The preacher at my church this week issued a challenge to each of us,
borrowing from St. Francis of Assisi’s great evangelical tagline:
“Preach the Gospel at all times, and when necessary, use words.”
Our lives are a powerful argument for – or against – Christianity.
The W.W.J.D. method (asking yourself “What Would Jesus Do?”) is an effective way of monitoring your behavior, assuming you are doing so out of a love for God and a commitment to holiness. But come on, what would happen if more people actually imitated Christ?!
When disciplining my students, I focus on acting with integrity [integrity is doing the right thing even if nobody is watching] because the Bible exhorts us not to be concerned with trying to impress people, and assures – warns? – us that God knows what we do in secret.
But what if people are watching?
What would someone see if they followed me around all day? all week? all year?
The French word for “to follow” is suivre, and when conjugated, something interesting (though not necessarily linguistically related) happens: it looks the same as the verb meaning “to be”:
During this next year, by participating in this particular mission, I will be imitating Jesus by hanging out with and serving widows, orphans, prostitutes, lepers, maybe even tax collectors. Not your typical crowd, but honestly, not that different than any of us either.
Mike Yaconelli, in his book Messy Spirituality, accuses Christians of being fake, of pretending that we’ve got it all together. He quotes Keith Miller:
I invite you to follow me around for the year, reading my stories and reflections and browsing my photos. If you haven’t already, please subscribe to this blog (there is a link on the left). * Once we get going, I will probably post once a week or so. Some things I write will be boring. Sorry. Some things I write will be inspiring. (I hope!) In any case, I will try to always be real and to share the Truth (my Team name is Aletheia, after all!).
The pastor ended his sermon by saying that:
