, or a second story. My brother and I played race car drivers in his closet. In the summer, my Dad would install one window air conditioning unit in their bedroom and my brother and I would camp out on the floor on the hottest of nights. I remember my parents jumping at the opportunity to find a bigger house in the South when the opportunity presented itself. For us kids, the idea of living in a house with four bathrooms, a security system, and a formal living room seemed too good to be true. Gone were the days of banging on the bathroom door.

And this notion of expansion and acquisition stayed with me. I always dreamed of building a big house and filling it up with lots of expensive things. I suppose most of us want more. Something bigger. Something grand. Something more than we have. Yet, as we acquire physical possessions to fill our expanding spaces, how much are we really gaining? Does it define us or dilute us?" {emphasis mine}

Love

See Luke 6:32-36 and Luke 14:12-14

Frederick Buechner writes in The Magnificent Defeat,

The love for equals is a human thing - of friend for friend, brother for brother. It is to love what is loving and lovely. The world smiles. The love for the less fortunate is a beautiful thing - the love for those who suffer, for those who are poor, the sick, the failures, the unlovely. This is compassion, and it touches the heart of the world. The love for the more fortunate is a rare thing - to love those who succeed where we fail, to rejoice without envy with those who rejoice, the love of the poor for the rich, of the black man for the white man. The world is always bewildered by its saints. And then there is the love for the enemy - love for the one who does not love you but mocks, threatens, and inflicts pain. The tortured's love for the torturer. This is God's love. It conquers the world.

What if...

"I think of the scandal of grace - freely received into our lives and then freely distributed to others. Jesus himself said this should be the mark of the Christian, and the single dynamic that would arrest the world's attention." -- Jim White as quoted in unChristian

Personal reflections after reading the book, unChristian.

What if... instead of picketing outside abortion clinics, yelling hateful things at the patients of these establishments, and gunning down doctors, we took the hand of one of these broken women, offered to drive her to weekly counseling, prepared a place for her around our dinner table and listened {truly listened} to her story until God's forgiveness through Jesus could make her whole again?

What if... instead of spending so much time lobbying against the lifestyles of homosexuals, we sat in a hospital room holding the hand of one of God's precious ones as they say good-bye to their beloved partner? What if we walked side-by-side, hand-in-hand at the next event to promote AIDS awareness? Because those are people dying - all over the world, including our neighbors, our friends {hopefully}, our aunts and uncles, brothers and sisters.

What if... instead of spoiling our children and ourselves rotten by purchasing every single thing they/we desire, we flew across the oceans or walked across the street and saved the life of an orphaned or unwanted child?

What if... instead of pronouncing judgment from our pedestal, we were willing to get down on our hands and knees to pick up the pieces of the broken lives of both fallen saints and sinners no matter how many times we might be cut in the process?

What if... instead of constantly meeting at the church house, we encouraged one another to live out our faith in the marketplace? What if instead of signing up for yet another Bible study, we signed up to serve food at the local homeless shelter, or deliver food to a shut-in, or sit with a forgotten one in the nursing home, or read a book to a neglected child, or help teach English to an immigrant {illegal or not}, or take phone calls from the desperate at a crisis pregnancy center or suicide hotline, etc.? We do NOT need more knowledge, we need to put our faith into action {see the book of James}.

What if... we let our light so shine before men, that they may see our good works and glorify our Father in heaven? {See Matthew 5:16}

What if... we stopped marketing Jesus and started loving Him? What if we stopped manipulating people to Christ and started loving them? What if we loved extravagantly and without abandon completely disregarding what it might cost us personally?

What if... instead of filling our lives with trinkets, we filled it with people?

What if... instead of pursuing personal comfort, we pursued - chased after, even - Christ?

What if... we spent our lives on behalf of the poor? {see Isaiah 58}

What if... we practiced pure religion? {see James 1:27}

What if... we found our Calcutta?

What if... we obeyed the commands of Christ?

What if... we lived what we profess to believe?

What if... we stopped pretending?

What if... we dared to be Christians?

What if...

May it be so.

Final quotes from UnChristian

From the chapter, Sheltered:
1. Christians enjoy being in their own community. The more they seclude themselves, the less they can function in the real world. So many Christians are caught in the Christian "bubble."
2. If we allow the actions and attitudes of outsiders to shock us, we become either isolationists or crusaders, and neither extreme will have much influence on outsiders.
3. God wants to use us in the gritty and raw places of people's lives, but our usefulness is hindered if we are more concerned about our protection from sin than the effects of sin in the lives of others.
4. Too many churches expect unchurched people to come to them, but the church is called to go to unchurched people. The church is called to compete for the kingdom in the middle of the marketplace.
5. Christianity is the most exciting story ever told. It needs to be told, not the way we typically dumb it down, but the way it is.

