Tradition!

We started off the week discussing a passage from an article about Jesus Freak (see http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/mediaculture/2283/healed_of_the_sin_of_religion%3A_at_church_with_sara_miles/?page=entire)

In the article, they discussed how a typical church is made more for comfort than change.  One question that is pulled up is when the difference between tradition and nastalgia is made in a "church home."  The writer of Jesus Freak comments that a church designed for comfort over mission work and change is a church of idolaters, or people who simply cannot or don't want to exit their comfort zone.

Our group, which was small today, moved to discuss how a church should be set up.  Should church be set up to benefit its members?  Most people want some comfort, but we knew that the article was right in that church needs to be a tool of change.  People are not naturally faithful, for the most part, and if we want to get closer to God, then we have to change our ways and do whatever it takes to get closer in our faith.

Next, a small debate brought us into the topic of balance between us and God.  As teenagers, we are pressured into doing good things, getting good grades, preparing ourselves for college, etcetera, etcetera.  How do we balance our lives between all that we are supposed to do for our lives on Earth and what we are supposed to do for our lives with God?  Our group came to say that what we do with our lives and our careers should reflect our faith and lives with God.  One of our group members gave an example of how physics can be seen as a study of how God works on Earth; God created everything, so everything we do to study the universe should be a study of God.

Somewhat relating back to our discussion of church and comfort, our group began to discuss how everything can go wrong.  Things that were developed with good interests could easily go wrong for secular interests.  Fast food, for example, may have originally been made for cheap, good food, but it has now turned into a profit seeking, fatty foods industry.  Could church turn bad just as easily?  As we say in every post, it is our duty as Christians to keep the church a tool for great change and advancement in the world.

Our final point of discussion relates to hypocrisy.  Almost every church preaches for change and says that Christians need to help the world, but most don't follow through.  We cannot simply say that what we are doing is wrong but keep doing it.  Relating back to last week, we cannot judge without expecting our own judgement.  We have to get out of our bubbles and change.  In our closing prayer for this week, one of our group made a humorous but true statement.  Lord, forgive us for being idiots because we truly are.