Total effort: around 15 hours

Before:



After:

    Occasionally as I've flipped through channels here in Seattle, I've come across a show from Generation Church... "taking the reality of God to this generation."  Their pastor is a younger guy named Judah Smith who gives some great sermons in jeans and sneakers.  I'm still Buddhist, don't get me wrong, and Generation Church is clearly Amber/Blue, but there's still a lot of wisdom to be found there.

    This weekend he gave a great sermon where he talked about many of us having a "spiritual backup plan."  I wish I had some video to link for you... he started by pointing out that making a time commitment to something or someone is something that younger generations feel is painful, or potentially painful... for instance, let's say that I've committed to some friends to meet them, but then something more interesting comes up.  It actually causes us pain to have to turn down the seemingly better option to stick with our previous commitment.  So we keep plans light and "maybe" and "we'll see."

    And he challenged his congregation, and asked them how many of them were sitting there on Sunday morning with him just because they didn't have a "better option"... if they had a better option, would they still have come to the service?  It's a great question, and a great analysis of how we think.

    Are they there because it's easy right now?  Or because they're not too busy?  And when things get difficult, are they going to turn away?  Are they going to forget about it?  It's easy to love Christ when things are going great, but what happens when things get hard to deal with?  Do they have a "spiritual backup plan?"  In other words, are they just following this plan for now, because it's not too hard?  Or is this the real thing for them?

    And then Pastor Judah gave the real message: you can't have the full experience, the full love, the full grace of a relationship with Jesus Christ if you don't commit, if you don't give yourself to him, if you don't make that commitment the "better option" for you, every day.

    I was blown away by how spot-on the observation was, and how clear the message is.  And, you know, one of the great things about maintaining an Integral perspective is that you can hear a message aimed at a Christian audience, and see how well it applies to lots of other audiences.

    Including myself.

    It's a path... I hear the message, I'm getting there.