Jamie Englert-Outside Reading

I have been reading this book, Irresistible Revolution, for a few weeks now and it has really challenged my thinking about Christian faith and how to live out that lifestyle. The author, Shane Claiborne, takes a look at what it is like to live as what he calls, an “ordinary radical” and illustrates this using examples from his own life and those of great people he has met. The majority of the book focuses on poverty, particularly in the United States, and what we so called “Christians” do to address it. Claiborne is a very blunt and honest guy and stresses the point of how so many Christians live their lives in their comfortable, suburban churches and stay in their comfortable, Caucasian cliques. At first I read this and was slightly offended. Who is this guy to judge how people profess and live out their faith? But then I realized he did have a point. Looking at the people I surround myself with and the churches I attend, they can sometimes resemble his description. Now he does mention that this is not always a bad thing because fellowship is important, but if we claim that we want to live and love as Jesus did, we must step out of our comfort zones sometimes. So I started thinking…who did Jesus hang out with? Who did he love that I don’t love? Well, he was friends with tax collectors, fisherman, adulterers, lepers, the blind, the deaf…and the list goes on. This group is quite the assortment of people, yet Jesus loved each one individually and unconditionally, regardless of their circumstances or where they came from. I took a step back and looked at my life: All my friends look the same and I certainly know I do not always treat them as I should. I could continue this life of stability, but could I still say that I was living to be “Christ-like?” He hung out with the poor and lonely, the widowed and weary, why was I not doing the same? I have a friend at school that does just that. She goes to downtown Newport News throughout the week and hangs out with the homeless. She and a few others have even gone so far as to help some of them get jobs at CNU and create a better life for themselves. How great is that? Some of her greatest friends are homeless people and she finds satisfaction in her faith through that type of ministry. She is living her life the way God intended to us to live;to me, that is inspiring.