Under Cover Christians

I’m not going to lie. I LOVE reality TV shows. I love “Survivor” and I LOVE LOVE “Deadliest Catch”. One of my new favorites is UNDERCOVER BOSS. The show is about these CEO’s of major corporations like 7-11, Hooters, and Waste Management Company that go under cover in their organizations that they run from the top. They spend a week on the front lines, going entry-level jobs, meeting people and finding out what they think of the company and how things are ran. The boss then listens to them, sees what the perception of the company is and then meets with all of the people that he “worked” for that week and tells them who he is. He then says what they are doing well and usually does something for them and then confronts those who are not doing what they should be doing.

It is a great show. Really eye opening for these big time CEO’s to really see how things are run from the lower level. A lot of the things that they experience usually change the ways the run some aspects of the company and it usually changes the way themselves look and run the company.

Sometimes I think that Christians need to some “Undercover Boss” work. Christians can get some bad wraps. Based on David Kinnaman’s book “UnChristian” (honestly, everyone need to read this book. Click HERE to check it out.) He basically takes a poll of non-Christians and asks them what they think of Christians. I do have to say, its not good. Majority of non-Christians that were polled think that Christians are hypocritical, only worried about converting people, anithomsexual, sheltered, we are too political and too judgmental.

Just to throw out some of the numbers in the book, 47% of the people polled believed that Christians were saying one thing and going another. Saying we are preaching one thing and doing something completely different. That we were hypocrites. 38% of the people think that the only thing that maters is converting people. Not the relationships, the friendships don’t matter, as long as we get the convert. An overwhelmingly amount of people, 67% think that we hate homosexuals and we look at them as an abomination. Ouch. I don’t know about you but I don’t think that. I don’t think any of those things that non-Christians think about us in general.

Those are just a few things that I listed. The book goes into detail about what do non believers believe about us, why it has come to that, and there are some things listed in which we can start to change the stereotypes that have been placed on us.

I know for me, I try to act in a way that is like Jesus. I fail…a lot. I think if we were to really look at what Jesus says, on what He did, and literally act the way that He acted and interacted with people, there would not be this problem. Nowhere in Scripture is Jesus standing outside a funeral with a sign demeaning a soldier’s life. Never did Jesus stand on a corner holding a sign and a bullhorn screaming God Hates Fags. Jesus wasn’t only about getting people to follow Him. It was relationships. We ate with the people that no one wanted to eat with. He talked to the people you were “not supposed to talk to”. If we were to literally live and interact with people like Jesus did, if we were to talk the Red Letters seriously, then there wouldn’t be this perception of Christians.

Is it tough to live like that? Yup. But we are called to do it. We have to do this in order to change things. I once heard of a church in San Francisco go out during the Gay Pride Parade and set up confession booths. There was interest so many people stepped inside and were shocked to find out that Christians were in there confessing their sins and apologizing for how they have mistreated the gay community in the past. I thought that was amazing. We need to do more like this.

I think we need to do some “Undercover Boss” work in our communities and find out what people really think about Christians. If the church that you are at right now were to lock up its doors right now, would the community that its in know that you left? Would that be “Hey, where is _____________ Church? They did so much for us! We miss them, we need them.” if we are out in the community, let Jesus was out and about talking to people, helping them, showing them light in the darkness, there is only one way to point when asked “why are you doing these things?” That is to God.

If we cant answer the question of, “Are you a Christian?” and we cant confidently say, “Tell me what you see” and not be afraid of that answer, then we are doing it wrong.