passive aggressiveness

Why are Christians so willing to hurt each other with a smile on our faces?

Why can't we be honest about our feelings and our disagreements?

Why can't we be just straight forward and believe that grace is big enough to handle our descent?

Notes are not appropriate ways to handle frustrations. Hints and manipulation are not the right ways to get what you want. Words don't hurt less when they are written, typed, tweeted or facebooked.

Christian community will always be messy. It was meant to be this way. Look at Acts 2, the birth of the church. God creates His church multi-ethnic, multi-cultural and multi-lingual. Do you think that they experienced communication problems? Do you think that struggled with questions about the difference between truth and culture? Do you think that they had to lay down biases and fight some things out? Absolutely they did.

But they did.

They did.

Not with notes, but with honesty. They changed structures. They gave their lives side by side to the mission of the Kingdom of God.

They could've taken their balls and gone home. They could've sniped and gossiped their community away. They could've pissed in the well of their community.

This coming Sunday in Pentecost Sunday. If you are reading this note and are trying to follow Jesus' Way, I encourage you to take a look at whatever Christian community you call home.

Do you disagree honestly?

Do the different generations respect each other?

Is a voice of discontent allowed?

Do you fight fair?

Let's all strive to be Christ's community. In that effort we just may start to understand the necessity of the Holy Spirit.