Creativity Not Clones..

In the week, I was in church and I met a nice lady on the Alpha course. Later that evening when she had done that session, We met by the cakes, she was saying goodbye I was still eating...I asked her how she was getting on, and she said yeah good, she was (her actual words) just trying to focus on fitting in at the church at the moment...

This really racked me off, (not the lady she was just being truthful and to be honest I did the exact same thing, for the first few months I came to church). I replied not very gracefully 'sack fitting in at church', I told her God didn't make her to fit in. I did want to also add ' Be who God made you to be we don't need any more clean faced christian clones'. But I held my tongue for a change. Its a miracle!

Now this lady has made a huge step by her coming into our church and now she feels she needs to change.. WTFlip.....

How did this happen. What does that say about me and my church?

Go back to NT days.. did people join the apostle gang and think 'Crap, I need to become like Paul or peter, nah man, the group was full of weirdos and specials and average peeps, they couldn't copy each other if they tried...

Like that guy you see walking down the street and you pray to yourself 'please don't talk to me ' He would of been in the gang.. or the guy doing the street cleaning job that is so beneath you... He's
in... Would they join Gods church and also feel the need to change?. I am not sure I am gonna like the answer to that.

'Is committing ones life to Christ also a commitment to a loss of identity and individuality'... what do you think Jesus would say?

Difference is what makes the world and the church amazing.... In fact this diversity glorifies God. So why does someone go into a church and automatically feel the need to stop what Gods made them in personality? Does this mean in fact we are stopping his Gods glory shine through that person... The church puts a bucket over a shining light and says stop glowing that way, only sparkle like this...

Maybe it sounds like a rant, I don't mean it too, I am preaching to myself as much as anyone... but as a person who has never really fitted into church and hopefully will never fully do, I still get shocked, have I lost some of my God given Identity by walking through the church doors every Sunday ? Urrhhh. Wobble!


As to the lady, this week I am gonna sit with her and tell her to be as unique as possible... hopefully that comes into the Alpha course at some point. When she has only been going to church 2 weeks and already she is trying to put on the religious front, she needs to Know, what the church sometimes makes her feel and what God thinks of her don't always, actually alot of the time don't always match..

God delights over her uniqueness, Yes mate.....

AMENxxx (End of Rant)