SpiritFarmer

Hi there!  It’s me, Steve.  You know, the guy who used to blog here, but hasn’t dropped in lately?  Yeah, that Steve.  Nice to, er, type at you again.

Busy week I suppose. Met with a couple different church planters, had a luncheon with other UW campus ministers, spent time with the inter::mission crew, and even took a day off!

The following story is neither here nor there, but it was an interesting part of my week.   There’s a UW student that I spend a good bit of time with most weeks.  He’s a really smart guy – knowledgeable in a lot of different areas: politics, computers, literature, science, religion, etc.  I guess a good way to describe him would be to say he’s a Deist – not really an atheist, but the God he believes is out there isn’t a personality kind of entity.  He and I (and others around The Purple Door) have tons of good conversations.  This week, as a few of us were chatting, he mentioned how when he’s talking to Christians, he’s often quite guarded in what he says, because of the judgment he potentially faces.  I asked what he meant, and he said something like, “There are a couple of types of Christians I talk to – there’s the more casual, reasonable types that don’t necessarily look at the Bible as a literally true thing that rules them.  And then there’s this other type that are flaky, awkward, and just kind of weird.”  I inserted a little quip that he must see me as the flaky, awkward, weird type of Christian.  His response was, “Wow, no, I don’t even think of you as a Christian.”  This made me laugh.  I had to ask what he meant by that, so I said, “If I’m not a Christian, then what am I?”  He said, “Well, I guess I’d just say you’re a Jesus follower.”  What he meant was that I’m not caught up in religion and politics and moralism and judgment of it all.   I just follow Jesus.

We carried the conversation on, and argued over the ways in which science has become a religion. But that one little part about not being a Christian stuck with me more than anything.  A breath of fresh air, really.

What do you think?  Have I sold out the Church now that I’m not a Christian?  Should I be fired as a “minister” if I’m not a Christian? Should I be given a raise?