Conformity

Yesterday in a Christmas skit thing at church one of the dancer’s shirt said conformity. I don’t really know what the dance was about, something to do with the world in our lives keeping God’s light within us from shining;  I think.... Anyways, I saw the word conformity and it had me thinking: why is there no warning about conforming to the church? There’s always someone within the church that will advise you against conforming to the world and the dangers that brings, but who is warning Christians about conforming to “Christianity.”

I’m sure many people could dispute what I’m about to say and make tons of valid points because what I’m going to say isn’t anything new but this is my blog, Mercedes said she wants me to write something for her to read, and I’m going to talk about what’s on my mind so that’s that and here I go. I think the church has a big problem with people conforming to it and to be honest, I think it messes a lot of people up. I’ve only been following Christ for two and a half years and can see how conformity to the church has taken a toll on me; my heart aches, like literally aches, and my stomach turns when I think about those who have been subject to Christian conformity their whole lives. There’s a lot danger in conforming to the church but to me, the greatest dangers is that you lose yourself. I’m not talking about losing yourself for the sake of Christ but losing yourself for the sake of being a new person. Somehow being made into a new person has translated into being like everyone else; like when God makes you new He uses the same designs He uses for everyone else. Somehow everyone is now to be offended by this and passionate about that and their lives should follow these steps and by the time Christ returns we will all be new and the same and He will be able to pick us out of the world with no confusion. And the problem with this, the real problem beyond conformity is that in doing so we lose honesty. We lose the ability to doubt and question and to resist because if you want to be a Christian than you’ve got to be bold and confident and defend. We convince ourselves of an image of an ideal Christian and then start to see ourselves as great religious figures when we read the bible rather than like Judas and the Hebrews in the desert and the Samaritan woman at the well. We lose ourselves and begin to perceive a false reality. Then we start to walk in that reality and start to believe that if we’re not this then we’re what we use to be and if we’re what we use to be then something is seriously wrong because that’s not what being a Christian is. We begin to fear the world and conform even more to the church burying deeper our honesty until we fit the new creation.

And this is sad. It’s sad because it’s not what you were created to be. You were not created to have a life that looks like every other Christian’s life. You were not created to act the same way and to think the same things. All of those great biblical figures we start to identify with were radical people that lived completely different from everyone else. They were people who acted, talked, and thought differently. I don’t want to be consumed by conformity because I don’t want to cover my honesty. I’m at a place where I’m slowly undigging the honesty and self that I began to burry two and a half years ago. The thought of conformity to the church scares me, but I’m trying to balance my fears of having a life that looks like almost every other Christian’s I know with my nature of running away. I’m trying to submit my frustrations to grace and not stand so much against conformity that I turn into a hypocrite preaching conformity into an anti-conformist. I’m trying real hard to find out who God truly has called me to be and to be that man and only that man. I sure am trying and although it is exhausting and at times I feel like I’m doing it wrong I know God has been blessing me in it and I can say that I’ve never seen Him work in the quiet like I have this last month.