Be different.

I was raised in a religious setting. My family went to church every time the doors were opened I guess. My dad had started a bus ministry at the Baptist church and it did well from what people tell me. My brother went on mission trips when I was a kid and now he has started a men’s ministry. My mom is heavily involved at an Assembly of God where I used to play drums at. I’m a youth minister at a church in TN. I was raised Baptist and, as mentioned earlier in a blog, I played drums at an Assembly of God for about five years. When I was twenty-two years old I met a girl who was raised Church of Christ. At the time I was attending another Baptist church and playing drums for a Southern Gospel group. We eventually married and started attending a Church of Christ church. While there the minister encouraged me to preach. After all, this was a desire that God had given me so I went to college and got a degree in Bible. I got my first “preaching job” at a church in Iowa before I even graduated. The reason I’m telling you all of this is so you will know my background. Trust me, it has something to do with the two fish from the restaurant (see yesterday’s blog). Unfortunately, church is very different when you are in an administrative position. Many times I wish I was still a member and didn’t know anything that went on behind closed doors. Don’t miss understand me, I love doing what I do but sometimes the road is tough, especially when you are like those two fish swimming opposite from the rest of the crowd.
I am different. I’ve always been different. I was a skateboarder in High School and wore the weird clothes. I don’t believe in wearing suits just because I’m at church or standing behind a pulpit. I wear a beanie (stocking hat, toboggan) all the time, even when I’m eating! I buy my clothes from Goodwill or one of the other consignment shops in town. I’m different. And when it comes to “church” I have some different opinions about things and it drives people crazy, not to mention that it also gets me in trouble sometimes. When I started the teen center I painted a sign that reads, “It’s OK to be different…Jesus was different.” It’s also painted on one of my old skateboards and this theme is on my business cards. This has been my motto my whole life! And that’s what God was showing me with those two fish at the Aquarium restaurant. The next morning after seeing those fish, I read Matthew 12 again and the first twenty-one verses came alive. It all made sense. Jesus was different. He challenged the “church” people of His day and the way they thought. They wanted to kill Him. They were supposed to be pointing people toward God but instead they spent their time trying to kill Him! Jesus didn’t fit their mold and He surely didn’t fit the description of the Messiah according to them. No. “We are all swimming this way around the tank. You are supposed to be like us. This is the way we do “church.” I can’t speak for you, but as for me and my house, we will…NOT fit into your mold! We choose to be different. We choose to be like Jesus, to reach out to the broken hearted, the lost, the drunkard, the outcast, the cutters, the sexually impure, and the list goes on and on. Jesus came to save those who are sick. We won’t find them in our church buildings during “worship” time on Sunday morning. We have to go into their territory. Remember what Jesus said? “I have to go through Samaria!” Jews didn’t dare set foot on Samaritan soil but Jesus did. And because He did so, many people were converted. Dare to be like Jesus. Don’t just fit the mold of “church.” But if you do dare to different, let me warn you, you will be challenged, even by the “church” people! Randy
Matthew 12:1-8 (The Message) One Sabbath, Jesus was strolling with his disciples through a field of ripe grain. Hungry, the disciples were pulling off the heads of grain and munching on them. Some Pharisees reported them to Jesus: "Your disciples are breaking the Sabbath rules!" Jesus said, "Really? Didn't you ever read what David and his companions did when they were hungry, how they entered the sanctuary and ate fresh bread off the altar, bread that no one but priests were allowed to eat? And didn't you ever read in God's Law that priests carrying out their Temple duties break Sabbath rules all the time and it's not held against them? "There is far more at stake here than religion. If you had any idea what this Scripture meant—'I prefer a flexible heart to an inflexible ritual'—you wouldn't be nitpicking like this. The Son of Man is no lackey to the Sabbath; he's in charge."