Quotes stereotypes that are just simply not true. And this is true in every occupation. Right, if you're a doctor, people think you're a B and C. If you're a lawyer, they think you're D, E and F, whatever the case may be. But what about you know, stereotypes about Christians or pastors and both positive and negative traits that you had come across in all your years with a church.
Well, I went to a career day one day to me inviting me to come in and talk about being a pastor for a bunch of sixth graders, And I said to him, I said, all right, well, I'm gonna draw a picture. It's like cartoon a little bit. So I'm gonna draw a picture of a pastor. Tell me what they're like. And the hands started going up, and they said, what kind of eyes does he have? Angry eyes? I got angry eyes. I give this big pushy eyebrow. What does his mouth look like? Big mouth? He's yelling
at people all the time. Really okay, So I drew a big mouth and as welles he got giant bible in his hand. All right, what's his other hand doing? He's pointing his finger and wagging at the people. I draw this caricature of what they thought of when they thought of a pastor. And then I turned to them and I said.
Do I look like that?
No, except once smart in the back. Yes. And I think I think that's the case for almost all of us, related to what we believe, what we do, our occupation, there's all these caricatures of that. I mean, every time I tell somebody eventually that I'm a pastor, or not just a pastor, I'm a person of faith, I'm a follower of Jesus, there's kind of this awkward silence, you know, and then they're like.
Uh uh, my third cousin twice removed, read the Bible once, and like I get reduced, like the only thing I that my whole life is about this one little thing. And you know, we all love caricatures when you go to King's Island or you go to the fair.
Or something, so they draws a caricature, but we don't like it of ourselves. And we often do that to others too, And a caricature artist will take one aspect exaggerated beyond the truth. I didn't realize that it's such a big forehead, my nose isn't that big. I think for a lot of people, they have caricatures of Christians. They've never met a real Christian and so all they know is what they've heard from a distance. Or maybe
there certainly we've all been bad examples. I've been a bad example too, where you think, well, I think Christians are all brainless because I've heard that faith is the opposite of evidence, which of course we don't believe that, but they've heard that. Or all Christians are hypocrites, because there's plenty of us that are hypocrites, and even I'm a hypocrite. But part of hypocrisy is trying to own what you do wrong and say, man, I did live
up to on standards. Again, I want to admit that, and I'm trying to do better, versus sitting on a soapbox and pretending that you're suddenly perfect, that you have the right to look down at other people. I think that's the other caricatures that Christians who are just judgmental. They're not graceful, they're merciful. There's an old Simpsons episode where Ned Flanders is on his way to church camp and the Homer turns them and says church camp is that where you Christians go to learn how to be
more judgmental. So I think there are lots of caricatures and that ownership is on us and one not careature other people. But as Christians, I want to try and show that I'm not like the caricature. I'm distinct, I'm different, I'm winsome, I'm honest. I do own my own stuff. So that's kind of the ownership, and that's not just true of us as people of faith. I mean, if you're liberal, you're probably the caricature of conservatives. You're conservative,
you're caricatural liberals. If you kind of grew up in the Union, you have a caricature of you at the company shop and the owners and the white collar workers are like rice versus. I think all of us need to be careful to not reduce people down to some sliver of who they are.
But you know, we do it all the time. I mean, you're one hundred percent right. I wish we didn't do it. There are a lot of things I wish I didn't do. I wish I don't do. I want to get into a couple of them specifically, though certainly there are a lot of people in every walk of life that are hypocritical. You know, a Christian, for a sample, fails to live up to the message of love and forgiveness, but they preach and they're quick to judge others. That's more of
a case help me here, now, pastor. That's more of a case of someone who's probably not a Christian. I don't mean, I don't mean to throw a blanket over people who are not people of faith. I don't mean it that way. What I mean is is that if you think someone is a Christian and you see that they're failing to live up to that standard, I guess you could say, is that person really a Christian after all?
Is that fair?
Fair point?
Well, I think there's one part of it. I also think that I don't know anyone who lives up during expectations, and that's religious or irreligious alike. So, but I do think if you don't see any fruit, if you don't see any indication of someone, I mean, the Bible can be reduced down to two statements. Jesus just brilliantly reduced all the complexity of the Bible to two things. You know, you're learning how to love God and you're learning how
to love people. So if you don't see any evidence of someone learning how to love God or learn to love people, I would say they probably haven't first seen the message that God loves them and God loves people. So it begins with you before I try and act out on something. The motivation is, man, I saw somebody
do this to me. When you realize that God the universe have and so compassionate to you, you're like, man, I didn't really deserve it, and he was so patient with me, and I want to try and be more patient and more compassionate with others and the other end. Again, we never live up to our own standards, so I think it's in our own imperfect way. We are trying to make progress, not perfection. And I think a person of real faith, the main characteristic you would see in
them is humility, which is I'm humble. It doesn't mean I'll struggle there against the bride, but it means I'm humble enough to realize, man, I really don't have my act together, and God love me, and I'm open to feedback. I'm open to where I might be wrong, because the whole message of the Bible is that I did a lot of stuff wrong. So whatever my boss is mentioning, my wife is mentioning, my kids are mentioning, this might be one of those things. I think humility would be
one of the main things you'd want to see. But certainly there are people who pretend to be one thing and they're not, or they think they're one thing that they're not. And I do think it's fair to say you can, you know, judge them by their fruit, or you can examine and look for fruit in their life. But I do think anytime you think there's some magic wand where there's perfect people, I mean, if there's a way to make imperfect people perfect on this earth, I
mean we should bottle that and sell it. Pap would be drinking it and passing around to their kids and otherwise, you know.
