Church and Chicken

I'll read our school's newspaper, The Daily Athenaeum , every once in a while. I happened to pick it up last week and read an article by a student entitled, "No Need for the Separation of Church and Chicken". It was interesting, but not surprising, to hear her thoughts on Christianity.

She makes a connection between the great food that Chick-fil-a offers and the way in which they offer it. Here are some excerpts:

"Normally, when aspects of the Christian faith-or any religion-are thrust into my life without invitation, I get a little bit cranky. I'm old enough and smart enough now that if I wanted to be converted to your religion, I'd have figured it out by now."

"So Chick-fil-a is, all-around, the purveyor of good news that all Christians should be. If you want a tasty chicken sandwich, there's no need to worry about choking down a lesson on moral values with it. Chick-fil-a exhibts its Christian values with its excellent service, and that's that."

I hear her. She wants to see a demonstration of the transformed life. This is a huge part of impacting the un-churched. If we live like the world, how can we expect the world to believe in Jesus? Lifestyle evangelism is not enough. It earns us the right to be heard - meaning, we have to say something about how to cross the bridge to eternal life.

I think Christians justify being "nice." There are lots of nice atheists, and secular humanists. I'm not saying we need to be pushy, I'm saying we need to balance demonstration with words. I don't want to hear this when I stand before Jesus, "Rusty, people always talked about how nice you were to them, always serving them and helping, but they never heard you talk about me. They wish you would have told them why you act the way you do."