Christianity vs. Authenticity

"God hath given you one face, and you make yourselves another."
- William Shakespeare

I'm so tired of faking it. Can others see behind my mask?
Do I dare let you in? What if I told you who I am?
I long to be real.

Living in Glasgow as a minister and follower of Jesus Christ for the last four years has taught me a number of things about myself, my faith, and people who don't share it. When a missionary pulls up his stakes, moves overseas and sets up camp as... a missionary, then people examine his life through that lens. Makes sense.
All of a sudden his occupation is on display. He's a missionary. He moved here to do "this" (whatever "this" might be).
What do missionaries do, exactly? Do you go to an office? Do you earn an income? Do you have a job? No, no... I mean a real job? Do you work? No, no... I mean really work?

Over the past few months I've found myself in some interesting conversations about missionaries... usually with non-Christians, but I've had a few with local believers as well. It's amazing the perceptions that are out there. Several weeks ago I blogged about secularists and a chat roll that I participated in online. To recap, missionaries were viewed as imbeciles, idiots, yankee do-gooders, ignorant charlatans, morons, and pestilent priests. Those overtly bigoted impressions were delivered through the safe veil of internet anonymity. But I've also had some pretty civil face-to-face encounters, as well.

Sure there is the reason versus faith issue that circles the discussion of God and Christians, as well as the very human, "I will not have this God ruling over me," take. But quite honestly, in my time here and from the feedback that I've gathered, I think for the common man it boils down to Christianity versus Authenticity.

In my humble and limited experience, I'm going to make the statement that one of the biggest obstacles that Christian missionaries face in the field - especially in a western culture where missional living is key to successfully sharing one's faith in Jesus Christ - is their own inability to live authentically; to speak authentically; to allow others to really know who they are.

I hang out with a group of guys on Tuesday nights. We can gather as many as 10 or as few as four on a given week, but I'd say it's usually around six. All local businessmen; all closer to 40 than they are to 30; and all keenly aware that I am a minister.

"Christians always seem so damn perfect all the time," one said a couple of weeks ago, "I mean, is anyone ever really that flawless?" At that moment I resisted the urge to answer, "Jesus," for the sake of where the discussion was going. A few of these guys have had Christian friends. One's even had an American Christian friend. They agreed that they were nice guys and easy enough to get along with, but there was an impenetrable divide that made really getting to know them impossible. "You can never really know what they're thinking. Are they judging me? Are they afraid to let on that they have problems too?
And they're always f---ing together," one exclaimed, presumably about American missionaries he knows of here, "What do you people do together all the time?" he rhetorically asked me, not expecting an honest answer (of course).

This growing awareness of inauthentic Christian living was exacerbated today after Jasheen shared with me about a conversation she had with a woman from Gabrielle's toddler group. She asked Jasheen why Christians were so hard to communicate with. "You get to a certain level," she said, "and then - BOOM! - up goes a wall." There were some other comments made about missionaries, confusion as to why they're here, and what they do all the time, but in the middle of Jasheen's account our buzzer buzzed (as they do) and up popped a delivery man with a package from home. One of the items enclosed was a book from my dad entitled, TrueFaced: trust God and others with who you really are.
What?!?!?! Are you kidding me??? After a month of conversations involving this topic, and in the middle of Jasheen's story about how Christian missionaries are perceived as impersonal, inauthentic, and exclusive, a book arrives about trusting God and others with who you really are?

I just had to sit down and write about it. I try to be intentional about living as a flawed leader, but most of the time I'm probably just a crappy secret agent. My cracks, blemishes and stains can be pretty hard to hide... so I don't. I think most all Christian and/or missionary flaws are probably in one way or another rooted in the "F" word -- FEAR. Fear of failure; fear of rejection; fear of being found out.

What if someone finds out that I've sinned? Or even worse, that I still sin?
When we hide our stains, our anger, our mistakes, we eliminate one of the greatest treasures God has ever gifted us: the redemption found in the cleansing blood of His son, Jesus Christ. We're not perfect because we follow Christ, and in my experience, people don't expect perfection from me. But we are made perfect IN Jesus Christ. In our flaws, people will see our humanity. And only in our humanity will they be able to see our dependence on Christ and the subsequent wholeness that comes with a growing and knowing relationship with Him.

Don't be Christian... be REAL!