Being different usually comes with a negative connotation. However, there are times where we must not just endure being different, we must embrace being different. In Keep Christianity Weird: Embracing the Discipline of Being Different, Michael Frost argues it’s the key to a successful modern church and an essential of personal discipleship.
I was provided with a review copy of Keep Christianity Weird and am happy to share my observations with you here.
As Frost shares of the call to Keep Christianity Weird,
“When I call on you to keep Christianity weird, I’m asking you to reject materialism, foster community, promote diversity, share resources, protect the environment, start ethical businesses, feed the hungry play beautiful music, bring peace and joy and life back to our cities.”
This quick but impactful read consists of seven chapters, an introduction, and chapter notes. Some key takeaways show that we have a connection to our place here, yet there is a pull toward eccentricity while in a world where our minds are a battlefield in a war for our hearts. Through this book, Frost, tackles these things head-on and asks, when being a Christian seems to have become more repellent than intriguing, are you brave enough to endure being different?
A History Lesson in Being Different as a Church
Frost presents a handful of short studies on the early church, the Hiberno-Scottish Missionaries, the Cistercians, Anabaptists, Pentecostals, and more. He does this to help show there is a track record of Christians who braved being different. Further, he shows how and why we are called to be as such.
“As the earliest Christians discovered through preaching and worship and the fostering of a new set of habits, they were being recreated by Jesus to live out the values to his Kingdom while still functioning in the social and political landscape of the Roman Empire. Jesus referred to this as being like salt and light in the world… salt added to a stew of flavors every spoonful of the meal… the church should flavor the empire in which it finds itself… infiltrate every aspect of the empire, to bring flavor and light to its darkest and tasteless corners, something the Pharisees were loath to do.”
A Connection to Place
Chapter two discusses the weird cities… those that enthusiastically embrace their weirdness; those include Portland, Austin, and Santa Cruz. He doesn’t content that the church must become zany or wacky. As he says, “our world is tiring of stupid stunts and religious mania.”
However, the times and preferences of emerging demographics are changing. Our youngest generations are growing leery of churches that have no connection to its locality place, is disengaged in the life of the community hosting it, and doesn’t support local business. Christians, in being different, would be wise to recognize these trends and take steps to prepare the church for substantial pivots before it’s too late:
“Along with the local shopping mall, Outback Steakhouse, and the golf club, we are now routinely talking about the demise of the suburban church. Ed Stetzer reports that 80 to 85 percent of the American churches are on the downside of their life cycle, thirty-five hundred to four thousand churches close each year, and the number of unchurched has almost doubled from 1990 to 2004.”
The Pull of Eccentricity
“Our churches need to be full of people who have been truly set free from that which enslaves the world and who can show others how Jesus makes that possible.”
In Keep Christianity Weird, Frost begins by paying homage to “the crazy ones” – folks like Apple, St. Boniface, Francis Xavier, Count Nikolaus von Zinzendorf, Anne Hutchinson, Arthur Blessitt, and Richard Beck. Such individuals and entities are called eccentric, a word that means “out of the center.”
Frost shares that we are to teach the self (and others) to orbit God instead, for he is at the center. In putting God at the center of our identity, we push our egos to the outer edge. As a result, with our egos dethroned, we become a different kind of people.
In this light, eccentric – being different – is not a bad thing. Christians are eccentric. God is eccentric. And God’s kingdom is eccentric.
Being different usually comes with negative connotation. Yet, there are times where we must embrace being different. In Keep Christianity Weird, Michael Frost argues it’s the key to a successful modern church and an essential of personal discipleship.
The Mind is a Battlefield
Something that really stood out to me as I read through Keep Christianity Weird is the fact that our mind is a battlefield. A battlefield for what? For our hearts.
In discussing Romans 12:2, Frost shows that the Apostle Paul is insisting on this. And that the fight is one that resists being shaped by the values of society. God demands renewal of our minds. In this passage, Paul uses a Greek term that is only rarely found in the New Testament. It appears just two other times in the Bible. One of those usages was also by Paul, saying in Titus 3:5 that ‘[God] saved is, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit.’”
Resolve to Renew
In a world where “the god of this age” is Satan, who has blinded the minds of unbelievers, they are desperate for the light of the gospel, displaying the glory of Christ.
The very image of God.
As Christians, our pursuit of discipleship and dare to be weird turns all of life into an act of worship. Where we are seeing ourselves as broken and in need of a savior — one who actually liberates us.