I'm renouncing my Christianity to follow Jesus

When I was growing up, I was under the impression that much of the world still needed to hear about Jesus Christ. This statement is true, but in reality it's only about half of the story. For generations "the church" has been very focused on reaching everyone in the world because "Jesus is coming back soon."

I want to discuss some of the issues with the way "the church" has gone about doing this.

1) Sacrificing Quality for Quantity
The church often celebrates and hears great cheering when they hear about the volume of "salvations" that they get. If we go to a service and find that 20 people were "saved" at the service we are all emotional. Everyone gets into their own personal Jesus moment and there is a lot of cheering and clapping. The new recruits are treated like fledglings and ushered into the care of some people they have never met and handed some pamphlets and told that God loves them. After about 10-15 minutes of them discussing their personal lives they are then set free to fly on their own. These birds learn to fly in 10 minutes.

You wanna see how this looks from the outside?
Here, we have all these new baby birds! Hooray they look adorable and we are so excited. Let's handle them for about 10 minutes and then we are throwing them from the tree to see which ones fly. Training? No...we gave them a manual (written in complex and contrived language) and they can read it if they need training. We have seminars and groups that do training, but the next one doesn't start for about 3 months so they will probably have to wait. You were born at the wrong time little bird.

We as Christians are so focused on the act of saying you accept Christ but not helping these people develop with Him. Is it because we just don't care about those people or because in reality many of us don't live the "christian" lives that we like to talk about on Sunday mornings? Is it because we are so shy or because we are embarrassed that these "new birds" will see how flawed and misshapen we are if we truly share life together and walk with Christ?

The outside world is bitter from the Church being so one track minded. They are tired of the "you need to accept Jesus" campaign and they are tired of hearing about how great He is but not seeing it. I'm tired of it. The world is tired of it.

2) Using our own language and colloquialisms to explain things
We have very "christian" ways of explaining things. We use metaphors and we use christian idioms to express things. In the Christian subculture it's a very comforting and affirming thing to do. You tell someone that God hasn't answered your prayer yet and they say that "God is never early or late" and that's supposed to make you feel better, so you give up on it. 

The problem with the outside world (non-christians) is that this is simply an unintelligent reply to a legitimate question. People nowadays are tired of the unintelligent expressions. They are tired of the band-aid expression meant to cover the problem but not heal the wound. If God isn't answering  your prayer right away, your friend should be helping you as much as possible. They should probably ask what your prayer is for and help evaluate if it lines up with the will of God. Does your prayer affect someone's free will? God is a gentleman and will not steal away someone's ability to choose. Are you praying for something that takes time? Then why are you expecting it to happen right now? There are several logical answers that still maintain with biblical standards. For instance, how are you living your life? Are you cheating on your spouse but expecting God to hear your prayers? He may, but if your prayers are unanswered you may have an underlying issue to take care of. People need practical answers, not some made up "Christian-ism" that calls into question the intelligence of the christian community.

3) Fear of anything that challenges our faith
Christians, generally speaking, are afraid of whatever challenges their faith. We avoid science because it says that Evolution is real and that the universe started from the Big Bang. We get afraid of these things because the presumption is that then God must not exist and calls into question all of our beliefs. 

For the record, let's go into those two things. Evolution is the theory that things change over time. They do. That's proven. It's not worth arguing. Whether we came from monkeys or fish or not is completely different from Evolution. Evolution as a process may be a theory, but it's widely proven. Don't fight it. God wants us to change over time too. In regard to the Big Bang, realize a simple truth. If everything in the universe came from a single point, then something with equal or greater power than the universe MUST have existed in order for the universe to have ever happened. That's the law of math. If 1=everything and 0=nothing then 1=1 and 0=0, Everything that exists requires a force equal to or greater than itself to exist. If the universe is infinite in space (though not commonly held belief) then by the rules of e=MC^2 and relativity it is then infinite in time and energy also. Under these assumptions it is not only probable that God exists, but inevitable. That's also legitimate reasoning.

Remember this: If we as Christians are afraid to challenge our faith, then what faith do we really have? Do you really believe that Science will ever disprove God? Science is the study of his creation. Do you actually believe it can result in anything but finding God?

