Dear Anne,

I am sure that this post is one among many responding to your announcement that you are disassociating yourself from Christianity.  You wrote that your disgust with “this quarrelsome, hostile, disputatious, and deservedly infamous group” has led you to the conclusion that you “simply cannot belong” to us.

I feel you,  Anne. I really do.  I’ve had similar thoughts and even expressed them publicly. I don’t mind at all the desire or even the need to stand at some distance from the label of christianity.  It may well have been worn through.  But I take issue with the notion that you must disassociate  yourself from ‘christian’ people.  I mean sure, we’re a motley lot.  Belonging to this family can often feel like you’ve adopted a few thousand drunk uncles.  It’s incredibly embarrassing at times and frustrating at least as often. I get it.  But I also read that you’re making your move “in the name of Christ” and that presents a rather perplexing dilemma for someone who wants to quit on people.  You see, Christ hasn’t quit on us and if you choose to align yourself with Him, then neither can you.

Aligning yourself with Christ means aligning yourself with Someone who not only declared his love for all God’s children (believer or not), but suffered and died in order to establish and maintain a relationship with those children.  It is this redemptive sacrifice that defines His love as characteristically His.  Having chosen to follow His example, it seems that at least part of the redemptive sacrifice you are being challenged to make is to associate and identify yourself with this shabby batch of miscreants who are often quite bad at practicing the religion you love.  It comes at the cost of your ego and likely some book sales.  But that’s the nature of sacrifice; it costs you.  It will cost you if people see you as being family to those “anti-gay, anti-feminist, anti-artificial birth, anti-Democrat, anti-secular humanism, anti-science” types among us.  Just as it costs Jesus to be seen as their Savior and Lord. Just as it cost him to be seen with prostitutes and whatnot.  It is the same social role-play with a different set of cultural lenses on. All your statement does is trade in “bigots” for “whores” when the heart of Christ is that they’re both beloved of the Father.

It’s simply reasonable that if you set yourself against people who set themselves against people you are only adding to the friction. If part of your issue with christianity is it’s exclusivity, you aren’t helping by only including those who “get it” the way you do.  True christian inclusivity means embracing the homosexual and the gay-basher in the same embrace; working for the release of the oppressed while praying and working for the redemption of their oppressor; loving the beautiful game of baseball and yet, somehow, also loving the Yankees.  It means loving the Lord with all of yourself and also loving those who grossly misrepresent Him.

I think you’re a smart cookie, Anne. I think you’ll hear some thoughtful feedback and realize you stepped across a line and might have to retract your statement.  You will also likely have to speak directly with Christ about the way you roughly labeled and dismissed the ones He’s drawn to himself and suffered to love.  Lucky for you, lucky for all of us, He’s incredibly forgiving and eternally patient.

In the name of Christ,
Justin McRoberts

and then there’s this..

It is equally important to recognize the cancer in its smaller, sneakier forms.

Sure, the most of us don’t buy the notion that the Lord is going to “buy me a Cadillac” or what have you.. but the subtle battle of divine expectations is constant and heavy.  For many of us, the experience of a life “in Christ” has been something dramatically different than advertised: Our jobs still get pulled out from beneath our feet, our relationships are still compromised by the worst parts of our nature, our children still die from genetic disorders they were born with and suffer from for no fault of their own… the happenings and circumstances of our lives often remain much the same if not exactly the same in life “with God” as life “without Him” which can lead one to wonder just how much of a difference there is between the two.

NOTHING in all of scripture, much less the long, difficult history of God’s people in relationship with Him proposes that He removes from us these daily burdens.  In fact, among Joy, Gentleness, Peace and the lot, Longsuffering is listed as a fruit of God’s spirit in the lives of those who follow Jesus.

Furthermore, I might even suggest that while Joy and Peace are characteristics one would expect from a person indwelt with the heart of Jesus, Longsuffering is where the rubber meets the road.  When things are brutal.. when dreams and expectations fail… when God disappoints… do I still call God “good”?  When what is “good” to God seems “evil” to me; when God’s hand does not move to alleviate suffering and bring light where darkness has claimed preeminence.. can I submit my will to His and say “not my will, but yours.. not my idea of good but Yours; though it confounds and perplexes and even angers me… You are King and I will trust You despite myself.”

So, while I don’t always click with John Piper, I couldn’t agree more with him in this:

I really believe that atheism, agnosticism and deism are pieces in a conversation much larger than any one of those platforms of belief alone.  For this reason, I’m looking forward to seeing Collision.  From what I can tell from previews and whatnot, it seems to be a pretty well balanced (fair and balanced? lol.. hehe..  ahem…) take on this piece of that conversation:

http://www.collisionmovie.com/

Read the entire post at Soul-Audio.

