This blog will begin at the end of an ongoing 10 year thought stream so it will make little sense of how I have gotten to this point at first but if you don't start somewhere, you'll never get anywhere. I have been thinking lately about the Christian bubble. I'm referring to that stereotypical lifestyle that is marked by social ineptitude, general arrogance, and a lack of understanding of how anybody in the world can live any different.

I actually hate the Bubble. I really do.

There is something to be said for promoting a lifestyle that encourages living in a godly way, whatever that might mean, but usually what happens is a separation that leads to isolation. Jesus calls us to be separate from the world, and rightly so. When someone is intrinsically changed in their very soul, outward changes are sure to follow and this will make them different. At the same time, Jesus has chosen to use the church as his main vehicle for telling people about him and these changed people will be different. And I mean in the "oh he's a little 'different' " kind.

These people will naturally form a community of other like-minded creatures and are then faced with a choice: do we actively pursue people to join or not? If not, then the group stagnates and dies. If yes, then they eventually come to another defining moment as people who are different come and there is conflict. Does this group remain unified as diversity enters, or does is splinter into small, individual "unified" groups? How to do this is one of the great philosophical questions of history and will be saved for later posts.

I think the Bubble tends to fall into the first group as people are perfectly content to live life completely separate from all those worldly people. Now, this isn't really bad, unless one forgets that you yourself are a worldly person. You can't escape.

So how do we actually live out loving people who are different? People who make us uncomfortable, who use different substances, who look different?