4) I'll do this for you, if you do this for me

The church is very focused on the giveaways that require you to do something. You can eat at our free pancake breakfast if you sit through a sermon first. We are happy to feed the poor if we can brand ourselves and label everything with our logo and such. I don't see anywhere in the bible where Jesus wanted to make sure that everyone did something for him before He did for them. We always focus on the bible from one perspective. Take when Jesus fed the 5,000. Everyone focuses on the faith of the boy to give the two fish and the bread. They want to talk about how Jesus will provide, but they don't want to focus on the simple things.
Jesus did NOT require everyone to sacrifice. The sacrifice of one was for the benefit of many. Jesus didn't talk about moochers or even care that they were there. If you think there weren't moochers you are foolish. There were 5,000 people there. There were moochers and Jesus fed the moochers more than they needed. Why? It's not our job to convince a moocher or anyone else that Jesus is the way. We don't do the convincing. His spirit is enough for that. Our job is simply to show his love to people. That's where we miss it.

As a church we want to do so much to build numbers of attendees and we want to add to the ranks, but we have lost a grip on how to show the love of Christ. The world is sick of the marketing campaign where you get to get something if you do or give something. They are tired of the, "you get this great experience for only 10% of your income." I am 100% in support of tithe and offering. If you are a christian and you aren't tithing, shame on you. That said, the focus shouldn't be on the rules. It should be on the Love.

I honestly today am ashamed of the title Christian. Not because of Jesus. I'm proud to know Jesus. I'm ashamed to be associated with people that are seemingly unintelligent, greedy, finger-pointing, and relentless to serve their own needs. That's not the Jesus I know. As it is, I don't think Jesus would be a christian either.

Nobody Tries Anything

I've had a lot of things in life change. I've had ambitions to be a professional artist, musician, and several other endeavors. I had a conversation with my wife regarding the satisfaction level that I have with such endeavors and here are some key points that are huge to understanding ambitions:

1 - There is no TRY; only DO
There is no such thing as trying. If you indeed try, you proceed through failure after failure and get knocked down only to rise again and overcome. The end result is that (provided enough time) you DO what you set out to do. If you are saying to yourself that you are "trying" to do something and not actually doing everything you can to make it happen you are simply fooling yourself

2 - If you WANT something you WILL DO what it takes
Since there is no such thing as "try," when you want something you will do what it takes to attain it. Sometimes there are imbalances in this equation. For me, I wanted to pursue music and other selfish endeavors, but ultimately my want for a traditional family and my own children and pursuing my career weighed heavier on me than my own pursuits. I wanted a family. I have a family. If I had truly wanted to be a musician professionally rather than having it just be a fantasy I would have DONE it.

3 - Repetition is the mother of success

The dividing line between success and failure is simple. The person who quits fails. Don't say you want something if you don't have the willpower/stones to go get it/take it. If you are failing it gives you insight into what does NOT work to get where you want. Re-evaluate, re-position, and keep moving.

4 - "One day" and "Later" simply mean "No"
Do not say, "one day I will be rich." You'll never be rich. I'm not rich, but the concept lies in your pursuit. If you say "one day" or "later" you aren't starting what it takes NOW. Nothing in life that's worth anything comes easy and quick. Being wealthy/successful, whatever your definition, is about goal setting, strategy, and careful execution. The only time "one day" applies is when that day is today.

5 - Good things require sacrifice
Anyone who has anything good will tell you they gave something else up to get it. People who are fit give up eating a lot of junk food. People who are wealthy give up a lot of their time to it. People who are intelligent typically give up social functions to pursue that. Everything is a balance. If you want something badly, you need to be willing to sacrifice to get it. This goes along with point number two. If  you REALLY want it, you will be willing to make the sacrifice. If you aren't willing to make the sacrifice, then you want whatever it is that you aren't willing to let go of MORE than what you think you want. Plain and simple.

WHOA JON - DIAL IT DOWN - GET TO THE POINT!

Okay. Here is my point. I don't regret choices that I've made. I accept that certain things are the sum of equations of what means more to me in life. I'm not rich because I value my family, but we do okay. I'm not famous because I value time with my friends/wife/daughter. I'm not athletic because I value pursuing knowledge MORE than physicality (not that you cannot do both - that's just where MY choices led). If you want to do something truly, then do it. Don't say you will try. Don't say you will do it later. Don't give up because it didn't work the first 50 times. Like Nike says, "Just Do It."

Let's Educate Some Christians

When I was growing up, there was an expression circulated among Christian circles that says something like this:

"If you were to move Earth 10 feet closer to the Sun or 10 feet further away we would all die. God has placed us perfectly where we ought to be."

