12/24/2015 0 Comments The Breakfast Club of ChristianityThe Breakfast Club is one of my favorite movies. It serves as a reminder that we are all more alike than we realize...not to mention that it has Judd Nelson in it (swoons). But the premise of this film is something that is relevant to all aspects of our lives. It reminds us that we are not above any of our peers and helps us to break down any barriers that we've created between ourselves and the rest of society. That cute guy has had his heart broken too, he's not perfect. That girl who seems to have her life together has felt the pain of hitting rock bottom too. We are all the same. The problem is that we fail to remember this lesson as it relates to our life. One example of this is the divisions in Christianity. I was born and baptized a Catholic, basically coming out of the womb with my hands in the praying position. Both sides of my family were strong Roman Catholics and that tradition traced back for decades. So I went to Catholic church every Sunday, I memorized the creeds, I said grace before dinner. But while I was doing this it all felt like a chore and I didn't really feel like I was forming a relationship with God or even any of the people who attended the same service as me. In high school I started attending a non-denominational Christian church called New Hope. It was life changing. As the band started the service with loud worship music that brought teenagers down to their knees, I could feel the power of God in that small room. I finally felt God's presence. When I went home and told my family the great news I thought they would be ecstatic. Instead they were aloof and simply commented on how I should really come back to Catholic Church. I was faced with questions of "But did they have communion?" and statements of comparison that left me upset and confused. Although I didn't get the reaction I had hoped for, I continued my journey of the Christian church without labels. I didn't feel the need anymore to squeeze myself into the constricting ties of a certain sect of Christianity. All that mattered to me was that I was following God. Who cares how I did it? I expected my family to have the same mindset. I could've been spending my time doing drugs in parked cars but I spent it worshipping God and still I was met with adversity that told me I was doing something wrong. In the Bible it is written: Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many. Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? But in fact God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body...God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. (1 Corinthians 12) It shouldn't matter how we worship God. He is what should bring us together. Some might even argue that what matters is that you believe in something. Technicalities such as whether you call your superior God, Yahweh, Allah, or something else are not something to lose sleep and lose relationships over. God is everywhere and he is with all of us. We must allow ourselves to reconnect with each other and stop fighting over labels and other trivial things that won't matter in the long run. We must remember how similar we are to each other and remember what really matters: God.
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