Christianity should be about faith, not religion.

This goes for just about everything in general dealing with "religion"...it should be about faith.  It really upsets me how much we as Christians fight over all the things we don't have in common instead of focusing on all the great things that we share.  I remember talking to a friend who went with her church on a missions trip and her church wouldn't let another church there work with them just because that church wasn't Baptist and instead was a Non-Denominational Church.  Really?

Really?


In the end we all, for the most part, are united on two things:
1. A belief in God.
2. A belief in Jesus Christ as our savior.

Why do dwell on all the things that we don't agree on?  Part of it is our human nature to want to be "right."  Every individual person has to be "right" as often as possible, and if someone's opinion differs from our own (even very slightly) then they are labeled as wrong.  Sure, we can all have very strong faith in what we believe is the truth about Christianity and the Bible...but when you think about it in a realistic way you should be able to admit that everything we believe is just an opinion.  Some people have the opinion that the Bible is the be all end all of our religion.  Others believe it was written by man, translated by man, etc and because of our free will it could be flawed.  And still even another group doesn't put much faith in it as a religious text whatsoever.  As the love of my life Patrick said, yesterday I think, "Everyone is just as sure that their belief is right that you believe that yours is, how passionate you are is just how passionate they may be."  Or as I've heard it said before, "Opinions are like buttholes, we all have them and they all stink."  As much as I may believe one way and think it's right (because again, it's human nature) another person may believe the exact opposite thing and have just as much certainty that they are right.

In the end when you  just constantly bring up all those differences in opinions, our religion begins to divide.  You end up with separate sects of Christianity...Baptist, Methodist, Pentecostal.  There is a group who tries to get themselves out of those labels and call themselves non-denominational.  For years I've been a part of that following and have enjoyed it thoroughly, yet I still see that they preach on what they believe to be right and there seems to be only a bit more wiggle room there when compared to other more strict sects.  I really want a movement to start in Christianity.  That movement is about bringing back the relationship of people to Christ and bringing up the common points instead of focusing on differences.

For years now I've been called into youth ministry, but haven't actually made much effort in following that calling.  At first I ignored it because I didn't think that my ex-husband would go along for the ride (while we were married obviously).  My next excuse was that I was scared, I had a spirit full of fear of the unknown.  Thankfully that one went away when I was watching a Hillsong United DVD and one of their youth pastors talked about her initial fear in entering ministry.  After that it was pure laziness that put me off.  But no more.  You can only ignore what God puts on your heart before you give in and realize, "This is what I was made for."  I'm not sure how this whole thing will unfold, but I do know that God will be beside me every single step of the way...and if God is with you, you're covered.  I am contacting the leader of the local Young Life chapter tomorrow to talk about working as a youth leader with them.  Here's the thing, it's about gaining experience and knowledge.  I want to get to know what it's like to lead the youth before I work on my ultimate calling of working to unite people by faith as I mention above.  I think youth ministry is the first step, that's my "original calling," but over this time I've realized that in the end it's about uniting people for the cause of Heaven and working to break the barriers that divide us.

Anyways, I'll have another post (probably similar in nature) tomorrow...but for now I need to continue working lol.  Keep safe everyone, and don't be blinded by those divisions.