So, i spent roughly 6 hours on a porch of a party house in the getto. got to talk to a lot of people i wouldn't ordinarily get to talk to, got to see a different culture, got to be included in their culture. a few things struck me, i walked over and started talking and because i am white and talked to them i immediately earned their respect and was nicked named a " bad ass motherfucking white." apparently white people are timid and scared to talk. After spending the entire night talking to them, things like sex, drugs, and drinking all come up in the course of the night. as they tell stories of the strangest people they have had sex with and the strangest drugs they've taken, i don't live like that and when they ask, i straight up told them that i don't sleep around and i don't do drugs. They didn't believe me at first, i get this response all the time because the way they see it is this: if you say you don't do drugs and have sex, you're a liar, since everyone does drugs and has sex. Everyone who said they didn't, really do and just lie about it. So, why am i different?

I think their attitude toward the church could best be explained by what one of the men said, " war didn't make me a bad person, i just don't go to church anymore." Church and morals are separate and irrelevant. If there isn't jesus, i completely agree. There isn't anything that binds them together besides the work of jesus, but even so, the church isn't even supposed to be bound like we think they are. Ah, off topic, back to what i was writing about to begin with. wait, i never said what i was writing about to begin with, so, onto why i started writing!

The ghetto culture is so radically different that even the language and how they relate to each other is different than the white culture i was raised in. I relate to jesus and christianity by ideas, concepts, thinking. Jesus satisfies my ideas, my thoughts on life, all of that. it fits. Partially because that is how i was raised, i was raised with ideas and thoughts like this. i was raised in a theologians house. Even my friendships, my language, the way i relate to my friends is on a more abstract scale. I talk about ideas, philosophies that drive me, concepts of life as a whole. not that i am smarter or better, but that is just how i think. i look at over arching concepts that drive people. it is just instinctive for me. However, that is not how people in the ghetto think. In all honesty, i prefer the way they think, it really is much more real than the way i think, they just think and what is, is. they way they related to each other is just flat out saying what they think and the way they see life is they just see it. so, in a sense, for them to see christianity, they have to see it lived out. i can see an idea and hope i can live out christianity where that idea becomes a reality. i can see what the idea of the church is meant to be, but they don't look at ideas, they just look at life. So, by looking at life, all christians are liars and hypocrites.

That is a mostly true observation. Christians are supposed to be ultimately accepting and loving, they don't see that happening at all, christians aren't supposed to have sex before marriage, never happens that they have seen, the list goes on. so, with that, where in life is christianity true? it isn't.

On top of this, language, the white church, which is pretty prevalent, preaches an intellectual language, which doesn't make sense to them. In the same way, a lot of ghetto preachers don't make sense to me or you, we don't make sense to them. The gospel really hasn't been preached to them in their language and isn't being preached to them in their language. the great commission is about preaching to them in their language and living where they can see it. inner city missions really is mostly like poking people with a stick. if you genuinely want to see change, live with them and be open and vulnerable. They is the language that transcends any barrier. a life lived consistently.