EXTREMISTS!

This past Sunday I got to preach during our weekly worship service. My topic was faith and being "ordinary people with ordinary faith or ordinary people with enough faith to do the things that should be ordinary for followers of Jesus." The title of the sermon was "Senseless Living" because living like that sure does seem pretty crazy to those who aren't following Jesus.

Anyway I had a lot of great notes and quotes. There was one thought that I just couldn't seem to fit into my sermon, but was so good. It's a thought that Shane Claiborne mentions in his book "Jesus For President." He asks, "Where are the extremists for grace and love?"

"Extremist" is a word used a lot considering the culture. We most often think of Islamic Extremists, which is a phrase that has become synonymous with terrorist, but you know what... the phrase Christian Extremist has pretty much become the same thing. Think about it, whenever anyone is talking about a Christian extremist your mind first goes to those people who blow up abortion clinics. What's with that?

I know we live in a culture where the negative gets much more attention than the positive, but the sad thing is that I don't think it even sounds shocking anymore when you hear that a Christian blew up an abortion clinic. Shouldn't Christians be known for choosing to love and offer grace to such extremes that it outweighs the negative?

Where are all the extremists for love and grace?