How "Happy Zombie Day" should make you bold.

A few years ago a friend of mine posted "Happy Zombie Day" on all of her social media sites in honor of Easter.  She and her friends thought it was a hoot to land a zinger on Christians about the laughable idea that Jesus rose from the dead.

Knowing her cynical personality, I was like, "whatever . . ."

But thinking about it, should I have said something?

Like what?  Like, "take that down, you're offending me!"

Hardly.
I get so offended at people getting so offended.

How about: "wait, so you think that the resurrection of Jesus - an historical event that has surpassed the Biblical and extra-Biblical scrutiny of twenty centuries, including modern historians, text analysts and forensic historians - is now just a cute idea that we can have fun with?"

That sounds more like the real me, but it doesn't fit into 140 characters.

So I just kind of let it go . . .

But in retrospect, maybe I should have been more bold.  I mean, her status wasn't exactly timid - what would it matter if I showed similar boldness in arranging a swap?

"Hey - what do you say if we swap books?  I will lend you one of my books about Jesus if you will lend me one of your books about why the Jesus thing is ridiculous."

Seems fair.

Or maybe, "Let's examine this together.  I will go with you to your poetry slam if you come with me to my LIFE group."

No seriously - people go to those.  Stop laughing.

Alright, how about, "I will pay you cash to come to church with me at Easter."

Scratch that.  That's just weird.  

Fourth try:
"There are a bunch of times that we have our Easter gatherings this weekend - not just Sunday morning - come with me to one of them and see what this is like . . . you might be surprised."

In our culture, we see a lot of boldness in having fun at the expense of Christ.  Maybe it is time for us to have a little bit of boldness in trying to cross the lines into other people's lives that we care about.  I mean, we spend so much of our lives with people that mean something to us - why not muster up just 15 seconds of extra boldness and invite them to your church this weekend?

We need to remind each other that there were no Christians at the first Easter.  Everyone was a first-timer.  Church isn't a club, it's a lifeboat.

People . . . reality check . . . God's Son rose from the dead.  If we don't have guts about this, then what do we have guts about?  Take a moment to invite someone.

You might be surprised at the result.

As for me - won't you join me this weekend?  It's been a while - click this link to find out when the times are best for you to come to LCBC this weekend . . .