This blog began as way for me to get my thoughts down around the growing disconnect I felt between the reality of my life and the reality I saw in the New Testament. I considered myself to be an average middle class suburban Christian, much like you might consider yourself an average college Christian, or an average Catholic, and so on. And before you tell me there is no such thing as an average Christian, ask yourself if you have ever compared yourself to your peers. Of course you have. If you’re in school, you have class rank and grades to compare, if your working, you have how much money you make, how big your house is, and of course, if you are married, you have have attractive, kind, successful, amazing your spouse is. So yes, you have compared yourself to other Christians and found many that make you feel much better about the current state of your spiritual well being. And a few that make you wonder what you are missing, but then again, they are such the minority that they are easy to excuse as the “exception” Christian.
By focusing on “average”, I managed to feel pretty good about myself spiritually. I have a good working knowledge of the bible, been to church more than most, can throw out a few original greek words from the New Testament when feeling the need to exert my Christianity, and I also have a nice history of mission work, always good to break a tie in the Christian ranking scale. Then, in the midst of all my reasons to feel pretty good about myself and my spiritual state, I hit a small obstacle. This obstacle took the form of some words from David Platt in Radical.
All of a sudden, the bar was not others, the bar was Christ’s words. The bar was what Christ established, not what my church, my friends, and my culture had established. And suddenly, I was not so average. Quite simply, I was not meeting the mark. Because I had a new mark. A mark to hit that has nothing to do with what anyone else is doing, or what anyone else has done (with the exception of Christ). I had spent years telling myself that when I knew, really knew, what I was called to do, I would drop my nets and go do it. The problem is, Christ had been telling me all along. I just didn’t like what I heard. What I heard was to be holy, as He is holy. What I heard was, love God more than anything, and love others as much as I love myself. What I heard was, I have been given gifts and am responsible for using them for His glory and purpose. What I heard was, go to the ends of the earth and make disciples.
So I promptly decided that I needed to study what I learned. I needed to blog about it. I needed to really understand how it applies to me. What I still missed is that now is the time. Now is the time. There is no other time but now.
I’m still planning to write. I have questions, and feel very called, compelled actually, to keep writing. There’s a world of average Christians out there that need to become Christ followers instead. Starting with me. I can’t remember reading about any average Christ followers in the bible, I’ll keep looking, but what I know I have read about is men and women who met Christ and were never the same. Christ followers who decided that nothing in this world was worth a second thought compared to the riches of Christ. Christ followers who took Christ at His word, and simply began to tell others about Him. About how He had redeemed their meaningless lives and given them a purpose, a calling, a mission so urgent and so important that nothing, literally nothing, could keep them from it.
I am tired of continually looking around to make sure I am above average. To make sure I can feel good about myself by comparing myself to others. No more average. I am ready for more.

What would it feel like to have a mission burn so fiercely that everything else is burned up like hay and stubble?