This morning as I drove into work, I was listening to a podcast called “pray-as-you-go.” In the podcast, they asked the question, “What price have you paid for your discipleship?” As I was trying to wrap my brain around the question and ask it honestly of myself, I realized that I was having a hard time deciphering what they meant by the words, and that maybe I don’t always understand the Christian terminology that is often thrown my way.

I grew up in a small town in Southern Utah, and it’s likely that if I throw out the words “jockey box” most of you won’t have a clue about what I am talking about. I know that it’s a glove compartment, but you wouldn’t know that unless I had told you or you knew someone who lived in that area of the midwest. That’s sometimes the way I feel about Christian terminology.

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Austin Thomas is a 20-year old from Reno, Nevada, who is traveling and serving in India for a month with Young Life.  He’s the son of Lori Thomas, my friend and former Young Life staff partner in Reno.  
 
Life here is saturated with Religion.  Jesus stickers adorn the backs of a surprisingly large number of cars, and every store is either named after some Religious ideal/deity, or there are a bunch of scripture (Bible, MahaBarata, Q’ran, or otherwise) verses on the walls.  Temples for various deities can be found on almost every street corner, and a vast majority of the people you see on the streets don some type of Religious garb.  It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen before, and yet, it’s just more of the same.  There’s still poor people…there’s still people who are unhappy, and need things like alcohol or drugs to numb their feelings..there’s still a middle and upper class that can’t find happiness or fulfillment in material things, and look to solve that problem by simply buying more stuff…there’s still all of the “bad” things that most Religions are geared towards wiping out.   Read the rest of this entry »

The first time someone called me an evangelist, I was horrified by the term. I had had evangelism inflicted on me many times in my life and it hadn’t been a very good experience. My experience had ranged from well-meaning folks who let you know that you were not saved to the occasional sad look you might receive from close friends or family. You knew that they were thinking that you just didn’t get it and that they felt sad for you.  In the end, it wasn’t the threat of hell that brought me to God, it was the beckoning of His pure love.   In fact, I spent the whole first half of my life convinced, like a lot of people, that I was already saved.  Imagine my worry after finally really finding the real Jesus when someone told me that I had the gift of evangelism. How awful is that?

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