Crazy Church People.

"Thank you for being a crazy church person."

This news couldn't wait. These are the words that came out of my best friend's mouth tonight. She called and told me that the most exciting thing had happened to her, and for the first time in perhaps ever, I heard pure joy in her voice. She first thanked me for being a "crazy church person" friend and apologized for making fun of me, telling me how she was glad I never backed down when everyone else had been so hard on me for my "crazy church person-ess." I had no idea my pursuit of real church, real Christ, real community, had gone noticed by even my closest of friends. I've never felt so encouraged. But that isn't the point in me writing this. My story is this:

Now she had finally seen what I saw, and it wasn't the Christianity we both had been raised in, it was Christ and what he meant his church to be. Within minutes she had revealed to me how she was ready to pack up and leave Christianity forever, leave the religion she had been brought up in. But how something had changed. And she was itching to show the world what she had just had an epiphany over. THIS was God moving. I have never seen something quite like it. She had this drive, this itch. She described it as "only scratching the surface." Thank God. Finally. Finally someone sees, that is what the reality of Christ is supposed to do. Scratch the surface. Make us dig for more. Long for more. Thirst, hunger, pine for more. She told me how the church of the Bible, the real church, wasn't like the churches today. She mentioned the small groups, house churches, prayer groups, community, and friendships we had fostered and how those were church, how face to face contact was what church was. I have never been so overjoyed for anyone ever. I heard tears of joy in her voice. And I felt tears well up in my eyes.

She told me I helped her see what Christianity really was. Little did she know in that moment she helped me see just as much.

The type of Christianity I think most people see or are familiar with is not even Christianity at all. And when I see someone, like today, whom I love more than myself, see this and not only see it but want to tell the whole world about it, I am encouraged, because THAT is what being a follower of Christ is.

This news couldn't wait. This news can't wait. The reality of Christ is so unknown, even in churches. Who Christ really is and what that means and what he has for us needs to spread like wildfire. There are so many "churched Christians" that don't even know this. It is through people like my best friend that I believe that real Christianity grows from.

Like wildfire, let it spread like wildfire.