Capitol Hill

This past Thursday I was given an Good Neighbor award by Capitol Hill United Neighborhoods (CHUN) for my work in the area of public safety through Neighbors on the Hill (NOTH).

Now, for those of you who know me, you realize that the reason I'm so involved in my community is that I see it as essential to my vocation as a citizen ... in other words, it's part of how I live out my faith.

Most of you who read my blog also are most likely aware that I believe vocation is at the heart of how we need to do evangelism in a post-Christian world. The general idea is that, as we live out our faith, our lives will look different and people will be prompted by the Spirit to ask what it is that causes us to live our lives the way we do.

While, this approach works to an extent, it has its limitations. After all, I'm not the only one working to make my neighborhood safe ... I wasn't even the only one awarded for my work. In fact, we have atheists, Jews, agnostics and others who are a part of Neighbors on the Hill, and we're all working on making Capitol Hill a better, cleaner, and safer place for all of us to live.

So, what is the other key to Christian living in the New Testament that prompts people to ask what it is about us that's different? According to 1 Peter (and a number of other places), the answer is our Christian hope ... that certain confidence we have that Christ is going to return and, when He does, life will be so incredible that it will far outweigh any suffering we experience on this side of eternity.

May God give us all the hope we need when times are tough and allow that hope to be a wonderful witness to the work of Christ in our lives.

A while back I took this picture from the roof of my building in Capitol Hill and posted it on my flickr page (which is also a great place to see the latest pictures of Robbie). Well, Schmap, a group that does online neighborhood guides, saw the picture and decided to include it in their guide for Capitol Hill. Here's the link.

Around a month ago I was asked by Drew O'Connor, the guy who heads up CHUN, to serve as a moderator for People Speak, an event that is part of the Capitol Hill People's Fair.

People Speak is pretty much what the name would imply. It's an invitation for people to get up on a soapbox and talk about whatever they want to talk about for five minutes. The only major requests are that they don't swear and that they are hard on the issues but easy on the people gathered. Part of my role as moderator was to try and put people who were talking about the same kinds of issues together so they could almost have a debate style discussion.

For most of my two hours things were fairly easy going and there weren't many people wanting to speak, let alone people open to speaking on controversial topics. However, towards the end of my second hour some meaty issues arose.

One gal spoke out against coal fired power plants while another man addressed the need for a co-op grocery store here in Denver to prevent major industries from controlling our food supply. A third guy addressed 9-11 as being an inside job and still another, a teenager, defended evolution for a philosophical standpoint. In each of these cases the presenters put together a logical argument that backed their case. Then a Christian got up to speak.

Last month I heard of still another opinion survey that identified the three most common descriptors of Christians as (1) judgmental, (2) hypocritical, and (3) no fun. The other day my buddy Bobby C posted a blog about Christians being like an obnoxious uncle. This guy fit these stereotypes and more. He opened up by saying that science doesn't matter and that he has no rational argument. This was followed by this dancing around spewing out of all kinds of "church talk" while other Christians started hooting, hollering, and cheering him on.

While he was doing his thing, a guy standing next to me turned, smiled, and said, "What a complete dumbass." Honestly, I couldn't disagree with him. The man offered every reason in the world why someone shouldn't believe, after all, based on his speech, following Jesus means not thinking and learning how to bounce around while saying odd words that have somehow add syllables when they go from print to speech.

Interestingly enough, the guy standing next to me assumed that my willingness to moderate a public discussion forum and give equal opportunity for everyone to speak was more than enough evidence that I wasn't a Christian.

Is it just me or is it about time that Christians learn how to speak without saying or doing something stupid?