The Christian Bubble

Then I began noticing what most of us talk about. Generally it's the latest Christian band or concert or what's happening at church. As I recognized that we really only socialize with our Christian friends, I also recognized that overall, we are complacent about those outside the church. We aren't thinking about their eternal destiny. We aren't concerned about whether they're experiencing the abundant life Jesus offers. We are all about making church better for ourselves and making our lives more comfortable in the Christian bubble we have created.


Phase 1: We become Christians

Many Christians can think back to the time when they placed their faith in Jesus, understood the grace of God, and experienced the excitement and joy of learning new things from the Bible. For some individuals this may have happened when they were teenagers or even adults. Remember that burst of understanding God's grace and joy in Jesus as you told your non-Christian friends about your faith? Probably this occurred in a natural way, since you were friends rather than strangers. I recall reading that within the first year of someone's becoming a Christian, they tell approximately twenty people, from among their family and friends, about their faith and even invite them to church. This is only natural because genrally everyone in the new Christian's circle of friends is outside of the church.

Phase 2: We become part of church life

As we get involved in church, we make Christian friends and participate in church activities with them. If we came from backgrounds where substance abuse or partying is the norm, we cease going into environments where we could get pulled into harmful patterns again, though we might still hang out with our non-Christian friends in healthy environments or social settings. But in any case, we tend to slowly lose touch with non-Christian friends and become more immersed in Christian activity with our new Christian friends.

The longer we are Christians, the fewer the number of friends we have who are not Christians. Even though Christians often work alongside non-Christians or have non-Christian neighbors or sit next to nonbelieving students in class, we generally tend not to actually befriend them, or regularly pray for them, or get involved in their lives so they trust us and we can be the salt and light of Jesus to them.

It seems incredibly ironic that as we mature and get to know Scripture better and get to know Jesus better and are transformed all the more by the Spirit, fewer non-Christians get to experience those things through relationships with us.
If Jesus sent us on a mission to be His salt and light to others, why is it that we have basically set up our church systems and subcultures to remove maturing people from relationships with people outside of the church?

Phase 3: We become part of the Christian bubble

Things really start changing in phase 3. As we slowly withdraw from ongoing relationships with those outside the church and focus on relationships with those inside the church, something happens. Once, it was more natural and even exciting to share life with people at work or at school, with relatives, or with neighbors. But slowly we begin to see evangelism as something the church does, primarily through events. We start to see evangelism as inviting people to go to a church, where the pastor will do the evangelizing and explain Christianity, instead of spending time with people and talking with them and being the church to them.

During this phase, we stop praying daily for those who don't know Jesus and instead pray for our church's latest building project or latest program. Other than maybe at an office Christmas party that we have to go to, we rarely ever hang out with non-Christian friends or go to movies with them. The transformation is complete. We have become citizens of the bubble.

Phase 4: We become Jonah

After several years as citizens of the bubble, we begin to complain and point out the terrible things happening in the culture. Like Jonah in the Hebrew Bible, who ran away when God told him to go to the wicked city of Ninevah, we don't want anything to do with those who aren't following God as we are.
We can actually get a bizarre sense of enjoyment sitting around with Christian friends talking about how lucky we are that we aren't "in the world" anymore. We get into a retreat mentality in which we think of the church as a protection-from-the-world social club. We may see those around us as lost, and though we might invite them to Christmas musicals, for the most part we don't think about their lostness like we used to when we prayed for them daily by name.

The sad fact is that if at phase 1 we could see ourselves in phase 4 as citizens of the bubble, we probably wouldn't even recognize ourselves. Hopefully, the Spirit of God has transformed us into living more Jesus-like lives since phase 1.

...
After the horrible discovery of what I had become, I realized I needed to escape the bubble I was now in. I decided I'd rather study in a coffeehouse where I'd be around people, with my Bible and commentaries open in full view. I also used the time to get to know the names of the staff at the coffeehouses and engage in little conversations in which they asked about what I do and what I'm reading. Little by little I gained their trust and aable to ask them what they think about Christianity and the church.
...

Jesus didn't pray that we isolate ourselves from those outside the church. He didn't pray that we should be happy and content living inside a Christian bubble listening to our favorite worship band or Christian musician on our iPods. Instead, Jesus seemed concerned that His followers not isolate themselves from the world around them.

I wonder if our greatest deception in the church today is our being comfortably numb in the safety of our Christian bubble with all the Christian T-shirts and candy and CDs we find inside.
We need to look around us and see people through His compassionate eyes. The question I have for you is, are you in the prison of the Christian bubble? Have you become comfortably numb? Perhaps you haven't realized it, but you are there. Are you going to surrender to it, or are you planning your escape? People who like Jesus are waiting on the outside to meet you.

p. 42-48