Twitter, faith and facebook

I have a rule on Twitter... I don't follow anyone I know in real life. I'm not sure if this will always be my rule, but as a millennial who just joined Twitter in 2018 I decided to make it that way for now. That means I have cultivated a group of different voices... some I agree with, some I agree with sometimes, and some people I probably would not have followed 10 years ago. I don't follow people that are knowingly going to raise my blood pressure, however there are my different people with some different views on things. Most people I follow I agree with at least somewhat on politics, but I follow a lot of people who view theology and practicing Christianity different then I do.

I stayed off of Twitter for a long time because I didn't have a care to see more political garbage... I already have Facebook, and I already have people who post horrible things on there... no need for more garbage...

But what I ended up creating for the most part on Twitter was people who helped to grow my faith by not looking exactly like me.

I don't think anyone ever told me that the way we practice Christianity is the only right way... but somehow in life sometimes things like that get implied. I have been a member of one church my entire life... its a non denominational church... sometimes I can be snobbish about thinking how we do things is best.

Then this week I watched something on Twitter that rocked me a little bit.

I watched sides throwing Bible verses at each other about a wall.

You can find verses in the Bible that are about building walls... and ones about taking them down... each side has plenty of ammunition and what it ends up looking like is the book The Butter Battle (kids book, easy read, big life lesson).

Growing up I learned the Bible stories. Noah, Jonah, the lion... I knew the facts. I've done tons of Bible studies and devotions. I'm a Church girl. I fit the stereotypical white evangelical... I've been to the conferences, the camps, the missions trips. I had the quintessential 90s evangelical childhood.

I'm part of the group...

but not.


A couple weeks ago I was sitting with my book editor talking about publishing plans and she suggested a publisher and I laughed. She knew this was a large name in the Christian publishing industry... my laugh wasn't in disrespect for the publisher... but because I felt like I never had a chance there. Not because my writing, but because of me...

because despite being the stereotype...

there have been some ways I have broken away from the stereotype...

in search of Jesus...

and I felt that even as stereotype as I am, that  I wouldn't be enough to fit in their mold. Now I will admit, that is a preconceived mold in my head, and that I need to work on.


But it made me start thinking of culture and molds.

Culture has always been a stumbling block to God... its not better or worse now, it just looks different.

There are parts you can point to as better... in America I have not seen any Christians being used as literal candles at a kings party because of their faith... yes in history that has happened.

But there are parts right now where the lines between what it means to be a Christian and what it means to be an American have blurred a lot and not in a good way. When the culture is "christian" it becomes easy to loose what Christianity is and suddenly things that look nothing like Christianity are held as high as the gospel... political party, social issues, entertainment, sayings...

Suddenly we don't know the difference between the real gospel and the American one...

When everyone in the community sits in a pew... everyone is counted as a Christian... but little have faith...

When living in culture is viewed as Christian there is little need to be different... or to grow...


One of the things that felt the strangest to me in college ministry was seeing people read their Bible and ask questions that didn't have a direct right answer like... how many people were in the furnace? How many disciples were there? What happened to Jonah?

My friends were suddenly asking proof text questions... if this verse says this then why does this say this? What is the social implications of this? What was the history of this? Why did God choose to to that?

Questions that to some sound like doubting but actually move you into depth.


Millennials get accused of a lot but one of the things we tend to not do is just follow blindly... that gets us in trouble for asking why a lot... and that also means that sometimes other generations don't like it when we stop doing things...

I will admit sometimes we stop doing things because we don't take the time to learn why they were being done in the first place. We discount them before we gave them a chance...

But sometimes we shed things that are ok... to find the deep depth of great. We question what we do and why we are doing it all the time. We question motive. I am not ok with someone doing something that ends up good if their motive was bad... just because a byproduct of something bad helped a few people does not make it good. Yes the help for those few people is good... but motive is so important...

That goes back to a lot of the generational clash you are currently seeing over a wall... a lot of my generation views it as a bad motive...

The line of "if is saves 1 American it is worth it" doesn't sit well with a generation who looks and says... "but what about the others who might die?" and "is your motive to save one American... or restrain someone who doesn't look like you?"

Its part of why millennials are questioning many ways that missions are done... there are some amazing books about this and man as someone who has taken missions trips I have had to do a ton of soul searching.

Brent and I were talking yesterday about how it use to be viewed that if someone was in a Church that was better then them not being there at all... even if they never took any of it to heart and never really believed... if they were just a check box Christian... the thought was that maybe someday they might believe...

I flipped it and asked Brent "what if that actually hurts people?" not that being in Church hurts people (yes I understand what has happened in some Churches, and I fully seeing that hurt and say it is wrong, I am talking about in a general, healthy church sense) because people don't think they need to be reached then... they warm a seat each week... they memorized the stories... but are no less a Christian then the pew... but who is the Church going to go reach... not likely the person sitting in the pew with them... the person who thinks they have that check box taken care of... the person who see attendance to be the same thing as a relationship with Jesus... no the Church is going to go to others...

I don't have a great answer for either of those views and honestly each have their own merits, advantages, and disadvantages. You could make a solid argument either way...

Its just like throwing Bible verses about a wall...

In the last few years though I have grown to find questions to be less scary, because they don't always mean that someone is doubting, sometimes it means that someone loves something enough to want to grown. We should celebrate that!

I sat in church this morning looking for proof text for where is claims that Jesus is fully God and fully man, because I realized I had heard that phrase all of my life, but I didn't know if it was actually Biblical.

So my goal is to keep chasing after that... looking for what is Biblical and not cultural, in the real sense... not in the sense of church people look like x... but Jesus taught this therefor my life will be a reflection of that.

Its not easy... and I mess it up all the time... but its my goal...


so in the end... here is my Facebook post I started my morning with... because if we go back to Jesus... these things that look messy get a lot more clear...


"It should never be about parties winning...
But I’m going to back this up a long ways.
In the Old Testament there were the Jewish people, the chosen ones, and the non Jewish people.

Jesus comes and that goes out the window. There are significant parts of the New Testament that is all about Jewish people and Gentiles figuring out the new order and how that works since there is no longer an in and out group, everyone is welcome in... the great commission.
Where we often get stuck however is the verses that talk about how not everyone will choose to join... but not choosing to join and not being welcome are two different things.
Say you had a party, you invited tons of people, all of them you were interested in them coming for the pure fact they are people. Some people are going to chose not to come but that doesn’t mean that they were not welcome to come. Your sad they chose not to come but you don’t instantly hate them for not coming.
But the church can still be stuck in those who is in and who is out arguments and in that we loose loving people.
We create groups, we exclude, we stand on street corners yelling at people, we only look out for our own
And slowly we start to see everyone else as a them
And then it’s a lot easier to wash our hands of the great commission. Because those people are not a part of us. We discount people without even trying.
We start to view everything as a zero sum game.
But when we really love our neighbor, we turn that all on it’s head.
And suddenly winning no longer feels like a goal... because love is a continuous thing, not a score to be kept... and love changes everything...
What if we believe God is big enough to love everyone...
Suddenly then we are all on one team...
And we aren’t out advocating for our party to win because we are working together to love each other."

and sometimes that means setting down our bible throwing ammunition...

as someone who creates content that is hard for me...

however a step I am taking to do that is starting my morning reading the book of Luke this month instead of being online... Facebook and Twitter and this blog with still be there... but centering my heart is needed...

And it helps me to love better... and love all... not just the people on my "team" or the people who like me...