One of the men who influenced my ministry shape was a man named Mike Yaconelli. Mike was the founder and former president of Youth Specialties, an organization that resources and trains student ministers. Unfortunately, Mike passed away several years ago (I actually saw him personally at a conference a few days before his car accident), but his radical view of ministry and the church lives on. This excerpt is from his book “Messy Spirituality”:

“There is no room for pretending in the spiritual life. Unfortunately, in many religious circles, there exists an unwritten rule. Pretend. Act like God is in control when you don’t believe He is. Give the impression everything is okay in your life when it’s not. Pretend you believe when you doubt; hide your imperfections; maintain the image of a perfect marriage with healthy well-adjusted children when your family is like any other normal dysfunctional family. And whatever you do, don’t admit that you sin.

Practically, pretending is efficient, uncomplicated, and quick. Answering “Fine” to the question “How are you doing?” is much easier and quicker than saying, “Not very well, thank you; my back is bothering me, my teenage children are disappointing me, I’m unhappy with my body, my husband never speaks to me, and I’m wondering if Christianity is true.” Honesty requires a huge investment of time and energy from the person asking the question (who would then wish they’d never asked).

Pretending is the grease of modern nonrelationships. Pretending perpetuates the illusion of relationships by connecting us on the basis of who we aren’t. People who pretend have pretend relationships. But being real is a synonym for messy spirituality, because when we are real, our messiness is there for everyone to see…the truth is, we are a mess. None of us is who we appear to be. We all have secrets. We all have issues. We all struggle from time to time. No one is perfect. Not one. (I have just paraphrased Romans 3:10) The essence of messy spirituality is the refusal to pretend, to lie, or to allow others to believe we are something we are not. Unfortunately, people can handle the most difficult issues more easily than they can handle the lack of pretending.” I would love to hear your take on this excerpt.

        

This entry was posted by Eric Helms on Wednesday, August 19th, 2009 at 7:20 am and is filed under Eric's Thoughts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.