From my inbox today
“Hi
I stumbled on your weblog through the magic of google (was looking for some tattoo pictures and came across your LA Ink experience). I just wanted to congratulate you on being one of the very few pastors or openly religious folk in general who I have “encountered” (can reading someone’s blog on the internet really be considered ‘encountering’ them? I don’t know), who I have not been completely disgusted by! In fact, if you were not Christian, or at least not as public about it as you seem to be, I would probably think you were a pretty cool guy. Nice ink, by the way.
- google searching person”
Let’s continue trying to not disgust people.
Los
RAIN IT DOWN
amen.
Google searching people are cool!!
I’m confused. So since you are a pastor, they don’t think you’re a pretty cool guy?
But ya. what’s not to like. yous a cool guy.
wow….
interesting…although that last line:
“In fact, if you were not Christian, or at least not as public about it as you seem to be, I would probably think you were a pretty cool guy.”
leaves me alittle confused……
That’s a great goal.
LOL… I love how people think
“if you were not Christian, or at least not as public about it as you seem to be, I would probably think you were a pretty cool guy.”
so are you cool or not? Yes, lets not disgust people, but lets also hold off judgment as well
“…if you were not Christian, or at least not as public about it as you seem to be, I would probably think you were a pretty cool guy.”
Wow… Tough choice. Deny Christ (or at least dim your light), or be uncool. Hmm…
“Alex, I’ll take totally uncool for $100…”
Kent
backhanded complement much? heh
Now there’s a good motto:
“Ragamuffin Soul: actively trying not to disgust people, 24-7.”
=)
oh man…that made me lol. and Rachel’s comment made me lol more.
In all seriousness though, people who are Christians do that all the time “man, if that girl/guy wasn’t an atheist I would TOTALLY hang out with them!”
makes how odd that is a little more apparent when the shoe is on the other foot.
I’ve been following your Tweets on my iPhone for a couple weeks now, but I just finally realized that I saw your L.A. Ink show a while back. // “So that’s who that guy is!” ['Love reading your mini-blog tweets by the way.] Peace! http://twitter.com/gorringe
Love Rachel’s comment. I’ll jump on the bandwagon and work on not disgusting too many people
lol that kid sounds cool.
peace|dewde
http://dewde.com
yes, let’s.
“In fact, if you were not Christian, or at least not as public about it as you seem to be, I would probably think you were a pretty cool guy.”
so close…. so far away
Might be good to know how this person defines what disgusts him.
z
In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
Yeah, this is someone I’d love to hang out with a little to find out where the bitterness is coming from. There’s a story there.
But you definitely do a great job of understanding social media. If I’m ever in the ATL, I’d love to come by your church. Our music director gets all the social relevance within the church, but social media? Not so much. I need to point him at you and give him a few lessons on ways to use the Mac outside ProTools.
not trying to cause trouble here and not necessarily even disagreeing with your post, but….. a lot of people think you are disgusting or uncool if you share the gospel or say you believe that Jesus is the only way to the Father… and i’m not talking about shouting it out at people or condemning people…. just sharing… lovingly sharing. just check the comments on some of the blogs out there for the attitude toward christianity… crooksandliars for one… so how far do we go in order to not disgust people? seems like i recall that people would hate you for His Name sake no matter how cool we look or act or dress or sing or blog or whatever. i agree we should be like paul and relate to the culture but it seems to me the guy would only think you were cool so as long as you didn’t proclaim Christ. is that what we want?
dp.
Not at all.
I am just pumped that a non christian found my site and thought what was going on here was great.
Completely awesome.
so the motto that Rachel commented with…
should totally go on the Ragamuffin Soul t-shirt.
LOL!!!
Rachel wins.
First the cocksuckers post and now this. I love you for it, bro! Keep up that which only you can do!
I was watching a church video yesterday about having the aroma or “stink” of Jesus, bringing hope to others and I thought of how many non-believers are repulsed by the stink of religion but people call it Jesus. We need to get our stink right!
I’m not Christian, religious, etc. And I read your and wife’s site everyday. I AM inspired by it. And it does make me think a lot. And I can relate to what the poster said, although not how crudely they said it.
But, I think that the reaction comes from having met a lot of people when you were younger, who were preaching to do this and that, being active in their religion…and then actually being very unforgiving, judgmental, hypocritical jerks in real life. So….then you develop that stereotype of people. And you avoid people who talk about religion a lot, because you automatically assume they’re just spouting B.S., and are probably not very nice people. Use religion as their “free pass” to be bad people. I do think that “bad” representations, if that makes sense, can really leave a bad taste in one’s mouth. Sorry, but just being honest… Just giving perspective of my past experiences, and how that shaped some of my own judgments. But, yeah, you’re kind of shocked sometimes when you meet “cool” people living that life/faith, etc.
I really like this blog because I can relate on other levels, but also because it challenges my beliefs about how people with strong faiths act, what it really looks like to follow God, the normalcy of life, the challenges to remain faithful, etc.
I just love how if you weren’t a christian you’d be a cool guy.
Hmm…
I wish I could read your inbox for a day. (without the responsibility of replying to them all of course)
http://www.vagabondrunn.wordpress.com
well look at that! God is good ALL THE TIME! and in every way…
ha ha!
I win?!
Well gosh. I’m flattered, really. That made my night. Good discussion, y’all.
I’m reading “The God Delusion” right now by Richard Dawkins- he says in his preface something along the lines that his goal for the book is that if you begin reading it with religious beliefs, you will lose that faith by the end of the book. My natural inclination would be to be protective of the church, which he slams in every other (extremely well written, mind you) sentence, but I find myself really looking at this guy to see where we Christians went wrong with him. I think the only way to reach these people is through people like Los, and places like here, where there is authenticity without judgement. Just my two cents
hmmm, I thought ““In fact, if you were not Christian, or at least not as public about it as you seem to be, I would probably think you were a pretty cool guy.””
was pretty funny and a compliment.
This is cool. i love it that people who may not agree with our stance on God still feel welcome enough to stop by and interact with us…ink and all.
@carie what a great thing to say and thanks for being so openminded.
I sure I speak for lots of people here that you are always welcome here!