Here is a post that was recently posted on the Sentralized blog.
In preparation for some teaching I was doing, I recently revisited Dan Kimball’s book, They Like Jesus but Not the Church. One section of the book that I think is helpful (and amusing in a sad kind of way) is titled “The Transformation from Excited Missionary into Citizen of the Bubble.” In this section of the book, Kimball shares his observation concerning what happens to many believers as they “mature” in their Christian walk.
Phase 1: We become Christians
In this phase Kimball reminds Christians of the time they first placed their faith in Christ, understood the grace of God, and experienced the excitement and joy of learning new things from the Bible. He writes, “Remember that burst of understanding God’s grace and joy in Jesus as you told your non-Christian friends about your faith? Probably this occurred in a natural way, since you were friends rather than strangers. . . This is only natural because generally everyone in a new Christian’s circle of friends is outside of the church.”
Phase 2: We become part of church life
As we get involved in the life of the church, we make Christian friends and participate in all kinds of church activities with them. New believers tend to slowly lose touch with non-Christian friends and become more and more immersed in Christian activities. The reality is that the longer we are Christians, the fewer the number of friends we have who are not Christians. Again Kimball writes, “Even though Christians often work alongside non-Christians or have non-Christian neighbors or sit next to non-believing students in class, we generally tend not to actually befriend them, or pray regularly for them, or get involved in their lives so they trust us and we can be salt and light of Jesus to them.”
Phase 3: We become part of the Christian bubble
Here, Kimball writes:
As we slowly withdraw from ongoing relationships with those outside the church and focus on relationships with those inside the church, something happens. Once, it was more natural and even exciting to share life with people at work or at school, with relatives, or with neighbors. But slowly we begin to see evangelism as something the church does, primarily through events. We get more excited about going overseas to the mission field on summer trips than about the mission field we live in every day. We start to see evangelism as inviting people to go to a church, where the pastor will do the evangelizing and explain Christianity, instead of spending time with people and talking with them and being the church to them. . . . During this phase, we stop praying daily for those who don’t know Jesus and instead pray for our church’s latest building project or latest program.
Phase 4: We become Jonah
After being citizens of the bubble for several years, we begin to complain and point out the terrible things happening in the culture. Like Jonah, we don’t want anything to do with those who aren’t following God as we are. Like Jonah, we may even have a secret sense of delight thinking about how God will one day punish all those sinners in our towns and cities. “And like Jonah, who, even after God gave him a second chance and he saw the people of Nineveh repent and cry out to God, complained about not having shade over his head and being uncomfortable, we complain about how well the church is providing what we want and grow numb to the fact that people all around us need the love and grace of Jesus.”
At this point Kimball makes reference to the Talking Heads song “Once in a Lifetime” when David Byrne cries out “My God! What have I done?” Or in our case maybe “My God! What have I become?”
Can you relate to any of these four phases?
