This past week in She-Tribe, our teacher gave us some statistics on “none-religious” individuals. About 20-25% of the U.S. population mark “none” when asked about their religious affiliation. This generally means that they dont really consider themselves an atheist, but dont really consider themselves Christian or any other religion. We usually see the tagline “spiritual, but not religious.” They believe in something, even if they dont have a label for what that something is. The highest age group in the “nones” is millennials, or people born 1981-1996.

This really hit home for me. Up until last year, this was me. And I totally get it. I didnt want that label of “Christian” because so many things have happened within the church and so many things that have happened to myself and people I love that “Christian” had a negative connotation and I did not want that negativity put on me. I explained this to my Bible study group, which is all women over like 60 and it’s my favorite thing ever because I’m the only young person in the group. I explained that I think the reason most people my age don’t want to identify as Christian is because at some point we have been made to feel unwelcomed by the church or people we love have been persecuted by the church. I say “the church” because I believe, unfortunately, because this is such a widespread problem, the church is responsible. The fact that we can talk about this and it can resonant with majority of people means it’s a problem. My ladies whole heartedly agreed and we discussed how the love is missing from the church today and that we as Christians are responsible for that.

I think if you ask majority of most Christians why more people don’t come to church, they will tell you it’s because they’re sinful and don’t want to change their lifestyle. I would consider this partially true, but I think a big part of it is that people don’t want to come to a place where they don’t feel welcome. I wrote a post a few weeks ago about the love that is missing from the church. Christians are supposed to be known by their love for people. Jesus literally let a prostitute wash his feet and people are worried about a gay person sitting next to them in church. Believe me, if Jesus walked into some of y’alls church, he would be ashamed and embarrassed. Now I don’t say that to shame anyone because I am one of those people. I’ve turned my nose up at people, judged people, gossiped about people, etc., that came into my church. I was and still am self-righteous at times and I think that is because I misunderstood the meaning of the “better life” Jesus gave me. I thought it made me better than those that didnt have Jesus in their lives. In reality, it doesnt make me better than anyone.

Human beings are garbage. No matter how good someone acts or how many good deeds they do, deep down they are terrible people. I mean if you strip humanity down to their base instincts, they will do whatever they have to do to survive. Now we may not be killing each other for resources (yet), but we still do things to rise above others and a lot of the time, we hurt others to get ahead in life. Even as children, we lie or make up things about our peers so others don’t like them. I can tell you in elementary school, we had one girl that we bullied mercilessly. We played this game called “Brooke germs” and if she touched you, you had to touch someone else and pass the germs along and you tried to avoid getting touched by her. Now this wasnt like one or two kids that played this “game.” This was the entire grade. That shit makes me sick to my stomach to think about how unnecessarily mean we were to her and for what? To fit in? To get laughs? I was raised in a kind home, my parents didnt bully people, so why the hell did I think it was funny to torment this girl? She didnt do anything to me or provoke me in any way.

I know a lot of people will say that they were never like that or that they were bullied, but we’ve all done it. To siblings, to peers, to spouses, to parents, to coworkers, etc. The list goes on and on. No one is kind all the time. Even if it’s from the privacy of our homes or behind our phone screens, we are awful people. That is where the church fails. They lose the mentality that they too are sinners. They stop telling people that they struggle too. They stop being convicted and start convicting others. On Easter Sunday, we watched a sermon by Pastor Rod Parsley and he talked about how in most churches today only 5% of the people that attend are really saved and really get it. I think that’s part of the problem. So many people, including myself, have become subscribers of Jesus, and not genuine followers of Jesus. We like the ideas of being a Christian and playing the part of Christian, but it’s more of an insurance policy and it makes us feel special. We want to do just enough to get in God’s good graces and honestly, that’s where we are failing the world as Christians. We’re showing others that this is what it takes to be a “Christian” and we’re doing a disservice to them and to God. We are actively misrepresenting who Jesus is, which is ultimately pushing people away from him.

Well that’s my soapbox for the week. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend and my inbox is always open for any questions or discussion you may want to have.