It’s March. It should be cold. But the last few days have been so beautiful that my daily routine has moved to the back patio. There’s nothing quite like a good cup of hot tea, a fresh bowl of moassal, calm and brisk 60 degree weather, and God’s Word to help bring focus and reflection.

I couldn’t help but take the chance to invite you into my morning routine from the last few days… you know, before the rain starts and spoils it all!

This will speak for itself. And yes, I am wearing a pink shirt under that button up. Wish me luck, people!

(Can’t see the video? Watch it on YouTube!)

A scripture many of us are familiar with. It’s often used when talking about evangelism. 1 Corinthians 2:1-4:

And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

Whenever I come across this scripture I’m baffled how something so clear can be so totally neglected in institutional church ministry at large.

Even though he was well educated and able to debate the world with the best of them, Paul resolved not to employ such methods. This was so that when the people believe, there would be no risk that their faith would rest on his power of persuasion, but on God’s power alone.

While parts of the church are beginning to move into a healthier mindset, there is still a huge, possibly even vast majority, of the church who is still spending loads of money and time and resources attempting to craft an appealing ministry that will draw in crowds. It’s like Tim Keller says:

“What you win people with, you will keep them with.”

Don’t get me wrong, there is value in meeting people where they are at and allowing ourselves to be culturally relevant. But that happens on a personal level, not a corporate one. When the church manufactures ‘relevance’ the world can tell and just adds one more drop in the bucket for why the institutional church shouldn’t be trusted.

I sometimes sit and think about how strange a time it is to be alive. In the world of technology, more has changed in the last 200 years than in all the time leading up to it. That’s pretty incredible. It means we have to be willing to look at everything with fresh eyes.

Even though there may be things that were true of the human experience for a very long time, they may very well not be true any more.

I was thinking especially about cameras. They’re less than 200 years old. In terms of an art medium, this is one that is extremely young. Even though we’d have difficulty imagining life without them. Which makes me wonder what kind of affect the advent of cameras has had on growing up.

It wasn’t until 1900 that the first camera was mass produced, and shortly after that it became something of a household staple. Regular families started having pictures of their kids. It wasn’t long before they started having pictures of their vacations, too.

What was it like for the parents seeing their children grow up with this crazy device that freezes a moment in time and saves it forever? It must have been fascinating.

The advent of personal video cameras, I’m sure, was a similar experience. When I was growing up, my family didn’t own a camcorder, but I was fascinated by them. I imagine that it would be a surreal experience for me to watch a preteen version of myself on screen. Yet millions of people now have that experience and don’t think twice about it. It just is the way it is.

Now it seems like something similar is happening again with the introduction of social media. Search YouTube and you will find millions of videos people’s children. There’s practically an entire generation of children that are growing up on YouTube. That’s bizarre.

It seems impossible to predict the effects of a rapidly mutating social and technological culture on Children. But part of me wishes I could start right now and experience it for myself.

Above anything else, I’m a Christian. More important than any other aspect of my life is that God has given me grace in Jesus Christ. My life, in spite of all its imperfections, can never be the same. For all intents and purposes, I cannot divide my faith in Christ from any other aspect of my life. If my life were water, Jesus would be the spout that delivers it to my glass.In fact, Jesus would be the glass also.

But, along with that comes a challenging tension that I have not yet understood or learned to balance. Though I’ve heard quite a lot of ideas—none really seem to be the whole answer.

See, I am also an artist and a business man (if those two can indeed coexist). My art is photography, and my business is in the wedding and portrait industry. Both of these are highly social in nature. As a photographer, both artistically and professionally, my ‘survival’ relies on making and maintaining connections with people wherever I meet them. If those connections do not exist, neither can my business or my art.

But that is also true of my faith. I am called to be a witness to the world of God’s grace in my life. When I meet someone, speak to someone, engage with someone in virtually any capacity, this fact cannot, does not, escape my mind.

How do these two live in tension with one another? How do I run a business and create art that glorifies God without driving away those with whom I hope to engage? I have yet to hear a simple answer.

  Today, as I sat with friends, I learned for the first time how to use Twitter to grow my business. It’s a remarkable tool that puts you immediately in touch with a vast number of people talking about all kinds of interesting things. Of course, you probably knew that already. I admit, I’m joining the caravan a bit late.

After learning to use the networking tool, it took no time at all for me to discover that, here too, I would face this challenge. A major element of Twitter is simply connecting with people over everyday endeavors. Where you’re going, what you’re doing, who you’re reading.

For me, those things are almost always connected to, if not wrapped up in, my faith. If I use the tool as most do, then I keep a world of potential clients, and more importantly potential believers, at arms length. Much like wearing a t-shirt that says, “Beware, I’m a Christian”. At the end of that day I’m engaging only other Christians and doing business almost exclusively with them.

But, on the flip side, if I don’t vocalize the ins-and-outs of my faith, I essentially deny the very foundation of virtually everything I do.

It’s a conundrum to say the very, very least. I haven’t yet found a satisfying answer to these questions. But I’m eager to hear the thoughts of friends who find their own ways to strike this tension on a personal and professional basis every day.

Psalm 16:11 is one of the most compelling verses in all of scripture, I think.

You make known to me the path of life;
   in your presence there is fullness of joy;
   at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

Whatever this thing is that we’re engaged in with God, it is to be enjoyed. It shouldn’t be burdensome or woeful. We shouldn’t look at the worldly pleasures we’re constantly learning to leave behind with regret over the loss of that satisfaction, but look for the genuine and superior pleasures found in our walk with God today.

I suspect that if I do this, I will experience life much differently.

Discussing with a friend today how difficult it is to understand how Christians can continue to struggle in sin, he used an analogy which I found insightful.

Imagine there is a man in a local restaurant working as a dishwasher. It’s the job he’s done most of his life. He didn’t go to school, didn’t get married, didn’t do any of that. Unskilled, manual labor is pretty much all he’s known. One day, a well dressed man shows up at the restaurant and informs the man that he is actually the long lost brother of the king. And, the king wants him to come and join his royal court. Ecstatic, the man accepts the offer and moves into the palace with the king and the rest of the royal family. But, life as a noble is absolutely foreign to the man. Though he is of noble blood, he struggles to act like it.

Moving from spiritual deadness into spiritual life isn’t altogether different. Being a noble in the king’s court, as my friend pointed out, isn’t merely a title—it’s an identity. And, while we have a tendency to see our faith as title (i.e., now I’m a ‘Christian’) it is so much more than that. It’s an identity that runs as deep, deeper, than the very blood in our veins.

Like the dishwasher turned noble, we’ve spent a lifetime learning to live in one specific way. Now that we’re in the King’s palace and our true identity in Him is revealed, the identity of a man who doesn’t really exist persists.

Once the dishwasher fully accepts his real identity, his behavior will change. Christians have more than a title. We have a brand new identity in Christ. As we become more secure in that identity, the old behavior will begin to fade into memory and we’ll begin to act like members of the royal family we belong to.