Saying What I Mean

Yesterday was a no-post day, so hopefully that gave you a chance to catch up on previous posts. There were some very insightful comments made under "Dean is Mental." I encourage you to have a look at them. By the way, I can't figure out how to make the recent comments show up as links at the right. If any of you knows how to do that, or if you know it's impossible at blogger.com, please e-mail me -- dean @ wallhighway.com (without the space around the "@").

I am going to continue down the path of music and worship on Monday (and will have to modify the header graphic again). There is a lot more I want to talk about.

This may be a regional thing, and I don’t say it to make fun of anyone, but have you ever heard anyone say, “I have sinuses,” when what they really meant was, “My sinuses feel stopped up”? How about in the 80’s, before the advent of dish TV and that sort of thing… ever hear anything like, “My neighbor has a satellite in his back yard”? Chances are, the neighbor didn’t actually have Sputnik sitting on his lawn (unless that was his dog’s name).

Lately I tend to use the term “Christ-follower” more frequently than the word “Christian.” I use it because I believe it's immediately thought-provoking, and in today's society, it's probably more accurate given the wide breadth of meaning that's been assigned to the word "Christian." "Christian" seems to have become something of a wide-reaching, catch-all word to include people and groups that typically fit into a particularly broad type of worldview and/or political camp.

Now, I'm not sure that "Christ-follower" is technically more accurate, knowing that an early meaning of "Christian" was "little Christ."

But here's the thing in which I'm interested for my own life, and I believe it deserves introspection for each person who calls himself or herself a Christian or a Christ-follower: when I think of myself as such, is the first thing I think of my church fellowship or all the "stuff" I'm doing for the church, or does the term reflect my own life and my personal walk with Christ?

Of course I'm not suggesting that being at work in the church is a bad thing! But notice that Jesus said that all "the law and the prophets" could be summed up in these sentences (notice the order in which He ranked their importance): "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'" One follows the other.

What's wrapped up in the word "Christian" or the phrase "Christ-follower" for me and you? Is it our communal group or is it our personal lives?

Posted in: Christianity, Jesus, Language, The Church