Out of the Closet

Tonight during tech, one of my fellow techies brought out this article from The Stranger (which is know to be a very liberal newspaper) and was bashing Mark Driscoll and talking about how ridiculous the church is. Then, this is what went down:

Me: Why do you say [it's ridiculous]?
Sam: It has like a cult following!
Me: Oh, just wondering cause I go to that church.
Sam: You're kidding.
Me: Nope. Not at all.
Sam: No. No. You're totally lying.
Me: No! You can check my Facebook page...anything! I definitely go there.
Sam: Oh, well I have friends who go there and everything. I just....

A few minutes later, after our teacher, Brian, had read the article, I had a very similar conversation with him, too. And then I set the record straight that I'm 99% sure Mark Driscoll didn't write that article. Brian goes "so does your church repress women, too?" I went, "no way! I definitely wouldn't go there if they did!!!" (side note: can you imagine ME going to a church that represses women!?!?!?)

So I spent the rest of the night with thoughts flying through my head "why did they doubt me so much?" "Am I a really terrible witness--did they think that I'm too bad to be a Christian?" "Have I been a good witness now that they know?" "Will this change everything?" Fortunately it didn't seem to change too much. At least tonight. But I'm thankful that God's been changing my heart and allowing me to admit when I'm wrong and showing me how to love broken people. Because I can say that 6 months ago there would have been more ammo against me. For instance, I'm very very glad that I apologized to Brian for complaining about waiting around during tech. It was a little thing, but I feel so much more liberated from it, and he told me he appreciated the apology. And that was before this whole discovery that I'm "one of those Mars Hill kids".

Now I'm half nervous. It's like any time people find out huge things about you. I know I'll be judged on everything from now on. Good thing there are only 2 nights and a day left!  Now I need to be spending time with Jesus more than ever.

Please pray for me.