.when you're "the good church girl", but sometimes want to apologize for that.

last night was Sunday night, which means it was youth group night, and that is such a sweet thing.

it's sweet because I get to spend a couple of hours with some of the best kids in the world and that is no exaggeration, friends.  They are fantastic.

Part of my time there is devoted to a certain group of high school girls that pretty much have me by the heart. They are so gosh darn funny and wise in so many ways and I am so privileged to be able to sit there with them and hear their stories as their small group leader.  I use the word "leader" loosely because I have this theory that us youth leaders are basically just kids with fancy folders and attendance sheets.  And that's a good thing. It keeps us humble.  It keeps us listening for God....to let Him speak through us because if we're honest, we have nothing worth saying to these kids apart from Him.

During our small group time last night, the conversation turned to what they think some of the people at their public school or at work think of them as Christians, or Christians in general.  From more than one of them I heard the words "goody-two-shoes" right alongside the words "hypocrite" and "judgemental".

What are we supposed to do with that? Those words seem to be on opposite sides of the spectrum and yet are often placed one after the other when people reference Christians and Christianity.  I asked them what they thought of that and the word we came to was "misunderstood"....but not without good reason.

This led to deeper conversation about legalism, churches parading with their picket signs screaming "hate" in God's name, or less-than-gracious words from the mouth of a Christian towards someone seeking hope and healing rather than a lecture.

These things make us wary of the word "Christian"...because we don't want them to think we're "those" Christians.

Do you ever feel the need to apologize for being "the good church girl/guy" because you don't want to be at all compared to those people with the contorted faces and picket signs?

I admit, I've heard the "good girl" remark thrown my way before.  And it kind of makes me cringe.

I feel the need to defend myself and be like, "oh well, I mean, I really do love Jesus, but I don't hate people and I don't only listen to KLOVE and I've made mistakes, trust me. Please be my friend?"

We don't want to be misunderstood.  We don't want to be "extreme". We want to be seen as people with personality and feelings and a brain who love and know our God, not self-righteous, Bible-thumping robots who have a strong dislike for anybody who doesn't know John 3:16 or all the books of the Bible in order or who Martin Luther was minus the King, Jr....yanno what I mean?

These are the hard things.
and we need Jesus.  we need so much of Jesus and His wisdom because there's a fine line between being in the world and not of it.
And let's be honest, we all want to be seen as normal.  And we don't want labels.

The conversation went on for a long while last night, and I'm so glad it did.  It was real and these ladies were so brave in the things they said and the discussions they brought to the table. They are some smart cookies.

And we might always be called "the good church kids", but I think if we know our God, we can show our God to those who would call us that, and maybe it will become a term of endearment rather than a label.
It also kind of makes for a good band name, so....

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Lord God, give us your heart.  give us wisdom in the hard things.