Something's Going On Around Here . . .

Something strange is happening around here. I mean, I keep running into posts like this from Today at the Mission:

We'd rather have a Christian lifestyle than to have Christ. We'd rather our faith be reduced to Sunday mornings with personally satisfying worship and a sermon that challenges us to a brief conversation in the car on the way home before having lunch and then getting some stuff done. We're enamored with being Christians yet we have little or no idea who Christ is, and we have no idea how to live as one who bears his name. [HT: Maced with Grace]

And then there's what Buzz said over at Gathering Wool:

Somehow, I had moved from the days of wondering how the church could build Jesus Cathedrals and family life centers when Jesus never said to do that, to helping to lobby for one in my home church.

Somehow, I moved from being critical of those who are "playing church," to actually playing church.

Somehow, I moved from being a Jesus freak to being a church freak.

When did that happen?

How did that happen?

More importantly, what am I going to do about it?

Hmmm. This is getting sticky. Like Buzz, I'm reading Shane Claiborne's The Irresistible Revolution. It's messing with my head. Although I don't necessarily buy into every aspect of the author's worldview, I can't help thinking his critique of the American church is fundamentally sound. You see, the chasm between being Christian (a cultural label) and being Christ-like (following in the Jesus way) seems to have grown distressingly wide even while we were busy doing church. With Buzz I keep asking,

How did this happen?

and

What can I do about it?