What’s missionary dating? Simply put, it’s when a Christian person dates a non-Christian person in the hopes of converting them to Christianity. Here’s a snippet from the website creator, “Tamara”, herself:

Hello, my name is Tamara! As you can probably tell, I’m a Christian woman who loves Jesus Christ and cares for all humans, even the wicked. What you probably don’t know is that I’m hot. My picture below isn’t really that good. I want to use my beauty for GOD, and want to encourage Christian women (my sisters in Christ) to do the same, according to the Great Commission.

I can’t tell if this is real or not. My spider senses are tingling, but I think this is just whacky enough to be legit.

In the college ministry I was a part of, we had the “missionary dating” phenomenon. It involved a person, usually a female, who wanted to date a guy who wasn’t part of the campus ministry. This guy was seen as an “outsider” and the poor young gal was warned against “backsliding.” What ended up happening is that most everyone in this particular ministry became terrified to date anyone for fear of being blacklisted. Ugh.

So what do you think? Is SaveToDate real or fake? Have you ever heard of or experience the “missionary dating” evangelism strategy?

Holler if you hear me.

Probably one of the church’s biggest strategic mistakes in the last 50 years has been our withdrawal from the community.

We’ve preached for decades “don’t be part of this world” until we finally got there. Now, we build campuses, away from town. We organize our “own” events. Fall festivals instead of Halloween. We have been very effective in separating ourselves from the community. Then we go onto these campuses every weekend, take in something, and are told to go out and share it. Share it? With whom? The people I have lunch or dinner with, that were at the same service, or another church that morning? Who exactly? No one. That’s who.

Christ didn’t separate himself from “the world”. He lived right in there amongst them. Close enough to make the current religious leaders very uncomfortable, accusing him of excess in both drink and food. Out of this observation rises a very key idea. It’s an idea that Jesus instructed us about. He said that though we must be in the world, we must not be of it.

We in the Church have gone and done the opposite. We are now of the world, but not in it. Meaning, we remove ourselves from society with regard to culture, but what drives us and what we’re going after is the same as them. The most adamant adherents of our faith often seem the most out of touch with culture, yet much of what we chase after is the same as our unchurched peers. That is a failure on our parts. We should be just as in touch with the currents of society and culture as the next metro-sexual, but our goals, our drives, should be noticeably different.

To most of “the world” we don’t look different, just behind.

I believe it is one of the most degrading, selfish, disrespectful and cruel acts imaginable. It could even cost Americans their lives. As someone who has dear missionary friends serving in a Muslim country, this buffoonery crosses the line from embarrassing into dangerous. But, of course, “someone has to stand up to Islam.” Right?

Something tells me Jesus would be washing the feet of Muslims. Not threatening to burn their most holy book. To those who are on the outside of Christianity looking in, this is not how Jesus, the one whom we follow, would behave. Trust me.

I hope I wasn’t unclear.

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UPDATE: I think we would do well to heed Anne Jackson’s words this morning: “Don’t try to prove how progressive you are by ‘condemning’ foolishness- fools don’t care what you think. It’s what makes them fools.”

UPDATE #2: Apparently, something got through to this pastor. He has cancelled the scheduled “Burn a Koran Day”. Wisdom prevails. (HT: Alan Colmes & AP).

So did Carlos Whitaker.

I’m about to nail it, too … Stop hatin’. Yeah. Stop hatin’.

I’m here at Echo 2010 down in Dallas and the “talk of the town” has been the vitriol on the Echo Twitter feed.

• “I don’t like Donald Miller. His message was bad. I don’t get it.”
• “This speaker was boring. I’m going to play video games on my iPad.”
• There are even reports of people starting up fake Twitter accounts just to randomly bag on the people and places of Echo.

I don’t get it. I really don’t. You know what I hear when I read these tweets? One word: “WAAAHHHHHH!“

Here’s the thing, most people would never say in person to someone else what they say on Twitter. Never. For all the people who were bagging on Donald Miller last night, not a one would say it to his face. People may think they’re cute and funny, but there’s another word for it: Cowardice.

Yeah, cowards.

Here’s the thing, the people you’re dogging on online are real people. They may be on a stage, removed from personal interaction with most of the people in the audience, but they’re real.

They read the stuff you type and it hurts.
They go back to their hotel room and think, “What did I do wrong?”
A God-breathed message gets put on the shelf.
Something underneath the surface dies a little, even if they don’t notice it.

I can’t help but think that the people who perpetrate this social assassination strategy have something seriously broken in their own lives. “Hurt people hurt people,” as they say. Bitterness is bred in the bed of jealousy and envy. It’s classic schoolyard bully tactics: “I am insecure, afraid, and alone. I see people who are not. I will try and cut them down to my pitiful position.”

You may think you’re cute. Or funny. You might think you’re “bein’ real” or satirical. But you’re not. You’re hurting people and deep down, I think you know it. So you have to ask yourself, “Is that the person I want to be?”

I don’t think it is.

I think you want to be someone better. Someone greater. Someone who has something to say. Something that brings life and not death. Yeah?

For those wondering, the bridge illustration conveniently outlines how one propositionally gets to Heaven.

We (humanity) are one one side of the cliff.
God is on the other.
There’s a great gulf in between.
The Cross of Jesus bridges that gap.

This is the bridge illustration.

I ask if it still works because any propositional understanding I had of salvation has been crushed under the weight of grace. The whole “tit-for-tat” Gospel doesn’t make sense to me. But to some people it does. That’s why the bridge illustration exists.

Does it still work? Here’s a quick video explaining the concept:

Was this effective for you?

Have you noticed this?

I call it, “drive-by Scripturing.” I’m no better or different. That’s why I’m trying to switch to the “long division” method of Scripture citation.

I’ve found that it’s almost never helpful to pull individual Bible verses out of their given context. Fortune cookie Scripture reading lends itself to easily to the building up (and tearing down) of lifeless straw men. That’s why I’ve become a fan of citing really long portions of Scripture. It may not be the most efficient method of communication, but it certainly is the safest.

If you take a verse out of it’s context, you can make the Bible say anything you want. Many cults do this. When you isolate Scripture verses from their context, it’s like taking diamond out of an engagement ring. Sure, the ring is nice by itself–it is gold, after all–but the real “SHAPOW!” comes when that gem is nestled nice and tight into it’s setting.

Can I ask a favor? Don’t do a “drive-by” here, on Twitter, Facebook, in your church or anywhere else. People could get hurt.

On one hand you have a church that’s willing to take the risk and use a clearly identifiable piece of pop culture in their branding.

On the other hand, well, the sign looks like it was drawn by the church youth group.

I’m torn. What do you think?