Being Jesus

On Sunday morning, I was standing around talking to a group of girls (with a random guy thrown in) after an intense class entitled Confirmation of Discernment. We had spent our time discussing how the church is presented in our modern day culture, our identity in our culture vs. our identity in Christ, and who we are in Christ. While we discussed what we were still trying to wrap our minds around, one girl brought up the Compassion Bloggers trip a few of us had been keeping up with. For those of you who don't know, Compassion sent some people with highly popular bloggers to Calcutta to see the mission and meet their sponsor kids. They blogged about their experiences in an effort to encourage more people to sponsor children. (I'm just about convinced.) I kept up with Melissa and Angie. As we talked about it, the girl who brought it up made a statement that has stuck with me the past three days. She is feeling a call to Cuba and has a heart for the poverty stricken and persecuted church. She was discussing what we saw/read about India and her experiences in Cuba. She simply said, "I just don't know how to be Jesus in America."

What a statement! We turned it over and over for a while. We just finally had to decide that being Jesus in America looks SO different than being Jesus in the rest of the world. We are not outright persecuted and find ourselves SO blessed. Here, it is more of a struggle against ourselves, our loyalties, and our hearts. In other places, it is a fight against the physical demands of life (poverty, persecution, lack of rights, etc).

Like I said, it has been on my mind for three days. Last night, I was reading The Resurgence blog (which is AMAZING, by the way) when I ran across a post entitled Simplified Missional Living. In many ways, I think it hits the nail on the head for modern day ministry here in the states. However, I keep finding myself wondering, how am I being Jesus to the world around me? I know we can answer the expected answers but when we get down to the reality of presenting a flesh and blood representation of the Savior to a self-centered, over-indulged world, where does that begin? What does that look like? How in the world does that even begin to happen?

Talk about some food for thought quickly followed by a HUGE helping of humble pie!