Yesterday Ryan, our new High School Pastor, spoke on anger. It got me thinking about anger, the stuff I get angry about, the things I don’t get angry about, the way my anger often fizzles into nothing because of apathy or comfort. Then I started to get angry that we as the church allow some things to anger us and not other things. Ryan mentioned at the end of his talk about how the church is often viewed by those outside the church. It was something along these lines: ” We are known as gay haters and hypocrites”. In that this is not true for all people in the church, and not all churches, and not all followers of Christ, it is true for many in the church.
That all got me thinking about the way we deal specifically with homosexuality and the gay community. We have allowed the loud voices in some circles to get the attention and dictate to the world what “we” (Christians) believe. Here is my issue: We have spent so much time, energy, and resources ( including a ton of cash) on fighting an issue such as gay marriage, and all the while there are people in this world that don’t have food and clean water. We are choosing to spend all of these things on fighting something that most likely won’t accomplish what we want.
Here is what I am hoping. Can we be a people who are known for love? Love of all people. It is so easy to say: love the sinner not the sin, but that is often an empty saying that gives us a reason to continue our non-loving ways.
I hope that our anger is directed at things that God gets angry about. For me this is hard, but I pray that God will continue to break my heart for the things that breaks his heart.
What are your thoughts? What should a follower of Christ get angry about?
