was sharing with junlin and some other friends at fellowship today regarding the dilemna of fitting in with the "popular" crowd and being able to connect with them, establish good relationships with them and maybe with a good testimony make them slightly interested in christianity, and what's the great joy behind it.
problem is, are we influencing them or are we getting influenced ourselves?
i always felt that christians adopted two extremes when mixing around with friends - either they completed distanced themselves away all the "worldy" activities and stood firm against everything deemed wrong and refused to budge in their stance, or they would just be like a sunday christian and act just like the rest and fit in perfectly fine until people actually are surprised they are christians.
honestly.. where do we draw the line? can there be a balance?
i used to think that distancing yourself didn't make sense cos it meant there wasn't a chance to build up a good relationship with your friends and hence it would be a very unconvincing testimony to talk to them about... then if u just be so rigid and shut people up regarding controversial topics without listening to what they have to say, then honestly how to reach out?
but then again, adopting my stance isn't much better.. i feel like in my bid to reach out and (ok.. maybe it's also partially altruistic) be with the "popular" crowd, i'm getting inlfluenced by them instead of me influencing them. it's really really tough.. and i'm really worried I'm giving a bad testimony to people.. worried that my viewpoints are accepted by my friends as the "general christian consensus" and it poisons their view of christians.
how to strike the balance? i really dunno.. i think many a times i've already fallen into the "being influenced" side cos i'm so insecure.. like one "incident" recently.. so, how?
food for thought
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