From the chapter, Judgmental:
1. Christians talk about hating sin and loving sinners, but the way they go about things, they might as well call it what is is. The hate the sin and the sinner.
2. Christians like to hear themselves talk. They are arrogant about their beliefs, but they never bother figuring out what other people actually think. They don't seem to be very compassionate, especially when they feel strongly about something.
3. Being judgmental is fueled by self-righteousness, the misguided inner motivation to make our own life look better by comparing it to the lives of others.
4. Yet in our efforts to point out sin, we often fail to do anything for the people who are affected by sin. Think of it this way. The perception is that Christians are known more for talking about these issues rather than doing anything about them.
5. Outsiders might think of us as friendly or that we have good principles, but we are not known for our love.
6. Are you softhearted enough to see a clear picture of your motivations? Just because you are doing the right things does not mean that you have the right attitudes or motivations toward outsiders.
7. God says he "opposes the proud and gives grace to the humble" (James 4:6). We have to start seeing ourselves and those around us for the people we really are - needy and hurting but with great potential as God's sons and daughters. Maybe then we would reject arrogance as adamantly as we do any other sin, because it is especially corrosive to the faith of Christ followers.
8. The writer Philip Yancey offers a great insight about judgmental attitudes, pointing out that the opposite of sin is not virtue; it is grace.
9. We judge because we do not understand.
10. What could happen if we viewed them with the same grace we extend to ourselves?
11. I want Christians to be know as the most loving people - the kind of people who love you until it hurts.
12. We all share the same fallen DNA. The fact that Christians have accepted this grace and are redeemed should create humility in us.
13. Our culture doesn't look at us as a faith of second chances but rather as a religion of judgment.
14. Because it appears at some level that the secular world is capable of "doing grace" better than we are. Christianity's main export has been co-opted by nonbelievers.
15. We must begin by loving each other, forgiving each other, and carrying each other's burdens, especially when we fail. When a brother or sister is steamrolled by life, we don't run from them, we rally around them.

From the chapter, From UnChristian to Christian:
1. Be more concerned with what happens in you than what happens to you.
2. But we should consider whether our response to cynics and opponents is motivated to defend God's fame or our own image.
3. Many outsiders specifically articulated that they think Christians "eat their own."
4. Our future reputation as Christians is intricately connected to our passion for justice, service, and sacrifice.
5. We have lost sight of being for Jesus rather than against outsiders.
6. Read Isaiah 58: 1-4, 6-12. The passage in Isaiah describes on simple yet difficult solution: to rebuild our lives and restore our nation, we have to recover love and concern for others.

More from unChristian

From the chapter, Get Saved!
1. This is a key finding of our research. Only one-third of young outsiders believe that Christians genuinely care about them (34 percent). And most Christians are oblivious to these perceptions - 64 percent of Christians said they believe that outsiders would perceive their efforts as genuine.
2. Rather than being genuinely interested in people for their friendship, we often seem like spiritual headhunters.
3. This leads to the sobering finding that the vast majority of outsiders in this country, particularly among young generations, are actually de-churched individuals.
4. Our research indicates that we have let discipleship languish in far too many young lives. Our enthusiasm for evangelism is not matched by our passion for and patience with discipleship and faith formation.
5. Outsiders' familiarity with Christianity creates the fascinating condition of people actually having too much background in the faith.
6. Many outsiders actually miss the chance to experience true life in Christ because we cheapen the message of Jesus to church membership or denominational loyalty.
7. A deep shift is needed from the sin-altered, me-first, and consumer-minded perspectives that so often plague us as Christians in America.
8. I think the unChristian faith is potent primarily because of this disconnect between our knowledge of God and our ability and willingness to love people.
9. There is nothing more powerful than the Christian life lived out in obedience, there is nothing worse than a flat, self-righteous form of faith that parades around in Christian clothes.
10. Why should the most important message in human history be perceived as a cheap marketing gimmick? If outsiders stop listening, we cannot just turn up the volume. The middle ground between these extremes suggests that we focus on cultivating relationships with people developing environments that facilitate deep spiritual transformation.
11. a few thoughts in the book from Chuck Colson - The church grew because Christians were doing the gospel and had a community - a local church - where people really loved each other.
12. More from Chuck -

One of the things I do when I meet people is ask them, "What is Christian?" Undoubtedly half will respond, "A relationship with Jesus."

That is wrong. The gospel cannot be merely a private transaction. God didn't break through history, through time and space, to come as a babe, be incarnated, and suffer on the cross so you can come to him and say, "Oh, I accept Jesus and now I can live happily ever after." That's not why he came....Jesus came as a radical to turn the world upside down. When we believe it is just about Jesus and yourself, we miss the point.

I even dislike using the words "accept Christ" anymore - because it is so much more than that. Christianity is a way of seeing all of life and reality through God's eyes. That is what Christianity is: a worldview, system, and a way of life. I believe that when you truly see the gospel in its fullness, it's so much more. It is the most exciting, radical, revolutionary story ever told.

