Cool story that the author writes about in a chapter entitled “Confession” in a book I’m reading. These Christians are sitting around thinking what they can do to influence their college campus on a weekend with parties, drinking and sex. They decide to build a confession booth right in the middle of campus so that people could come and confess their sins. They would dress up in a monk outfit and setup a two partition shelter. But here was the twist … they weren’t actually going to accept confessions, but the “monk” would confess to the person entering the confession booth. What would he confess? He would confess as a Christian, how we have misrepresented Christ.
“We are going to confess to them. We are going to confess that, as followers of Jesus, we have not been very loving; we have been bitter, and for that we are sorry. We will apologize for the Crusades, we will apologize for televangelists, we will apologize for neglecting the poor and the lonely, we will ask them to forgive us, and we will tell them that in our selfishness, we have misrepresented Jesus on this campus. We will tell people who come into the booth that Jesus loves them.” - p. 118
And one by one, hours and hours, people came and were asked for their forgiveness by these “monks” and with tears in their eyes, they were forgiven!
I believe that’s an incredible reality, that many people who don’t follow God are just hurt people who have become jaded by self-righteous church-goers who can’t even own up to the sins of Christians, let alone their own.
Confess your sins, people of the Way, to those who should have represented Christ and hurt people in the process.
i just read blue like jazz too. that was a great section in the book. now i’m reading another one of his books - searching for God knows what.
out of the blue, i wanted to check your site tonite…how interesting that you wrote about “confession” b/c it’s been on my heart for the past week…learning how hard it is to confess when i feel like i’ve been wronged and in that how prideful i am. it struck me how the monks dsiplayed humility rather than righteousness and people came…true confession really requires humility.
thank you for speaking to my heart with this story…when God wants to speak, he really does, even though i don’t want to hear it…shocks…