-I Don’t Need You, I Choose You
I’m not at all saying that I don’t need Amy’s help or insight (or that she doesn’t need mine) from time to time, even often. But our need for one another is not the foundation of our marriage.  Need implies usefulness and usefulness is a bad motive for relationships; I keep shoes around because I need them and then discard them when I’m done with them; their use is depleted.

Love and necessity have a very strange interplay in a marriage but the bottom line is that Love has to say something more than “I need you.”  It has to move past usefulness to something more like “if you were of no use at all, lost all your beauty and ability, I would still be here because I choose you. I did not marry you because I can’t get along without you;  I married you because I don’t want to do life without you.”

-Two Whole Persons
“You complete me” is a really cute line from a mediocre movie but shooodang, it is a horrendous practice in relationships.  I valued Amy because of who she was without me.  She’s still a whole person without me and I value her for everything that makes her who she is.  I’d have a difficult time respecting someone whose identity was so tied to mine that she doesn’t know who she is without me.  I respect Amy as her own person and am glad to share life with her.  I can admire and root for her in her own pursuits and gifts just as I can in they ways we share life.

-Shared Mission
One of the best aspects of our marriage has been the adventure of our shared mission.  From our commitment to our local community to our partnership with Compassion International (the decision to sponsor 5 children as well as to travel as advocates), we’ve been on the same journey to live missionally and generously. It is heartbreaking to see folks get married to someone in hopes that the other will either slow down their pace of life or pick it up.  While there may not be a formula for determining which person is “the right person,”  I would suggest that if you don’t find yourself headed down the same roads at the same pace and with similar passions, you may want to take a long look at sticking together long-term.

-Fun
Our courtship was a blast.  We actually dated long-distance for over a 18 months, during which time we competed to see who could get the most impressive item sent through the mail.  She stamped a frisbee and sent it, I wrote a letter on a rubber duck, stamped it and sent it.  She wrote a letter on a giant rubber ball (almost waist high on me), stamped it and sent it.  I wrote a note on the sole of my shoe (ew.. I know), stamped it and sent it.  She sent a dozen eggs upon which she had written a letter with a clear wax pencil; the intention was that I dye the eggs in order to read the message.. I ate the eggs… She did not think that was funny.  There were many more exchanges like that.. It was how we fell in love.

Now, It’s easy to think that this kind of stuff is all part of the ‘game’ by which we impress the ones we’re trying to win.  I’m learning even now that that ‘game’ (if we want to call it a game) is never over.  The emphasis changes from trying to win the attention of someone we want to know to creatively expressing to that same person how much we still want to know and enjoy them.. Even after 10 years, I have more fun with Amy than with just about anyone (exceptions include dogs who wrestle).

-How Many People Are In This Marriage?
I remember being told that I’m not just marrying Amy but marrying her entire family as well (In Amy’s case this includes a twin sister, divorced parents, generous and insightful in-laws and Italian relatives) That’s also been true of the community we live in.  Our church community is uniquely close and I can say with great assurance that the health of our relationship owes a great debt to the folks we live life with.  They have shared in our victories and our defeats.. They help us keep laughing and praying etc… The people who make up Shelter Covenant Church are as much a part of this marriage as our legal and biological families. Our marriage is more than just the two people in it.  We’re better with our families, our friends and our community.

-2 Lists
It’s fun, easy and helpful to make the list of things we adore about someone (particularly someone we want to spend the rest of our lives with).  That list is also pretty easy to commit to.  It’s the OTHER list that becomes more important as time passes.  One of the truly pivotal moments in our pre-marital counseling was being asked to make a list of things we knew we did not like about one another.  Once we made those lists, we exchanged them to see what it was about us that was about us that the other did not like (so much fun) and then took them back.  Our counselor asked us to take a long look at that list and ask this question: “What will I do when none of these things change?”

This made it really clear that we were each marrying a flawed person.  It’s been important for us to know that we committed to both lists; enjoying and benefiting from the one while having grace for and carrying the burden of the other. If either one of us had held onto the expectation that we would change the other then we would have ended up sorely frustrated and disappointed.

-Sex
Do it.  It’s really great.  Of course, sex takes on a much different character the longer you are married.  It’s centrality and importance tend to wane while it’s meaning grows and deepens exponentially (or sexponentially.. haha. he.. ahem).  Sex becomes less a matter of impulse and freedom and more a way in which you share yourself with your spouse; a way to serve one another rather than a way to satisfy a need.

-Being Her Biggest Fan
This is key to both sides of a healthy relationship but I’d suggest it’s a more important discipline for the fellas.  With regards to the things she is interested in (athletics, art, academics.. whatever it is that gives her life to do), you must be her biggest fan.  A friend of mine ran a half-marathon last year.  Her husband did not run the race but showed up every 2 miles or so at an intersection or crossing to cheer his wife on.  That’s what I’m talking about.

—–

…Don’t google that.

