The Barrier of Class

On an average day, I'm quite a friendly person. I am happy to start up a conversation with people who are like me, but also people of different ethnicity and people from a different generation, younger and older.

But I've noticed in myself that I suffer from a slight amount of Classism. This inclination to look down on, or at least be less comfortable around people from lower class backgrounds than myself is not something I chose (in fact I positively try to remove it from my character when able), it is just something which I think I picked up from parents and other sources as I grew up.

The main issue I have with this particular 'ism' of mine is that it appears to be the main barrier in my life to both effective community within my church and also evangelizing to those outside the church. I also wonder whether I'm not the only one.

For my generation (and increasingly so for younger ones) I think that racism isn't much of an issue due to the world becoming increasingly smaller thanks to technology. It is currently normal to live alongside people with origins from across the globe. So classism may overtake racism as the main barrier to building authentic communities.

When comparing the two, I also wonder whether the solutions to these two 'isms' are the same or different. The solution to racism began as education but was also largely helped by real-life contact, the opportunity for sheltered citizens to see that when you go to work or the shops, this person from another country has pretty much the same habits as I do. But class isn't part of your DNA in the same way your race is... unless by race we mean which country you are from instead of the pigmentation of your skin, in which case neither race nor class are part of your DNA, we are just talking about the culture (or sub-culture) that you grew up in.

Saying that the solution to classism is education seems ridiculous. Real-life contact can help you along, but when God asked his church in the Bible to work together as a single-minded community He knew that the main thing it would take is a decision to love each other. Classism is just one more issue I've spotted occasionally tugging my choices in bad directions and it turns out that it doesn't require a different answer than most temptations.

Social Media and Intimacy

Talking with people face-to-face is a rarity today. As more of our friendships and relationships are maintained online, there are understandable questions about whether being "friends" means what it used to mean only a generation ago.

One of the interesting phenomenon that our culture became aware of quite quickly in social media was the apparent contradiction that a person with hundreds of "friends" online could feel extremely lonely. This has generally been explained by saying that our friendships on the internet are more superficial, or shallower, and that a person who only invests themselves in online friendships will miss the depth of those found in real life.

Christians Dating Non-Christians

The subject of Christians dating people who are not Christians is one to be careful with. It probably doesn't help that the subject only ever seems to be raised when someone is doing it and someone else wants to tell them why it is wrong.

Both sides of the argument about whether it is OK or not refer to a few bits in the Bible, sometimes the same ones! I am going to leave the task of interpreting scripture regarding this to minds smarter than my own. But I would like to describe 4 possible things that a person may consciously or unconsciously mean when they say "It's wrong for a Christian to date a non-Christian", and my thoughts on each motive or reason.

Evangelism - Part 1

The following is adapted from the first half of a talk I gave at WYnet Summer Camp 2011. The theme for the week was Discipleship, and I spoke towards the end of the event about mission-ship, or evangelism.

I introduced the talk by saying that I knew they (the teens) had, or could get, advice on how to be "nice people" very easily, and therefore I wanted to cut straight to stuff about evangelism that could be applied in their lives at school and college.

What

During my time at the University of Chester, I heard what I think is the best definition of evangelism I have ever heard. It went,

"Evangelism is just one beggar telling another beggar where he can get free food."

Telepathy and Love

When we were dating, I commonly joked with Jenny that I was psychic and could read her thoughts. For some reason, she didn't believe me, but I now think that being psychic could be the best thing in a relationship.

Everyone assumes that you get to know a person better by spending time with them. If you have spent years living with someone, you are expected to know their habits better than someone you have only known for a few days. But when we say something like "he knows her really well,", what do we mean? It seems that we mean he can practically read her mind, or that he can accurately predict what she is thinking at any moment.

Grades of the Sexes

Boys and girls each have a different way of judging, from first impressions, whether a member of the opposite sex is worth chasing. In fact they are not just different ways, they are the complete opposite.

Imagine that everyone has an imaginary score they give the opposite sex when they first meet them, and maybe get to know them a bit. Let's say it starts from zero at the bottom and goes to the highest and sexiest mark of 100. If you're in the market, you want to find a high scorer.

So both the male and female species have the same target so far. What's opposite about them? The way they work out the marking...

The Character of God the Father - Part 2

The following is the second half of a talk I gave at the WYnet Passion conference 2010/11. (See my previous post for part 1). The theme for the week was Character, and I opened the event with this to say about God the Father, with the character of Jesus and the Holy Spirit being expanded on in later evenings.

In the first half, I have mentioned that our ideas of our Heavenly Father are not to be founded on our experiences of our earthly ones. I have also said that God Creates and Judges, and that judgment in the sense I used is the natural result after creation.

Loves

“God Loves you, He Loves me, He Loves everyone!” This side of God is probably so loudly proclaimed and tightly held onto by Christians recently that you can start to glaze over it, or forget that the Love of God is going to be more extreme than our own flimsy ideas about an emotion.

"Fair" is Not Enough

A big word at the centre of many peoples belief system is "Fair." I should be treated equally, you need to play by the rules, life should be Fair. A thesaurus puts the word alongside Just, Honest, Trustworthy, Lawful, Legal, and Good.

The average person believes that fairness, or you could say justice, should be enforced in society. In a perfect world, the average person will be treated justly. The problem, however, is that when people think this, they have forgotten that the average person is not perfect. In fact, all of humanity is imperfect, and the familiar phrase "I'm only human" is one piece of evidence that shows we already know this. It's not news, but neither is it a welcome fact.

We are a broken species; we spend as many days behaving badly as we do behaving well, if not more. If you think this excludes you, then I'll add that even if you don't act on bad thoughts, all of your selfish and overly-proud thoughts are as valid for judegment as any actions. Your actions are, after all, only a symptom of the real character within you.

Passions per Heart

The charities I have regularly given to have included Oxfam, Children in Need and Christians Against Poverty [CAP]. Of those, I've only recently been passionate about Oxfam and CAP. Children in Need was one of those instances of being caught in the high street by someone with a clipboard, and after one year I stopped the money going out from my bank account.

I will buy Fairtrade products if they are available, and I was going to buy one of the items anyway. I don't often drop spare change in the plastic collection containers next to shop tills, and I have almost never given spare change to charity reps or homeless people in the street.

There are definately some conflicting items on this list, but I'm thinking here about what I'm passionate about, because that is what usually fuels my decision to act on the variety of good causes available.

Marriage

I am currently blessed with 20 minutes to myself, twice every weekday, as I walk to and from my workplace. You get to a stage where your legs do their own thinking, and your mind is free to roam.

The other day, during this walk, my mind suddenly asked me how I'd reply if someone asked me why I am married. (Not an unusual question for someone who is 23 years old in this culture, I reckon.)

My reaction was surpise, because I realised the answer was not that I am 'In love'. Or at least, that was not the answer to that specific question.

So, a few thoughts on the question and potential answers...

Is a person who asks this question asking "Why did you decide to get married?" or "What made you want to get married?" These two questions have different answers.