Religious

Normally, when officiating a church service, I wear jeans, casual shoes, and an un-tucked, open-collared shirt.

But today I decided to wear a tie- something that is very out of character for me. I even wore a nice dress shirt and dress shoes. I did, however, leave my shirt un-tucked with a nice pair of jeans and a black leather jacket stylishly complementing the outfit.

We had some visiting ministers whom our church has had relations with for many years. One of the ministers usually gets offended by strange things- one time because the word ‘hell’ was in a worship song.

Today as I went to greet her and give her a Christian side-hug, she scoffed and said something to the effect of,” Well Mr. Shirt-Tails-Out, aren’t you cute?” The way she said it was not polite and was very condescending.

It was as if she was saying,” If you were a real Christian, you would have your shirt tucked in!”

As she made the rude remark, my mom immediately interrupted her and said,” he’s our co pastor now.” The woman was not amused. I walked away.

Funny thing is that I am reading 1 Samuel now where God tells Samuel that He does not look at our outward appearance but our hearts. A woman traveling with the ministers stood up to give a testimony about what God was doing through their ministry and she actually quoted that verse as well. I hope her friend caught on to the whole Bible message thing.

Point is that if we as Christians want to start having an effect on the world around us; we need to stop being so religious, and instead start being Biblical Christ Followers who are not afraid of offending a self-righteous religious traditionalist every once in a while. After all; it’s one of the things Jesus did best!