practicum dos

This sunday we continued our discussion on persecution. This time, kicking it off with a quote from "Tortured for Christ" - "Persecution always makes better Christians" (as Zach noted) We wrestled with this quote to determine its value and truth. One thing we brought up is that from our experiences, Christians tend to get too comfortable - and when we are in a good place, we tend to lose our dependence on God. In the book, the author makes it pretty obvious that he thinks people who are tortured for their faith go deeper into their relationship with Christ than those who don't. I really don't think that I can agree with this, because I think there are many things (persecution included) that bring us into a deeper relationship with God. Yes, persecution may be a catalyst of sorts, bring people closer to God faster, and may weed out those who are serious and who aren't, but it isn't the only way. We dug into Philippians which more or less says that no matter if we are persecuted or not, we are still to be strong in our faith. The emphasis is not on the degree to which we suffer, but our attitude and conduct in the way we live our our Christian lives.
We also talked about what he might mean by "better Christians", - one who wants to reach out to all they meet - and contemplated what we are doing to reach our to others? We also talked about how back in the day, Persecuted people were the Church, the Christians were the most liked, and always were the ones helping those in need. How has this changed today, and why? and what do you think about the quote from the book?
Kara