FB Status

I've recently read the following status (and others like it)

Dad comes home drunk and mad. He pulls a gun on his wife then turns the gun to himself, his little girl sits behind the couch crying. The police came and took the girl. She is now with a new family. Her first day of Sunday school she walks past the building and sees a picture of Jesus on the cross, the little girl asks the teacher "How did that man get off the cross?!" The teacher replied "He di............dn't!" The little girl argued "Yes he did, the night mommy and daddy died, he sat next to me behind the couch and told me everything would be alright. 66% of you won't re-post this.. but, remember. The bible says "Deny me in front of your friends, and I will deny you in front of my father." So repost this if you are part of the 33%

At the end of the status there is a charge to act. As I read it I felt as if the status is kind of saying, 'prove you're a Christian by...'

Does not reposting this mean that you are denying Christ? Does it mean you aren't really a Christian? I personally don't think so. Then what about the other side? If you do repost this does it prove your Christianity or make you a 'better' Christian? Again, I personally don't think so. I fail to see a connection between not posting a facebook status and denying Christ. (I think that a lot of people will read this status and think, 'oh, I have to prove my Christian-ness because so-and-so said I'm not a Christian if I don't repost this')

Thought, if someone were to live with this mindset how would they get through life? One could easily say, 'if you don't go to church x-many times this week you denied Christ' or 'If you didn't evangelize with everyone you saw, then you denied Christ.' If something as medial as facebook can cause you deny Christ then how much worse will the other factors of life be?

From a biblical point the alluded to passage in the status comes from Matthew 10. This is when Jesus is sending out the disciples, telling them what to do when they come to a town. The verse comes into play when people would deny the disciples, because by extension they we denying Jesus and by extension they were denying God.

I don't know if I should feel convicted by this sort of message or if I should question the people who sent it. Is this status an act of serving God? or is it a sign of a misguided faith? Am I rationalizing not posting it to make myself feel better? because I'm lazy? I don't really know the answer.

What do y'all think about this kind of post?

Step One

Hey y'all,

Something moved in me recently to start blogging. I know I kind of blog on facebook with notes, I'm planning on having this blog in tandem with the facebook notes. They will likely share some of my ideas, I may even copy one from here and put them on facebook and vice-versa. However, I will likely be more open and direct with this blog, I plan on being real. Not just putting up some cool ideas I have, but blogging about how life is going, the good and the bad.

We'll start off with a simple blog. Last night was UNL worship night. Afterwords, I had a great 2 1/2 hour conversation with my friend Kevin. We just talked about God and Christianity, it was magnificent. Towards the end of our conversation I had the thought, 'Christianity is so backwards from anything else I've encountered, anything human.'

From a human standpoint when someone pushes us, we're supposed to push them back, but God says, 'turn the other cheek.' When someone lies to us and betrays us, the human response is to get revenge, while God says that He will ultimately judge them, our only job is to love.

One of the final thoughts we had was how different Christianity is from other religions. Nearly all other religions in the world are about what we can do as human to touch the divine. Often times it presents itself as a checklist, do this and that and then you will touch the divine and go to heaven. Lots of religions take the stance that people aren't bad, we just make some mistakes on the way. In particular I am studying Islam in my religion class and they don't believe in original sin, they believe that people often 'forget' about Allah's will and they just need to be fixed.

This thought ultimately boiled down to what Christianity says. Our thought was that the first step of Christianity isn't to go to church or help an old lady cross the street. To become a Christian one doesn't have to pay a tax, say a prayer or do a ritual. The first step to becoming and authentic Christian is to say, 'I suck.' To say that we can't be good enough, no matter how hard we try. To say that we are broken beyond human repair. To give up and surrender.

This is step one, are you there?