Hello all!
Exciting things are happening in the Christian Jugglers' Association as we head into this new season of Spring. As Christians, we get to celebrate Spring as the season of Lent, which is the period of days leading up to Easter. During this time, we get to reflect on the life, death, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. I wrote a Biblical study on Paul's resurrection creed in 1 Corinthians 15 on my personal blog. Check it out by clicking here and let me know what you think.
About a year ago, the active membership list of the Christian Jugglers' Association was somewhere around 60 or 70 people. Since then, we have almost doubled in size, as our current membership roster lists 139 people. While the economy is in recession, the Christian Jugglers' Association is rapidly growing! Maybe one reason is because there is no cost to join. On that note, we do have money in our organization's account, which helps to fund the hosting of our website and the few costs we have for running the Christian Jugglers' Conference each July. Keep telling your friends and family about our organization, as we are open to all skill levels (even people who do not know how to juggle, but might like to learn how). All people need to do is send in an e-mail to christianjuggling at gmail dot com (spelled out to avoid spam) and indicate that they want to join.
Finally, I want to close my remarks with an important issue for Christian jugglers that came up in my phone conversation with Dana Tison a few weeks ago:
To be both a juggler and a Christian can look a lot of different ways. Let's take something like art, for example. One artist who is a Christian can paint a wonderful city skyline or fruit still-life, while another artist who is a Christian can paint an image of the empty tomb following the resurrection of Jesus. Is one work of art more "Christian" than the other? Is one artist better at proclaiming their faith through their art than the other? No and no. Similarly, we are no more or less spiritual with our art of juggling whether we use our juggling as an allegory for Christian messages or not. As Christians who are also artists/athletes in the field of juggling, we ultimately glorify God through pursuing excellence in our craft.
Dana said that when he ministers in churches, he will perform his juggling act, and then close with an explanation of the Gospel message without juggling anything. Furthermore, Dana will perform with excellence on secular cruise ships, and then perhaps later find himself in a casual conversation with a cruise ship patron that turns spiritual. I, on the other hand, usually present the Gospel message throughout my juggling routine, using objects to represent various characters or things in Bible stories. Is either way more holy than the other? No way. Remember Eric Liddell in Chariots of Fire? He would run his heart out (and glorify God by doing so) and then speak with interested people about his faith after he was done running.
I want to also add that being a Christian Juggler doesn't mean you have to have a polished juggling routine so you can either share the Gospel during or after your show. Remember, the key word here is excellence. You can be a hobbyist juggler and glorify God through doing your very best (whatever level that is) at the art of juggling. People notice excellence, but God is ultimately your only audience. It is every Christian's call to share the news about Jesus Christ, through both word and deed (which is the Great Commission - Matthew 28:18-20). But Jesus also spelled out the most important commandments, which are (1) love God with our whole beings and (2) love others selflessly.
This coming Lent season, think of ways that you can (1) glorify and love God through simply learning a new juggling trick or practicing something challenging (He sees your effort) and (2) help someone else with the selfless love of Christ (such as patiently teaching someone else how to juggle or making a someone sick in bed smile because you juggled 3 balls for them).
-Jesse Joyner
President, Christian Jugglers' Association
Lent 2009
No comments:
Post a Comment