“If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.” -Jesus (John 15:18)
One of the things I love about Jesus is that he seemed completely comfortable not fitting in. He was never trying to be cool or socially acceptable to the popular groups around him.
He equally offended the more liberal groups and the conservative groups of his time. And he seemed completely uninterested in gaining political power through the Roman Empire.
Anytime he seemed to be gaining popularity he would either say something that was weird or tell people to count the cost before following him. Jesus would have made the worst mega-Church pastor. He wasn’t interested in being the cool pastor with the fastest growing church.
Ever since I began in ministry, I’ve felt some pressure (especially as a youth pastor) to make church cool. And I’ve seen my parent’s generation being consumed by the desire for Christianity to win culture wars and gain political power. In both cases, we desire acceptance by the wider culture.
Jesus wasn’t interested in that kind of social acceptance. He was more interested in the Kingdom of God. So he taught very uncool things like...
Love your enemy.
Serve the least of these.
Pick up your cross.
Repent.
Maybe we should stop trying to be cool and stop hoping for cultural or political acceptance. Let’s not be weird for the sake of being weird, but if following Jesus makes us a bit odd so be it. If we’re truly following Jesus, we probably won’t fit in real well with conservatives or liberals. We probably won’t make sense to most people. We have to be ok with that, because our main goal is not acceptance or power. Our main goal is faithfulness.
So let's stop trying to be cool and let’s begin to really follow Jesus and seek His kingdom first and trust the Holy Spirit with the results.
-Brandon
Dr. Brandon Dasinger
Executive Director--Project 82 Kenya
Ministry Staff--St. Peter and St. Paul Episcopal Church