I will wait until tomorrow for more to allow you to catch up.

Just a bunch of quotes from unChristian

I would recommend that you actually read this book for yourself. But knowing some of you may not and desiring to still be able to discuss some of its content, I am going to spend the next few days posting some of my highlighted portions of the book. Realizing that by taking the quotes out of the context of the book, they may not be fully understood. But that is the price I pay for not finding an actual book club to participate in.

If you have questions, please ask and hopefully I can clarify what the author and the book is saying. Would love to hear your thoughts, as well. Hopefully, I will be sharing mine after I share the quotes.

Here goes:

From the chapter, The Backstory
1. Often outsiders' perceptions of Christianity reflect a church infatuated with itself. We discovered that many Christians have lost their heart for those outside the faith.
2. Through these surveys and interviews, the Lord has graciously helped me understand the experiences and in may cases the very real offenses, confusions, questions, discouragements, and disappointments that people have had when interacting with Christianity.
3. In fact, the title of this book, unChristian, reflect outsiders' most common reaction to the faith: they think Christians no longer represent what Jesus had in mind, that Christianity in our society is not what it is meant to be.
4. Our task is to be effective agents of spiritual transformation in people's lives, whatever that may cost in time, comfort, or image.

From the chapter, Discovering unChristian Faith
1. Our tracking research suggests that today young people are less likely to return to church later, even when they become parents.
2. As you will see later in this book, the premise of Christianity is not a mystery because the vast majority of outsiders have been to Christian churches and have hear the message of Christ.
3. One outsider put it this way: "Most people I meet assume that Christian means very conservative, entrenched in their thinking, antigay, antichoice, angry, violent, illogical, empire builders; they want to convert everyone, and they generally cannot live peacefully with anyone who doesn't believe what they believe."
4. We have become famous for what we oppose, rather than who we are for.
5. Only a small percentage of outsidersstrongly believe that the labels "respect, love, hope, and trust" describe Christiantiy.
6. The important thing to remember is these experiences have deeply affected outsiders, and the scars often prevent them from seeing Jesus for who he really is. This should inspire our compassion for those outside our churches. We should be motivated not by a sense of guilt but by a passion to see their hurts healed.
7. "You are what you are, not what you tell people you are." As Christians, however, we need to make continual, honest evaluations of ourselves so that we can uncover the ways in which our lives do not accurately reflect what we profess.

From the chapter, Hypocritical
1. We are not known for the depth of our transparency, for digging in and solving deep-seated problems, but for trying to project an unChristian picture of having it all together.
2. In many ways, our lifestyles and perspectives are no different from those of anyone around us.
3. The most common message people hear from us is that Christianity is a religion of rules and regulations. They think of us as hypocritical because they are measuring us by our own standards.
4. The fact that lifestyle is the most common priority of Christians suggests a related difficulty: the temptation to give a false pretense of holiness.
5. Our passion for Jesus should result in God-honoring, moral lifestyles, not the other way around.
6. The unChristian faith - hypocritical, judgmental, and full of empty moral striving - is what Paul warned his readers about! And it is part of the reason we are known as hypocrites.
7. Another significant antidote to hypocrisy (in addition to integrity and purity) is transparency. On one level, hypocrisy is failing to acknowledge the inconsistencies in our life. It is denial. It is, as the Bible describes it, trying to remove the speck from someone else's eye when you have a log in your own. Living with integrity starts with being transparent.
8. I figured that people wouldn't listen to us until we got off our high horse and became real with them. We needed to recognize where there have been faults and sin. Then maybe people would be disarmed to the point of actually listening to the true message of Christ.
9. Transparency disarms an image-is-everything generation.
10. The problem is not fundamentally hypocrisy. We're all hypocrites at some level. The problem is the air of moral superiority many of us carry around. We stop acknowledging imperfections in our lives.
11. The building fund, the pew fund, the organ fund lose their importance when you encouter hungry people daily. Those who have put in a year or more living with families in pain, people on the street, adn victims of injustice, quickly lose respect for the church.
12. Young adults are turning away from a modern church that they see as nothing more than hypocritical. Standards and rules without sacrifice and solidarity is hypocrisy. Christian rhetoric without tangible acts of love is hypocrisy. Churches on every corner with hurting people outside is hypocrisy. A large building with little connection to the streets is essentially empty.
13. The only way to regain our footing is to remind ourselves - and others- that an authentic Christian is simply someone who has made the decision to believe in Jesus as his forgiver and then attempt to follow him as his leader.
14. Novelist Leo Tolstoy wrote this in a personal letter: "Attack me, I do this myself, but attack me rather than the path I follow and which I point out to anyone who asks me where I think it lies. If I know the way home and am walking along it drunkenly, is it any less the right way because I am staggering from side to side!"

Don't jump to final conclusions just yet. There is more. Much more. Tomorrow maybe.