The LIGHT is coming soon!

I was beginning to feel like I was neglecting you ladies.....
Obviously Else felt that way too.
Maybe it's because I actually talked to most of you recently, so I felt no need to post here. Isn't THAT a good feeling?

Tonight was a good night. I had 707 lifegroup, which, to be honest, I haven't enjoyed for the past few weeks (if there are any 707ers reading this, sorry, but hear me out). We've been reading this book called UnChristian, which is written by Christians who did all this research about what people who aren't Christians perceive about people who are. To be honest, this book has been depressing me, and not really in a good-call-to-action kind of way. Not only that, but we've been reading it out loud during the study, since there are only 2 copies, and usually after about an hour of listening to people read various statistics aloud, I start to lose interest. There is discussion scattered around in there, and a lot of profound things have been said, but mostly I feel like the book is just nitpicking at all of the church's problems, which are very real, but doesn't really offer any practical solutions. To add to that, we tend to be getting this attitude: something along the lines of, "those Christians are screwing it up for the rest of us good Christians who actually want to make a difference." I want to be clear here. The people who go to this bible study are genuine, wonderful people. They are serious about following Christ.
I think it's easy for us, as Christians to get caught up in this idea that we are somehow superior to others because we think we have better intentions. But we're part of the group! For the most part, we should just take responsibility for the shortcomings of the group, even if they aren't the same as our own shortcomings, because plenty of our own problems define the problems of the group in other areas. (I feel like that might have been confusing. Let me give an example: Just because I personally don't stand in front of abortion clinics doesn't mean that I should think that I'm any better than people who do, because I give Christians a bad name by things that I do too...)
This reminds me of a part of Blue Like Jazz where Donald Miller and his pipe-smoking cohorts set up a confessional in the middle of the campus of Reed College, but rather than ask other people to confess, they confess to the people, essentially apologizing for all the wrongs that Christians have done over the ages. I think the reason I don't like this book is that I feel like it doesn't address the problem, and it just gives rise to pride in us because most of the things it is addressing are not things that I feel responsible for. The book makes me feel like a "better Christian" and I know full well that I'm not.
So tonight, we diverged from reading the book, and T-Fiz, one of the guys from 707, just went through a bunch of verses that have been on his heart in the past week, and as he brought one up, we just read it and talked about it. It was really cool to just have other Christians as a sounding board and just be reminded that scripture is true, relevant, and uplifting. For the first time in several weeks, I didn’t check the clock in the middle of bible study. And it was also one of the first weeks in a while that we’ve actually studied the bible in bible study. Revolutionary, I know.
Anyway, it’s around 1:30 am now, and my brain is fried, so I’ll sign off on that note.I love you ladies!Have wonderful refreshing weekends, and remember, the light is coming soon (I’m sort of ambiguously referring to Jesus, and the end of the semester… haha)

Love,
Kate