You’re an intense dude…
It’s something I (Clay) have heard more than once. I’ve been talking with someone, an acquaintance or even a good friend, and we end up on the topic of what time I get up, the things I do at those obscene hours of the morning, and the endurance challenges I pay to do. Inevitably (unless it’s a fellow insane person) the next comment is about how crazy or intense I am. Most of the time, the follow-up question is “why?”
Listen, I get it. When someone says they get up at 4am to voluntarily sit in cold water then work out for an hour, the “sane people” of the world are worried about that person’s mental wellbeing. Oh, and that is an everyday occurrence, no off days. So yeah, by comparison, that is a bit loco to the average, mentally stable human.
But, here’s the thing, my “people” are equally as loco, if not more. So when I look at them, I see that I am just doing the status quo. I am, in some cases, slacking and in need of more intensity. I may do a 40-mile race, but the crazies in my circle go and do 100-mile races. What I am getting at here is that when the average Joe compares themselves to me, I am intense and maybe a little off my rocker. But I run in circles with a bunch of savages, so by comparison I am certifiably sane.
What if this metaphorically describes the state of the church today? What measuring stick are we using to determine the health of our Christianity?
I remember when I was in college, the campus minister called us to more. He rightly pointed out that if we compared ourselves to our fellow Mercer colleagues, we were pretty spiritual. But we were just memorizing a few verses, studying the Bible for 10-20 minutes a day, and meeting to discuss once a week. That was, in comparison to those around me, living a very “Christian” life. And how much has the world changed now in 2025? If the measuring stick for how Christian we are is the world around us… well then, showing up to church, being in a small group, and reading a devotional every morning is radical.
But is it though?
I’m reading a book a friend gave me called “Finish the Mission.” As you probably guessed, it’s about missions, and more specifically, our mission as followers of Christ. The book proposes that “the outcome of missions is all peoples delighting to praise Jesus… But if Jesus’s charge to ‘make disciples of all nations’ is the heart of the commission, what does he mean by discipling? It is clear he does not mean the mere pursuit of conversion.” That’s just in the first 20 pages.
Are we living our lives as Christians based on how different we look compared with the world around us? If so, that is a low bar, and maybe we aren’t actually living biblically Christian lives. Everything we do and every part of who we are should be about finishing the mission. Even though we’re more connected than we ever have been, there are 2.5 billion people in the world today who have just enough knowledge of God to be condemned to hell. And, just to be clear, they aren’t all in the Middle East, Africa, and China. They are in line in front of you at the grocery store, they are your neighbors, and maybe even the person in the pew next to you at church.
What we call radical Christianity isn’t radical at all, it’s just Christianity – especially if we are comparing our lives to scripture and not the world around us.
Everything we do and every part of who we are should be about finishing the mission.
Listen, I am not special. I am not courageous. In fact, I might be a fool. The jury is still out on that one. But where I differ from most is the conviction to act. I am unable to read scripture or a book, hear a sermon, or feel the call of the Holy Spirit and not act. Our Savior Jesus was the ultimate “do as I do” leader. The sooner we take the gospel to those 2.5 billion people and give all people the opportunity to delight in Jesus, the sooner His Kingdom will come.
I give thanks for each of you who pray for us and support us. I also pray that the burden of the Great Commission would be so great you’d have no other option but to become radical – not in the eyes of the world around you – but to become exactly as you are called to be by Christ himself.