An excerpt from Taylor’s blog…
Many people know I just returned from a mission trip in Romania. Everyone keeps asking me, “How was your trip?!” and of course my response is always “Great!” It’s hard to give more than a one-word answer when talking to someone in passing. But I hate that I can’t just vomit my whole trip out onto them. I want to shake people and tell them to wake up because there is so much wrong in this world and more people need to do something about it. I want to be able to show them the difference I was making and how many times God showed up in such a real way, it would be nearly impossible to deny His existence. I have lots of pictures, but there were so many places I wasn’t allowed to take my camera to because of the conditions people were living in. It’s so sad how blind America is. How blind the church in America has become.
Everything needs to change. I watched the Romanian people in worship and I was in awe of how passionate they are. I saw 70-year-old men jumping and dancing around the sanctuary. These people are really living the way Jesus did. They’re really going out into their community and building up relationships with people and serving them. They get the police called on them when they visit parks. They have gypsy people persecuting them, people making fun of them to their faces. But they still go out there anyway. Jesus is real to them. He’s not their homeboy. He’s not a bobble head or on bumper stickers. He’s their only hope. He’s all they have. But He’s more than enough for them.
How come He isn’t more then enough for us? What is enough? We’ve built up this equity system that doesn’t lead us to work for the common good. The gap between rich and poor grows more and more. Then the poor use the ignorance of the rich to justify crime, war, terrorism and the rich polarize from the poor by shutting them out. We have this system that feeds civilization with products and services that leads us to constantly want newer, better things. We’ve been guided to disrespect environmental limits and pursue as much resource use and waste production as possible. We burn through non-renewable resources without concern for their eventual disappearance. We don’t reconcile peacefully with competition. Instead there are patriotic religious stories that celebrate how “redemptive violence’ has helped “the good people” (us) defeat the “evil people” (them) throughout history. When more nations arm themselves with more lethal weapons, everyone feels less secure. Jesus offered an alternative way from all this, but we have to re frame him outside the stereotypical assumptions that have developed.
I heard Shane Claiborne speak once and I’ll always remember this thing he said. “We tend to throw our hands up at God and say ‘Why aren’t you doing anything about this?’ but God says, ‘I did. I created you.’” God chose us. Not some of us. All of us. And we have the choice to choose Him back. If we weren’t given the choice, we’d all be a bunch of puppets. But if you choose God, you must accept His calling to GO and do your part to save the nations.
The church has become so divided over stupid stuff. Why can’t we all just agree to disagree and actually live up to the one purpose we were put on this earth for- to love people, to satisfy the needs of the oppressed and feed the hungry? Christian doesn’t mean right-wing extremists or homo-sexual haters or hypocritical idiots. Sadly,a lot of people see Christianity as just that, even though that’s not what the REAL radical christians are about. That’s where we’ve missed the message of Jesus. He loves everyone just the same though. But if everyone is turned off or turned away from Christianity because of what it’s become in some places or how it’s represented by certain people, then who’s going to do something about it? You can’t expect to see God working through you in miraculous ways if you’re only giving Him twenty percent of your time or effort. He wants all of you. Trust me, it’s so worth it.Gandhi said, “The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world’s problems.”
I have so many stories of people being healed. I have so many stories of how people lived these awful, horrible lives and when they gave in and started listening to God, He saved them. I met a girl who was molested by her grandpa for ten years. I met a boy who’s dad sold him for a TV set. I met a girl whose boyfriend practiced vampirism with her. I met a girl who was involved in a lesbian relationship with a woman who was twenty years older than her. All these crazy stories where people were suicidal, depressed, anorexic, you name it. But you would NEVER have suspected anything like this happened in their life. They were happy, joyful, servant hearted people that loved God and had amazing testimonies of His work in their lives. And hey, I’ve got my own story.
I’m sorry this is so long and I’m like jumping from thing to thing. I’ve just been so lucky to have the opportunities to see what I’ve seen and I want people to know that it’s changed my life and I’m determined to change the world in some way and that people will know I’ve got a light in me. And for those people that know me- one day I hope you’ll see it and you’ll understand why I am who I am. I’ve got so much love in me right now. You need a hug? Want me to your laundry? Make you a sandwich? Let me know.