WARNING: Contains some bad language. I’ve known Philen for a good 5 years or so now. He has been one of those friends who has pushed my thinking and made me realise that I’m a ‘white’ Christian, and there is some baggage that comes with that, even if I don’t always see it. He has a great story, which has birthed a passion for the poor and disenfranchised of this Continent, and he is also the founder of the My Life, My Africa Children’s Foundation. I’ll let him tell you the rest:
One of the most compelling, honest (and funny) interviews I’ve heard in a long time!
It has helped to articulate my own silent frustrations with seeing the ‘real’ work that needs to be done in connecting with the people around us and being fed up with platitudes about what kind of Christian life we are supposed to be living.
There is a chasm of difference between religion and relationship and frankly this current generation (and the emerging one) is sick of it.
We cannot “build a nation” if we don’t first build relationships.
Do we really understand the legacy of previous generations that we are currently struggling with?
Lest we forget, the book that was used to justify the hatred and violence that tore this country apart, was the very same book that inspired hope and courage in the hearts of people dreaming of a better future. So if the ‘problem’ was started in the church, surely the fixing-up needs to come from the church too?
After many years of trying to be a good, church-going Christian, my bitter disappointment in the institution was that it was just that – a man-made structure and order of getting to God that Christ came to free us from in the first place!
All this talk of the end times and judgment blah blah blah is crazy when you think of the fact that Jesus said that He is coming back for a ‘glorified’ church. When God talks about His church, He talks about His Bride – a collection of individuals making up a living and active social body that is meant to represent His likeness.
And I think that the shift is happening around the world that it is a church “without walls”… where individuals who have a real, living, active relationship with God, have no other passion other than to live out that truth in a way that is real to them.
I should get to a point: We cannot box God. He is infinite and unfathomable and will not be confined to our limited understanding (or misunderstanding) or what He is about. If we really “walk after the Spirit”, all of our cultural, mental, emotional etc barriers will be broken down by the force of love (of which substance God is.)
Just a quick note to say I enjoyed the podcast and liked the call to radical discipleship.
Cheryl: you said that there is a chasm of difference between religion and relationship. You are so right! I describe it as an enormous difference between the Christian RELIGION and the Christian FAITH. You said we cannot box God. Again you are so right! In many ways I have been living outside the walls of ‘traditional’ Christianity for some 40 years, and that has at times been a very lonely experience.
I can so relate to what Philen is saying about the futility of so much Christian outreach. There’s something about putting the cart before the horse – but that’s perhaps for another time.