Anyway, the more I reflect on what my actual difficulty is, the more I think it has to do with reorienting myself to a much faster pace of life than that I’d lived while I was gone.  For the last two weeks of May, Amy and I were in Hawaii with good friends on vacation.  The month of June was then spent at Young Life’s Woodleaf property where I was serving as a leader/mentor to college students who were also there to serve (more thoughts on this, and them, later).  Almost everything about my days over the past month and a half was organized around relationships; around people.  The pace of life here in my little office is set by the To Do List which currently looks like something Melville might have put together.

All of which harkens back to something a young Ethiopian man told a room full of christian ministers here in California this past May.  Reflecting on the un-relational nature of American living and christian ministry in particular, he said

“My people in Ethiopia thought you Americans were the richest people in the world, but then we realized you are poor because you have no time.”

And that afternoon in may the burning sensation was directly related to the sting of being slapped in the face with some African wisdom.

Here’s the thing about re-entry; it’s about the collision of ways to live and in that collision, there is wisdom about each of those ways of life.  In my case, the temptation is to consider the slower-paced, relationally-oriented life I lived for the past 44 days something unnatural.. a shadow of reality.  Whereas living beyond my own energies, half-awake from chasing my to do list and with little time for the things and people I actually care about is what is truly real.  But lying on my deathbed, I’m pretty convinced I won’t want to take one last look at all the crap I checked off my list.  I’m going to want my peeps around me.  I am probably, at that time, going to wonder what the hell kept me from organizing more of my life around those very people, slowing down enough to hear what they were saying and enjoy them.

We challenged our Summer Staff to remember what it was about their month that made it special, enjoyable and good; to commit to taking some of those patterns home and implementing them.  It looks as if this is my challenge; slow down and be with the people I love.

Now, while these “get rich quick “ads are nowhere near as prevalent on Facebook as they were previously, this sexy beast to the left showed up on my page recently and reminded me of just why, with the help of a friend, I put together my own scam..er.. scheme.

Interestingly, when I submitted the fake ad to Facebook .. I was denied on grounds that… “(Facebook) does not accept advertising referencing, facilitating or promoting…scams, pyramid schemes,…or ‘get rich quick’ and other money making opportunities that offer compensation for little or no investment…”

*blinks* ..aaaalright… well, then…

Now, if you’ve seen one of the actual ad pages (having been awake at 3am and decided to see what would happen if you did click on the ad, you’ll probably enjoy our spoof a touch more.  Nonetheless, even the scam-uninitiated will find some enjoyment in my version.  Here’s the link: http://www.justinmcroberts.com/money/

..tonight in Warsaw, Indiana, I face myself.

I pulled into town about 8pm and headed straight to my hotel; a hotel chain I’ve had “encounters” with in the past… You might say that it is “not my favorite” hotel or that I “don’t like it” or even that it has often given me “the creeps.”  In an effort to stay above the board and avoid trash-talk, I will not reveal the name of this chain, but will heretofore refer to it as the “Hotel Wha?”

This particular “Hotel Wha?”, much like others in its national chain, lacks an exercise facility (running/working out is part of my regular routine and helps keep me focused etc..)  It also has a rather questionable breakfast set-up and is overall kinda old. Many of the rooms, including the one I am in currently, were previously smoking rooms and now have that smell that says “I’m not a smoking room.. (cough, cough… hack) what are you talking about? (cough, hack.. *awkward smile*)”.

Well..

..tonight in Warsaw, Indiana, I face myself.

In the morning, I will stand before the students at Grace College in the neighboring town of Winona to speak on behalf of the poorest of the poor; a populace who saw 14,000 children orphaned by HIV/AIDS just today; a populace for whom the “Hotel Wha?” would be a palace. In the morning, it will be March 11, a day Compassion International has set aside for the awareness of the Global Food Crisis, I which 1billion people are going without proper daily nutrition. Finally, and more immediately, it’s pouring outside, which I can see from my window and I cannot help but be reminded of pictures a friend of mine took in Haiti on a recent trip with Compassion; pictures in which entire villages were flooded from the downpour (an annual occurrence during the rainy season).

So I am faced with myself and have to look myself up and down wondering which person am I?  Am I someone who is sincerely perturbed by the stickiness of the carpet in my room?  Do I mean what I will say tomorrow? Or better yet, Do I have any right to say these things, challenging college kids to sacrifice and live more simply so that the least can simply live?  The strange answer to these questions is neither no or yes.  I am learning that the hallmark of Kingdom work is the way it transforms those who do it and that I am one such man whose life is being transformed.  So…

..tomorrow in Warsaw, Indiana I will face myself..

..and I will know that I am not fully who I will become; that I am telling the stories of the least of these because they need our help but also because I need to hear and tell these stories; I need to know these truths. So that, as I grow older I will grow more into a man who more fully reflects the things he knows and believes.  For now, and tonight in Warsaw, Indiana, I am simply thankful for “How great the poor are that, in their poverty, they would allow us the blessed opportunity to serve them.” -Mother Theresa