Wednesday, August 06, 2008

Improv Christianity

This morning I was awoken by thunder at way too early of an hour and was lying there with many things going through my head, this being one of them. I don't know why, and I don't know if it was in a dream or something, but it made pretty good sense at 6am with only 4 1/2 hours sleep.

Anyway, here was the thought. That we have Acting Christians and Improv Christians. And I don't mean improv by making up your own faith. Here's what I mean.

Think of your favorite comedic actor. How funny they are. How they make you laugh. Now there's only one problem. They do not actually say anything of their own. Every line they give, everything they say, it is all written by someone else. They are fed lines. Now, they may deliver them well, but the idea, the essence of what makes you laugh is not theirs. Now improv is the opposite. The actor, they make up everything, every single word that comes out of their mouth is completely and 100% theirs.

So this was my thinking this morning. How many Acting Christians do we have? People that say they believe in Jesus, but they really don't own their faith at all. They can't say anything they believe themselves, all they can do is recite what's been told to them. Like comedic actors, they can do it well, but it's still not their faith, their simply giving out someone else's interpretation of God and saying it the best they can. I think we need more Improv Christians. Improv is messier, it's not as scripted, it's harder to follow sometimes, but it is all theirs. The Christian doing "improv", it's what they believe, it's what they adhere to, it's them doing the best they can to figure out who God is and explain it to others.

I think we need more Improv Christians, not just actors who can recite lines well...

T

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