staci_stallings@hotmail.com

Plastic Christians. You know the kind. They know all the words, spout
all the rules, sing all the songs, join everything, and they look really
good doing it, too. Their suits are pressed. Their ties are straight.
Their dresses are the mint of modesty. And yet, it all seems too good,
too perfect.  All plastic, no feeling.

Recently I came face-to-face with the plastic Christian in me. Oh, she
talked a good game. To the world, she looked good in her deeds.  She
was no doubt Christian, but plastic nonetheless.

You see, deeds done out of fear of being found less than the perfect
Christian are dead deeds--no matter how good they look. A song I heard by
Casting Crowns puts it this way:

Am I the only one that's traded an altar for a stage?

Now before you jump on the bandwagon of spirit-bashing the choir or the
readers or those in other visible ministries, I suggest as Jesus said,
that you look first at yourself. If you are without sin here, then you
may cast a stone.

These words are not talking about the more visible ministries in the
church. They are not meant to say, never sing in the choir, never
volunteer for a visible ministry. They invite you to look at WHY you are
joining. More than that, they are talking about you and your walk every day
with Christ. Is it a performance or a sacrifice? Are you on the stage
or on the altar?

If you're not sure, from experience, ministry of performance looks like
this:  you say all the right words, but your heart feels very few of
them.  You read the Bible religiously, go to church without fail, you can
recite all the rules and the prayers as well--but it all feels empty as
if you are going through all the motions because that's what's
expected.  You join the organizations, help with the youth, volunteer for every
fundraiser, attend classes, teach classes.  You serve and serve and
serve until you've got no more to give, and then you find a way to give
some more.  You feel burned out and used up, and yet there are still
people hurting, still more you should give. You want to live out the
Christian life, but the reality for you is, it's tiring work.

That's performance.  Performance is going on your own ability, choosing
the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil over resting in the Tree of
Life.

Things look and feel very different when you're on the altar. When
you're on the altar, the comprehension of your smallness when compared with
His enormity is reassuring--not judgmental, frightening, and
depressing.  You suddenly realize you can't, but He can. That understanding frees
you to jump into situations where failure in the world's eyes is a real
possibility, but even if you fail when He whispered the task on your
heart, you know that somehow from His perspective, even that failure is a
victory. Better, you trust that it's a victory and move forward in
confidence--not because you think you can do it, but because you know you
don't have to--He will.

On the altar when you read the Bible, you read it because it's
fascinating, because you hear Him speaking to you through it--not because you
have to or because you're supposed to. Prayers might be memorized or
they might well be, "Hey, God. It's me, so glad You're here."  Either way,
they feel like a personal friendship rather than an empty exercise in
pleasing a God you suspect will never be pleased no matter how much you
do.

On the altar, you let go of the driving need to prove anything to
anybody.  You just are. You open your life to Him, just as a sacrificed
animal on the altar is cut open, so are you. In a very real way, you die to
who you were, to your own ability, to your own performance. Impressing
others pales in comparison with being real and being honest about your
fears, about your failures, and about who you really are.  You suddenly
have no desire to wear the mask of plastic Christianity, and the more
it is stripped away by His loving, accepting presence, the more you
begin to allow others in your presence to remove theirs.

As I thought about the concept of stage or altar, performance or
sacrifice, the story of Cain and Abel slid into my consciousness.  Has there
ever been a more perfect example of what performance-based Christianity
leads to?

There's Cain tilling his little performance heart out, thinking how
pleased God is going to be with this offering and being pretty pleased
with his offering before it even gets to God.  How could God not be
impressed? After all, Cain reserved the best of his harvest for the Lord. 
But when he presents the offering to God, God shrugs.  Instantly Cain
gets angry. How dare the Lord not fawn over his offering!

Then, in walks Abel who presents his offering to the Lord.  Abel,
innocent, trusting, a sacrifice personified.  And the Lord is pleased with
Abel's gift.  This infuriates Cain who rises up, and in his jealousy and
anger, kills his brother.

Are you Cain in your Christian walk?  Do you look around and become
envious of someone else's service, of someone else's gifts?  Do you judge
those who aren't as Christian as they should be?  Are you completely
sure that God will accept your gifts over someone else's because yours
are so obviously better? Do you work for God, or does God work through
you?

Take it from someone who was on that stage for far too long:  It's a
lonely, miserable, rotten place to be.  More over, as scary as being on
the altar sounds, the freedom it affords is worth every spotlight you
have to give up.

So, are you on the stage or the altar?  


Copyright by Staci Stallings