cultural dichotomy

Archive for the ‘Me’ Category


Posted on June 13, 2008 - by ray

Passion

I’m passionate about quite a few things. It seems as I’ve gotten older that I’ve been able to refine the list of things I am passionate about. For example, when I was younger (11-12 years old) I was passionate about the color purple and the TCU Horned Frogs. Fortunately I’ve evolved and the color purple is generally avoided.

Today my passions include:

  • God & making him known
  • my wife
  • helping my children see that God is about a relationship, not about a religion
  • Mac’s (really all things Apple)
  • Ecclesiology
  • cycling
  • helping others to see that we’ve got it all wrong - the church should be the primary force behind missions, not some para-church organization

I’m sure there might be others, but these are the ones that instantly come to mind when I think about things I’m passionate about. Here’s my question: how do we get others to be just as passionate (or even more passionate) about the things we’re passionate about? How do we sell our passion?

Now, I think passions have an inherent hierarchy built into them that has a bearing on whether you “sell” them to others. For example, I’m not too interested in helping others to get as passionate about my wife as I am. The passion for my wife is a private passion. But those things that I’m publicly passionate about (making God known & Mac’s), what’s the key to helping others catch the passion?

And there’s something else to think through as well…isn’t there an inherent risk in selling those things I’m passionate about? What happens if my passion about Mac’s causes my friends to all buy Mac’s and then they end up having problems with their computer? Isn’t some of the blame placed on me for maybe over-hyping Mac? And can’t the same thing happen when I sell God to others (I know some of you might have a problem with the wording I just used)? If someone is journeying toward God and has a bad experience because of it have I done more damage to the name of Christ than I have good?

I think I have some answers to my own questions, but I’ll save them for another day. I just wanted to throw out some thoughts I’ve been having the last couple of days.

-shorty