...the Christian bubble

Well its almost been a week since I talked about the social bubble. I have to admit that my thoughts were not communicated very well with the last post. It seemed like I was jumping all over the place and I never followed through on my original thought. My point was to point out that being part of a social network like Facebook, we may be networking, but not in the truest sense. Facebook is "members only" networking, were we choose who sees what and who is in and out. Facebook in and of itself is wonderful for keeping in contact with family and friends all around the world. The problem arises when we create a life that is like Facebook, where we have our own groups, we have a password at the door; if you don't have the "members only jacket"...you're not getting in.

This "members only" lifestyle is what I see happening in the Christian community today. I recently read a book called, They like Jesus but not the Church (insights from emerging generations) by Dan Kimball. Dan is the Pastor at Vintage Faith Church in Santa Cruz, CA. I have had the opportunity to hear Dan Kimball speak at several Youth Ministry Conferences, and I have a lot of respect for his knowledge and ministry ideas. In his book he has a chapter titled, "Why I Escaped the Church Office", and in here he speaks about "life in the Christian bubble." I would like to share a couple quotes from this chapter to begin today.

"Having relationships only with Christians made it difficult to obey the teachings of Jesus about being on a mission for him and being salt and light to the world. It was like being a missionary to the Buddhists in China but hanging out only with Christians all the time" (p.39).


"As I recognized that we really only socialize with our Christian friends, I also recognized that overall, we are complacent about those outside the church. We aren't thinking about their eternal destiny"        (p. 41).


"Church leaders are mainly dealing with complaints about last week's sermon or complaints that the music wasn't good enough, along with threats that people might go to another church where these things are better" (p. 41).

You see these are the experiences of a Pastor in the field, one who was noticing these things in his own life, the lives of those in his flock, and those in Christian denominations around the world. Kimball goes on to layout a very nice 4 phase process on the Christian bubble. This is what I want us to examine, to ponder and to figure out the implications of these actions in our own Christian walks. Kimball comes at these phases from the stand point of one who was without Christ and then finds Christ, but these phases will relate to all of us at some point in our lives.


Phase 1: We become Christian
This is that exciting time when you find the truth that you have been searching for but could never find. Its a time of learning and exposure to the powerful word of God. We have found something that changes lives and we wanna share it with everyone we know...family and friends. We want them to be able to share in the gift of God's love and grace. (This is the phase when our excitement is high for Jesus, and that excitement causes us to want to reach out, to share this message with all those around us.) 

Phase 2: We become part of church life
We get involved in the life of the church, we are making friends with those in the church and attending church functions and events. We begin to pull away from our unhealthy environments...such as the party scene (we don't want to fall back into that lifestyle)...although we continue to keep up with all our old friends even if they themselves don't believe. As we grow in the life of the church we tend to lose touch with many of our non-believing friends outside the church. Now as we begin to spend most if not all of our time with church friends we forget about those who don't know Christ.

Now don't misunderstand me here, I find it crucial to have a strong presence in and with our own personal church community. The problem is that we only spend time with those in our own church, how are we to be salt and light to this world if we don't have contact with it? Here is another boggling situation, as we pull away from non-believers in our community, we find it an even bigger stretch to socialize with other churches or denominations.

"If Jesus sent us on a mission to be his salt and light to others, why is it that we have basically set up our church systems and subcultures to remove maturing people from relationships with people outside of the church?" (p. 44)

Phase 3: We become part of the Christian bubble
It was once exciting to share our faith with those outside the circle of believers, but we begin to transition from us doing the evangelizing in our daily lives to something that the Pastor's and ministry leaders take care of... Evangelism becomes something that takes place only when there is a specific program of event scheduled by the church. We may bring others to church, but only to pass them off to the Pastor once we get them there. We have lost contact with our mission as followers of Christ, we don't know what we believe well enough to share our faith with those who need to hear it, so we pass them off or even worse...we just pass by. As Kimball says, "we become citizens of the bubble."

"We get more excited about going overseas to the mission field on summer trips than about the mission field we live in every day" (p. 44).

Phase 4: We become Jonah
"After several years as citizens of the bubble, we begin to complain and point out the terrible things in the culture" (p. 45).

Just think about the story of Jonah, he didn't want anything to do with the city of Ninevah. He ran from God. It is said that there is nothing new under the sun, and so we can look to history to see things happening today. Like Jonah and many others through history we complain, instead to going into the world, we take ourselves out of this world. But why? What are we doing about the things we complain about? Can we do anything?


"We are content living in our little Christian subculture as citizens of the bubble, but we don't even know it because everyone in our social circle is also in the bubble" (p. 46).

I think we need to have a phase shift, we need to think back to Phase 1 in our journey with Christ, when we were excited about God and what he was doing in our lives! Phases in our faith can be important stepping blocks as they can show us our growth. We need to make sure that our growth doesn't eliminate our initial mission as a witnesses for Christ. We must remember that every individual in the history of the world is important. We all have worth not because of anything we do or don't do, we have worth because of the tremendous price Jesus paid for us. He paid that price for believers and non-believers alike. It is our job to make sure this is known by all.

I wanted to close with this...I am not calling out a specific individual or group of individuals. I am strictly sharing my thoughts on this topic because I find it very important. I also pull experiences from others, like Dan Kimball to give us a chance to find out for ourselves if these things are happening in our own lives.

I also want you to know that you are always welcome to leave comments, ask questions or correct me if so needed...