Recently I have seen someone post this, and then receive much rebuttal from people of the pseudo-scientific community. The problem really lies in that people don't actually apply critical thinking or analytic thinking, they merely see it for face value and demean people over this. It usually turns into the traditional "christian bashing" and someone usually starts talking about the Big Bang/Creation and what they believe to be the fallacy of the bible. Those topics are really for other blog posts. I have yet to attack the legitimacy of the bible, but I have a blog regarding the Big Bang/Creation titled "Jesus Believed in Evolution" if you want a long but actually somewhat thoughtful read.

Let me clear up this expression so we can put to rest the scientific community for demeaning Christians, and empower Christians to not make complete fools of themselves for not knowing what they are talking about:

First, let's get some of the basics out of the way with the facts:
1) The earth moves in an egg shaped ellipse around the sun.
2) Our distance from the sun changes by several million miles (3,106,855.95 miles to be exact) each year.
3) The earth is just under 8,000 miles thick on average
4) In science, the distance from the earth to the sun (92,956,000 miles) is referred to as 1 Astronomical Unit or 1 AU
5) In order for life to exist a planet must reside permanently within the Goldilocks Zone for it's respective star. This is the distance that will allow life to not burn or freeze to death. It varies for each star.
6) The Goldilocks Zone (clever name) for our sun is between .99AU and 1.7AU (http://io9.com/5980232/new-definition-of-the-goldilocks-zone-puts-earth-right-on-the-edge-of-habitability)

Okay, so now that we have the facts let's do some critical thinking. Using Facts 4 and 6 we can determine that the earth (which is at 1AU during it's closest time to the sun) has a margin of .01 to move from that point before we all burn to death. This is much more than 10 feet. To be exact, this is 92,956 miles.

Science Lovers: "Silly Christians. They really think that's true?! No wonder we have problems."

Hold on a second. That's not the end of the thought. Let's move to next-level thinking and not just the face value of the 10 feet. Clearly just the movement of 10 feet wouldn't immediately kill everyone. I've gone on roller coasters and not incinerated, but what happens AFTER the earth has moved this 10 feet?

Well, scientifically speaking, if you push an item closer to the sun it is subjected to a higher level of gravity, which ultimately will change the entire trajectory of the planet. If you figure the math out using Kepler's Laws of Planetary Motion (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kepler%27s_laws_of_planetary_motion) this would actually happen to push us much closer over time than the 92,956 miles because the ellipse changes from an egg shape to more of a "0" shape where the long sides are significantly closer (we burn) and the short sides are drastically further away (we freeze). Conversely, the opposite happens if you push the earth out 10 feet. The gravitation is less and as a result the ellipse is still the same shape, but the bottom wide half of this "egg" shaped ellipse is MUCH closer than we are now. In either case, our planet burns and freezes.

TO SCIENCE LOVERS
If you really like science, stop trying to make Science fight God. Science will never disprove God. Science is not in the nature of disproving ANYTHING, rather Scientific thinking is used to discover new things and prove things to help us better understand the universe. When you posit God against Science you are already limiting your scientific thinking, not to mention that mathematically you can never disprove anything because until we know the entire infinite universe there is always the possibility that what you are trying to disprove exists beyond your reach. Aliens could very well exist beyond our reach, and so could people just like us.

CHRISTIANS
Science isn't the devil. Science is something we were given to help better understand our world and the Creator. As Einstein said, "Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."

If we as Christians are fearful of Science, it's much less of your contempt for Science and much more your fear that they may disprove something you believe. Here's a thought: If God created Science, do you really think that Science will ever be able to prove that He doesn't exist? Do you think that we would be able to prove in the universe things that He didn't intend?

God made the universe. Science is us coming to conclusions based on observation. If we believe both of those statements, then we should 100% support Science because it will 100% of the time verify the very hand of God and make him more tangible to mankind on a very basic level.

JUST FOR FUN:
The reality is that we wouldn't even need to move 93,000 miles closer because the earth is 8,000 feet wide. What this means is that really our planet only needs to move about 86,000 miles closer because even if only one side were too close, the earth rotates on its axis, and as a result we all die in a rotisserie-style apocalypse.

Outside of this, our gravity is what makes certain gasses like hydrogen and liquids like water able to exist on our planet. If we moved that much closer, the strong force constant (gravity) is disrupted to a point that hydrogen can no longer exist at the closest point in our ellipse to the sun, and as a result our atmosphere breaks down and we all die.