The other one that that always bothers me and I do hear this from time to time, and I just scratch my head, I shake my head in disbelief is that oftentimes a Christian is perceived as being anti intellectual or anti science. Let's start with the science part. Some of the greatest scientists household names have been some of the best Christians out there, and their science in fact led them to being more Christian.
With every science we have is developed by a Bible believing Christian. You think about Louis Pasture and the pastorization of milk, getting rid of the idea of a spontaneous generation. There was a common belief that you could just throw rags in a corner and poof, I would jump a mouse. And he came out with the it's not really a law, but biogenesis is called which life comes from life. You
can't get life from non life. You think about the father of astronomy, Johann Kepler, and again this guy was a Bible believing Chrision Isaac Newton, who was an absolute genius. And you can actually google this. You can look he wrote. He invented calculus as we know it. He invented everything we know about gravitational poll at the time, and he wrote as much about the Bible as he did about gravitational pool in algebra. So these are really brilliant people.
And I think that caricature that kind of check your brain to door if you're a Christian comes from an inaccurate but well traveled phrase about faith. People will say, well, faith is the opposite of evidence. And every time I hear that on TV, and I hear it all the time, I want to throw some up at the TV. Faith is not the oposite the absence of evidence. That's called ignorance. Faith is putting your confidence in the evidence. You can have as much faith as you want in sin ice
and you're still going to fall through. But you can have just a little bit of faith in thick eyes and you can walk on it. That's why Jesus says, it's not the size of your faith, it's what you put your faith in. I think of it this way. Just to science, for example, what makes more sense a rational god create a rational universe that can be studied rationally. That makes a lot of sense. Or an irrational process
create a rational world that can be studied rationally. Even the idea of rationality is built on the foundation that there was a mind that created the universe, and that that mind was rational and want us to discover about him and about his universe, and all of that flows out of the very idea of a Christian worldview.
The last one I want to get to before we let you go is the idea the stereotype out there yet those of faith are pushy. You know, they're very aggressive and trying to convert others. And you told a story the other day involving bread crumbs.
Yeah, well, if you think about how most people get influence to do anything. Number one, they don't know anyone who believes what you believe, and they don't like anyone who believes that you believe. And so the first step is recognizing, like any good communicator, where's my audience at they have no conscious awareness of me or my message. So the first step is honestly, in anything that you don't know much about, having a positive attitude toward that person,
and so that person doesn't come across pushy. They're just going to drop a bread crumb. And they mentioned they went to church this weekend when you said stuff. And if you show interest, you know, they may keep talking. If you don't show interests, they're smart enough to shut up. And I think a lot of us, you know, it doesn't matter what it is, whether it's the stereotypical Amway salesman when you're a kid, or the multi marketing person
you're like, listen, can't you read the room? Here? People? The cluephones ring and I'm not interested, But However, at some point, maybe if you're our good neighbor, the way you're living your life, the way you love your spouse, the way you parents your kids, people just notice and they'll start to have a positive attitude towards you as a messenger of that message. And then I get curious, and again you're dropping breadcrumbs about You're just talking about
your life, right, my life. You know what happened this weekend? Well, I have a life, and I had to fight. But I realized later I need to go back and apologize. Really, I don't know people who typically talk about the fact they fight with their wife, and you admitted that, you apologize, I really struggle with pride, And suddenly they're a little interested, and it's like, tell me more about that, and you're looking for that that tell me more about that moment.
And so part of not being pushy with any subject is honestly living your life authentically, being a genuine article of owning your own stuff. So you show that I'm not like the hypocrites in the sense that I own it. When I'm a hypogrite, you know, I try and be gracious toward other people, just towards myself and others, And I think that's what people are looking for, the genuine article. So how can I be the genuine article? How do I investigate? You might say, no, I don't believe those
Christian people because I got a bad caricature. I would just encourage you to investigate and get to know one that's not that way and say what makes them distinct? And is there something there? Is? All of us as human beings, we have questions about the big things in life. Who am I? What happens when I die? What's the problem with life? What's the solution with life? And that's
why christian too, and breadcrumbs. You're dropping the benefits. You're just always talking with the benefits to your life, which is you know, I just lost my grandmother. This is not your story of hypthetically. You just lost my grandmother last week, and man, I'm so glad I get to see her again. That might be a bread crumb, but it's also true part of when you deal with death. There's a real hope you can rub into your grief that Christianity offers. It's very unique. It comes across in humility,
it comes across and apologizing. It's just you're talking about your regular life. But you are dropping breadcrumbs and see if people are interested.
Well, this is teddy you.
People don't carry what you know until they know that you care. So be a person who cares absolutely.
And that's great advice, even for those that have not reached a point in their life where they're a spiritual person, but certainly fighting and avoiding and at least being open minded to stereotypes. Chad, have a great rest of your day. We'll look forward to catching up with you again next week.
Sir, good time, Thanks so much.
All righty Chad Hooven kind enough to join us each and every Wednesday at this time for plane Glass, stained Glass, Well, joining us about every ten minutes on a regular basis, our good buddy, Chuck Ingram Chuck.
What's the very latest on the roadway? Latest is a new accident. It's westbound two seventy five before you get to the new Richmond exit. Traffics now backing up to five mile, and the eastbound two seventy five was running slow from Kelwogg to that new construction layout near the new Richmond ramp. This from the UC Health Tramfhing Center. You see health weaightfall Center are off for a surgical and medico Obcitycaren expertise called five one three nine three
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