Note: This is the third part in a five-part series about talking about the hard stuff. Find the first part here, and the second part here.
Enough prefacing. Here are 10 things we need to be talking about more or speaking about in a different way in the church context.
1) Sexual sin/addiction.
I’ve written about this before. The church often approaches this topic in one of two ways. Either we’re super condemning of it, and by default those who struggle with it, or we don’t talk about it at all. Especially overlooked in this area are pastors who fight against these things on a daily basis on a personal level. But this should be primary among our conversation topics because, as 1 Corinthians 6:18 reminds us, “Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.” Since this kind of sin cuts deeper than every other sin, we must talk about this more and more.
2) Mental illness.
I wrote about this in the same post as sexual addiction/sin. I’m just going to quote that here:
When you deal with something like mental illness – depression, anxiety or anything like it – you feel alone, like you’re the only one suffering. I think back to my church experience and I can’t remember anyone in my local church context really tackling this. I read an excellent book by Perry Noble called Overwhelmed in which he actually talked in-depth about it from his personal experience, but for the most part it’s touched with kid gloves if it’s touched at all.
This is the absolute last way it needs to be handled. I’m not saying we need to overwhelm people who are already overwhelmed. We just need to be open to the conversation actually happening and be willing to not know all the answers.
3) High school kids.
A lot of what I’ve heard in the church echoes a lot of what I hear in the education world in which I am currently employed when it comes to high schoolers. You judge it by the numbers, take little time to actually invest in the lives of students and speak disparagingly of the kids when you’re not around them. I was at church about a month ago when I overheard someone talking about some high school-aged kids they ran across while driving and they were super critical of them and their parents, without even having spent time with them. So we do talk about them, but we don’t take the time to actually invest, to consider them as people, to love them as we would want to be loved.
4) Actually loving LGBT people.
This one is particularly relevant. With the recent SCOTUS decision, there’s been a lot of talk of loving gay people but still standing for truth. Unfortunately, we spend more time standing for truth and not actually loving gay people. We also spend more time talking about what it means to stand for truth. Those are conversations that need to be had, yes, but let’s not forget to actually talk about what it means to actually love those in the LGBT community.
5) Alcohol.
The common narrative, particularly for young people, about alcohol is that it’s bad always, and you should never do it. We speak about the negative consequences of getting drunk and all that. Let’s not forget that it’s illegal if you’re under 21. Like sexual sin, we most often take a condemning approach instead of saying, “Hey, alcohol is illegal to consume if you’re under 21. Here’s the reasons why it’s not good for you to participate in consuming it. But once you turn 21, here’s how to be smart about it.” We’re too busy telling kids not to do something instead of why not and then how to be smart about it.
6) Feelings and emotions.
This is one that is particularly close to my heart because I deal with feelings and emotions in a more intimate way than most, at least that’s what I’ve been told. I sway back and forth with feelings and emotions sometimes by the minute, and it can drive me up the wall without any real reason for those feelings. This one can be tied in with mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety. Anyways, I don’t feel like I’ve read much in how to deal with feelings and emotions in a proper way, other than the occasional conversation or blog post on dealing with anxiety or stress. It’s a tricky subject to discuss because it’s different for everybody. Doesn’t mean we shouldn’t talk about it.
7) Racism.
There isn’t a better time than now to be honest about this and have in-depth, personal, loving, gracious discussion.
8) “Secular” music.
I’ve recently come to the conclusion that we handle this wrong most of the time, particularly with youth. We act as if this is the end-all, be-all problem, that if only we could get them to listen to Christian music alone we could fix them. Not all “secular” music is bad. In fact, there’s some that have positive messages that I’m pretty sure Jesus would endorse in songs like “Honey, I’m Good.” by Andy Grammer (even though it has three pieces of profanity) and even “Jesus Walks” by Kanye West (even though it has much more profanity). For the most part, we just write it off without giving it time.
9) Dating relationships/marriage.
Gosh, I feel like I was never prepared properly for dating. It became so much about “seeking God’s will” that I would quit relationships or pursuing relationships whenever I “felt like” God was “calling” me away from dating. It was such an unstable mindset to have. I’m afraid that, to single people, we’re not always honest about all the difficulties in feelings especially. The proper expectations aren’t discussed, and therefore things become particularly uncomfortable and awkward. Yes, we can never be fully prepared for dating because it’s different things for different couples, but we could do so much better than we are now if we actually talked about it honestly with guys and girls.
10) The Gospel.
If we actually dove deep enough into the Gospel, I think it would shatter what we view as Christianity. Christianity is so much more than being good enough. It’s being not good enough and seeing Jesus be good enough for us. If we let the Gospel permeate our faith as it should, we’d have a whole different approach to this thing we call life. We’d be able to see that sin is just a part of who we are. We’d be able to see that we will sin the rest of our life. We’d be able to see that it’s OK that we do that because Jesus was sinless for us. We’d be able to see that no one is beyond saving, that God can redeem the harshest of sinners. But that kind of talk is crazy, right?
Check back soon for part 4 – 10 More Pieces “Hard Stuff” We Need to Talk About More/Differently in the Church.
By A Ransomed Soul 