Bubble

At times we joke about the “Christian bubble”, the community of believers who can’t seem to reach outside themselves. Throughout my life I’ve talked about this group with different people, always with the idea that I’m not one of “those people”. As I’ve grown in my walk I’ve realized my tendencies to find comfort in “those people”. To be relaxed around people who are like me and enjoy things the way I do. This realization challenged my priorities and quite frankly scared me a little.

Recently I began reading the book “Finding Common Ground” by Tim Downs. Through his artistic communication Tim has helped me put words to many things floating around in my head as well as challenge those priorities I mentioned earlier. I would love to share with you just a few of those thoughts.

When talking about interacting with students in the Communication Center Tim Downs was a part of starting, he says:
“What I discovered after several years of this kind of interaction is that, because of the separatism that exists in the evangelical world, Christians tend to learn the Bible as an isolated topic. They understand biblical doctrine, but not what it has to do with business or politics or the family. They understand biblical morality, but not how to apply it to the complexity of modern relationships. They are superbly prepared to answer questions that non-Christians quit asking two generations ago.” (pg. 98)

When we don’t know how to communicate we often don’t communicate. The fact being, if we don’t know how to interact and communicate with non-believers we don’t, thus creating a separation. We begin to only associate with those who are easy to communicate with, those we think are “close to coming to God”, or those who are like us, people we know what to say to, thus driving ourselves further and further away from the masses who are living in darkness.

“With less and less communication from the Christian world, true nonbelievers are free to grow more ignorant, more distant, and more hostile.”
“It’s not as easy as it used to be to say everything—but that doesn’t mean you can’t say anything.” (pg. 107)

He references Matthew 10:16 noting that we need to be both innocent and shrewd. He talks about our tendency to error on the side of innocence and disregard the importance of being shrewd. “The word translated shrewd is the Greek word phronimos, which means ‘prudent, sensible, or practically wise’. Why should we neglect such useful qualities?”

To communicate to the world we need to communicate in the way the world communicates in this generation…more through art, not science. As Christians our tendency is to communicate solely with science, laying down the facts that frankly are not attractive to nonbelievers because you’re not speaking their language.

While there is comfort in “the bubble”, my hearts cry is to help people understand the mysteries of the gospel as Paul writes about. When I step out of the bubble and into another person’s life I am able to become fully alive.

-Terah Wiekamp