I grew up in a Christian family of Baptist/Lutheran descent. Basically, that means we attended a small country Methodist church just 3 miles from our family farm..pretty much every week, except when we went to Illinois to visit my extended family in the Chicago suburbs. I was pretty much always in Sunday school, went through confirmation, attended VBS...and eventually helped teach as I got older, looked forward to monthly youth group events, and even played in the church softball league.
God and Jesus were always a part of our lives, even though They weren't something we witnessed to others about. We prayed before dinner, but not usually breakfast and lunch. We prayed with our hands together, not up in the air or united across the table. We said the same prayer every day, not anything more specific than "Come Lord Jesus, be our guest. Let these gifts to us be blessed. Amen." Short and sweet.
One of my dad's uncles in southern Illinois, Uncle Delbert, was still a Baptist minister when I was a growing up. My great grandfather, Mayo Ashbrook, was also a Baptist minister. We would visit those relatives, and it would be like entering a new overwhelming world, full of 'praise Jesus', hallelujah's, and loud, arm-flailing singing. While visiting family in the south, we would load up into my dad's cousins van, Lenora and Doval, and they would tell stories about all the adventures they took their youth group on. I would leave wanting more...even though it was a bit uncomfortable.
When I would hear stories about my Catholic friends', I wanted to be Catholic, too....CCD sounded so fun from the outside, getting to hang out with your classmate (instead of doing chores on the farm...). AWANA sounded fun, too. I imagine our VBS was pretty enticing to the outside world, as well, looking back on it. As kids, we talked about the fun things we were DOING...not just using certain buzz-words.
So, when I read this blog by Jeff Goins, it really did make me chuckle at some of the things we Christians say, as if somehow saying these words out load is better than living these words silently.
Baptizing Heathen Words. | Stuff Christians Like – Jon Acuff
Okay, I've gotta run....time for some facebook 'fellowship'. Ha, ha! ;)
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