I stumbled across a Rick Atchley (an Austin area pastor) tweet where he stated "Love your particular Christian tribe, but remember: you are SOME of God's people, not the SUM of God's people." I don't know if this is an original Atchley quote, but I do know that I love it.
I wrote about in my May 25th blog (Santa God) how many people within the church can cast the definition of being a "good Christian" on someone who achieves a certain level of behavioral traits and I really thought that Atchley hit the nail further on the head about Christian circles (or as he's stated—tribes).
I recall a time when I was in a singles study group at my church a while back. The group seemed to be brought up within the church. They were all well read in the Bible, and sang songs, and prayed, and had times of fellowship. But I couldn't really get engaged, and I think one time I said a curse word once in a discussion. It wasn't a fit for me, and perhaps I for them. Now this is not at all a bad thing to not fit in (and perhaps I shouldn't have sworn). I guess it just shows that there is a bird of a feather thing to a lot of Christian tribes. And this is not necessarily a bad thing. There certainly are doctrinal and ritualistic things which pertain to particular Christian tribes. But when in a tribe, we need to ensure that we examine ourselves and our intentions — recognizing that no one has the book on God outside of Himself. And that we love one another...
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