A Good Reminder to Christians

I know this article is speaking more to pastors and church leaders in general but I believe that all Christians should be aware of how the public perceives us. Are we the ones putting people off Christianity with our actions? Or are we encouraging people to come to the Lord? People watch us like hawks! Our lifestyle is being scrutinized every minute of the day. Something that might seem small to us, or even not harmful, can be viewed by someone else as un-Christian-like-behavior, and thus make people believe that we are hypocrites. I will always remember this one experience that happened to me when I was 16 years old. I was at a friend’s party, I had been going to youth group for about a year, but I was still what you’d call a carnal Christian. One foot in the church and one in the world. Like all “good” parties there was alcohol involved. Because of my upbringing I have always viewed drunkenness as a bad thing, a sign of weakness, but alcohol as a substance to be enjoyed and drunk in moderation. So thanks to my parents I went through the peer pressures of adolescence without being drunk once. At this particular party though, my friends had decided to get me drunk, it was the goal of the evening for them. So to have them back off I accepted a drink, it was drink I would have normally accepted even without that “goal” of theirs, but what I did is I acted drunk. I became louder (if that’s possible ;op) than usual and more flamboyant. Apparently I was convincing as my friends backed off satisfied. An unexpected thing happened though, a friend that I had met through youth group arrived. He was a young man that was searching, attracted to Christianity but unwilling to commit. Well he saw me “drunk”. Later I found out that he’d gone up to a friend of ours stating that he was so happy to see me drunk because if I was drunk it was alright for him to be drunk too! My appearing to be drunk gave him the permission to do the same with a good conscious. This whole situation was kind of a life changing experience for me. I decided that my “friends” who were on a mission to get me drunk were no friends at all, as they were not respecting my principles. And the fact that my actions had given a weak brother in Christ permission to sin, was such a wake up call to me. I hope that few of us out there need to have those types of wake up calls. Anyway I was going to paste an article on here but it seems like I’ve written one myself, LOL. The article is on how young Americans aged 19-29 view Christians. Let’s face it, American or not, most young people in the Western world view us this way. This is the link to the research paper. Let me know what you think about it. If you have any stories yourself, please don’t hesitate to comment.