I spoke these words at Vibrant.
1 John 2: 1-2
This was an interesting topic for me to think about this week. It seemed to relate well and even give me words for something I’ve been struggling with for quite some time. I’ve had an increasingly more difficult time speaking openly about my faith, my church, what I think and feel about God. In short, I’ve become fearful.
I’ve often blamed it on a number of things, including Portland’s resistance to Christianity, but really it was my own unwillingness to engage with God and simply fear of offending or being awkward or being judged as something I’m not. I was not only fearful to speak to those outside my faith, but even those who share my faith.
However, my fear was causing me to feel like I was shrinking away. I have always been the kind of person who says what is on her mind, sometimes less tactfully then I would like J When I was a teenager, I always invited my friends to church and told them how I felt about the world in the context of my relationship with God. It wasn’t always easy, but I couldn’t keep it to myself. I was fearless, like I didn’t have anything to lose. But the older I got, the more fearful I became.
I think I partly became afraid, because I saw how some people viewed Christians. I saw how some evangelism tactics had hurt the Church. Evangelism became relationship-less. It was like throwing 10 balls and if 2 people caught it, they were the lucky ones, but some were pelted in the face or didn’t have a mitt. Evangelism kind of became a dirty word to a lot of us. So, then I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t know how to talk about the spiritual side of who I was. Therefore, I stopped talking.
Recently, however, something has changed. I’ve let go of some of my fear, partly to be true to myself. I’ve had several really amazing conversations with friends and it’s felt very much like fighting against something bigger then us and pleading with God to intervene. Though lots of prayer was involved, it meant standing with them and fighting with them. These experiences sounded a lot like advocacy to me.
This topic has broadened my perspective on advocacy, where as it was fairly limited before. It meant fighting for the rights of the poor, in the context of social justice, or simply lawyers doing their job. I kept reading 1 John 2: 1-2 and wondered how this monumental action of Jesus dying on the cross related to my idea of advocacy. I started to see that Jesus wasn’t only a social justice advocate during his lifetime, he was a spiritual advocate.
This idea excited me, the idea of fighting and advocating in a spiritual context. Jesus did more then pray. He walked with people. He spoke into their lives. He advocated for believers and unbelievers a like. There was nothing passive about Jesus.
We are called to be like Him. We are called to advocate for those of us who feel disconnected from God, for those who are suffering, for those facing a huge decision, for those who find it difficult to trust God, for those who don’t know our amazing God, for our community, for Vibrant. God wants us to fight. All the greats in the Bible and in history and in our life were/are fighters. Passive people don’t make a difference in the world.
