Psychotically Godly Bad-Ass Dude

Feb 08: In the space of a week, I just got paid what I am taking to be a pair of back-handed compliments.

First off, and to the great amusement of our church, Pete Greig described us as a 'psychotically godly family'. While psychosis is not normally regarded as a good thing, there is a one definition which runs along the line of 'perceiving reality in different ways and acting accordingly'. And on that definition, I guess that we are probably guilty as diagnosed.

Then on the Thursday, Lise and I were doing our weekly evening shift on the bar'n'bus, a mobile youth centre run by local Christian volunteers. One of the things that the kids struggle to get their heads around is that we all give up our evenings without being paid, just so that they can have somewhere safe to hang out. On explaining (again) that we do it because Jesus cares about them and therefore so do we, one teenage girl came back with the direct challenge: "so are you a Christian then?" I confirmed that I was. "You don't look like a Christian", she retorted. "You look like some kind of bad-ass dude" (I guess it must have been the leather jacket). Unlike Pete, she then expressed concern that this observation might have offended me, to which I was able to reassure her that it was possibly the nicest thing anyone had said to me all week.

On the bus team we are priviliged to have several kind, gentle, deeply spiritual older ladies. They represent beautifully one aspect of what it means to be a follower of Jesus. But wilder examples like the Celtic Church, the early apostles, and the 18th century missionaries prove that this is not the only aspect. And in the challenging, exposing, often confrontational world of political life, maybe what we need right now is band of psychotically godly bad-ass dudes...