Gods shape sorter…. #digidisciple (@sallysjourney)

A few years ago I wrote a blog post with the same title as this one, in it I said this:

“The church is like a giant shape sorter, all of its people are different shapes, and all of them enter into the church through their own unique God shaped holes-…. the problem is we often insist that folk enter by the square hole only, and folk who have had a genuine encounter with Jesus are asked to bend themselves out of shape in order to fit in.

Once in they struggle to retain that ” square shape” for fear of not being acceptable, there are times and places where these same folk revert to their natural created shape, but live in fear of being discovered for the star’s, triangle’s or circle’s that they are…Others stay away- because they are the wrong shape…”

It is a post that continues to draw traffic from various search engines, and often the search revolves around questions of fitting in. I write this in a week where Premier Radio’s Justin Brierley’s interview with Mark Driscoll has been released. The Guardian has reported that Jeffery John may take the Church of England to court over its treatment of gay clergy.

I wrote an open letter to Mark Driscoll on my blog, and it has attracted both agreement and disagreement, and I guess unsurprisingly I have deleted some offensive comments!It seems that the desire to ensure that people fit our vision of what and how they should be in order to be acceptable as Clergy, Church members, etc is continuing, this of course is no surprise because people are often naturally wary of differences and the mirror those differences hold up to our own lives. The internet through blogs, Twitter, Facebook and other forms of Social Media can be a fertile ground for debate and discussion, but can also be a place where disagreements are aired in a vitriolic, ungracious and un-Christlike manner!

Being a digital disciple is a privilege a challenge and a responsibility, and it involves disciples of all shapes and colours. I wonder then how many of us stop to ask ourselves “what would Jesus blog/ tweet/comment”? While it is not wrong to challenge and debate with one another we must guard against becoming destructive in our comments and criticisms. That said I believe that cyberspace is a great place to do theology, to encounter folk with different views and ideas, but do we, or do we prefer to read only the thoughts of those we agree with?

Just a few thoughts from me as I consider my own response to those I interact with on a daily basis….