lifeasmission

“I was able to see a number of friends with whom I had live so intimately begin to lose their faith following college. That sounds dramatic, and I don’t mean it in the way you might initially read it: I don’t mean they lost the content of their belief system or became apostate doctrinally. I mean that upon leaving college and entering the world of twentieth-century suburban Christianity, they lost their way of life. They entered a way of life that was compartmentalized, disintegrated, individualistic, sub-cultured, ghettoized, programmed and purpose-driven.”

This was as true for me as it has ever been for any of my friends.  Having had the freedom to remove myself from this for a time, to study and reflect, has, I beleive, given me a unique perspective on just how subtle this sort of co-option can be.  With Todd, I feel a discontent deep within – wanting the rhythm and course of my life to be determined by the power of the gospel and not the power of the culture in which I live.  Todd offers a few good suggestions at the end of his post regarding some of the personal implications.  My longing, however (not that Todd doesn’t have this longing, check out his church community, The Well), pushes this beyond this to the desire to align myself with a community which feels this discontent and stands convicted that they most embody an alternative lifestyle, to be an alternative community.

On a related note, an article I wrote for Fuller’s Center for Youth and Family Ministry, The Other Side of At-Risk: Freeing Youth from Suburban Oppression, was selected to appear in Fuller’s global publicaltion, Theology News & Notes.  You can check it out here.