Living in the Margin

The past few days I’ve been in Boston and it’s been awesome. Boston is a great city, has great people, and awesome food. We (a team of about 7 people) were helping a church plant in Watertown, a part of the greater Boston area. For the most part, Christianity isn’t exactly popular in the Northeast. Less than 2% of the population would consider themselves an evangelical Christian with the vast majority being either Catholic or atheist. As we fixed up the church, painted walls, and stairwells, it was awesome to see how God is moving in Redeemer Fellowship Church. While there we had a little bit of time to peruse the city, hit up the Freedom trail, eat in North End, and see a game at Fenway (best ballpark in the history of life…).


At any rate, I’m on the airplane back from Boston and identity is all I can think about. I know for a fact that we, as Christians, are supposed to find our identity in Christ and in Christ alone. But I live in Texas… for those of you who don’t know… Texas is more than a little different from Ann Arbor, Chicago, and Boston. I was raised in a town where being a conservative meant you were close-minded and didn’t care about the poor. If you told the town you were a Republican, they’d probably stone you. The most popular song in college had the line: why vote Republican if you’re black? But like I said, Texas is a little different. In fact, you could take everything I just said and swap the terms conservative for liberal, republican for democrat.

So where do I fall? Right now I have no clue at all. I know the Bible is God’s word and that Jesus is the way the truth and the light… no one gets into the Kingdom but through Christ. In most circles, that throws me into the conservative category already. But then again, I bump Christian rap until my speakers pop, wear my pants a little lower than the average Joe, and try to give money/time to non-profits and missions until it hurts. I’m definitely down with the human’s rights activists… Reagan or Clinton? Bush or Obama? I guess my response is: who looks the most like Christ? That person will get my vote.

I think labels are overrated. Calvanist, Arminianist, Lutheran, Methodist… Sorry but I’d rather look like Christ than any of the above. I’ll pass on the box and pass you the gospel. I think of the mission field and the more I pray for missionaries around the globe, the less I care about politics. Paul stated that he’s become all things to all men. To the republican, become a republican and pass him/her the gospel. We as a nation put too much of an emphasis on labels and not enough of an emphasis on doing everything in our power to preach the gospel. Live the margin.