Skinny Dipping In The Church
Something's just not quite right there...
GROWTH
As we sat at the breakfast table this morning, I felt a term come to me as I considered something that my wife and I had experienced. When a person comes into a church like a whirlwind, full of ideas and loud opinions, I realized they were like a "skinny dipper".
A skinny dipper, for those who are unfamiliar with the term, is someone who likes to swim naked in public places. All crudeness aside, I'm not sexualizing this.
This person (I do not mean a specific person) comes to a new church and finds ways to become "loud and proud", obviously seeking the audience of all who are awake, they "dip" into the excitement of the local church. Getting a blessing as the church rises to worship God. They are thrust into the limelight (typically by something of their own doing-testimony, prayer for their need, etc.) and the church is suddenly their fanbase. They have great things to say and we tend to be impressed with them.
They expose all their laundry in some form of a word and we feel like we need to love them because of it. So we get close to them. And this is typically done all within a month or two.
Then they expose a little too much and their motives are seen. Their forceful attitude, their boisterous speech, their declarations of their achievements, and so on are seen for what they really are: self serving.
Then like the wind they came in on, they are gone. All those that they intended to influence have set them aside because the Spirit has revealed them. They are off to find another venue they can control and have idolize them.
I've seen skinny dippers in the church as long as I can remember. How do we respond? Our natural tendency is to scorn them and walk away. And, in reality, sometimes that is the answer. At least the walk away part.
We cannot break them from this habit. We can love and pray for them. But as is often their characteristic, they say they are in love with God and cannot shut up about Him. Which is usually one of the keys to seeing their struggle.
Bragging about God to everyone in your life is a wonderful and powerful thing to do. I am not implying that we should be quiet in the least. But Spirit led words and self serving words are different. Remember in Acts 16 a story is told of a girl that followed Paul and his team, yelling the truth about them. Turned out she was demon possessed.
As God pours Himself out into places that are seeking Him more, the skinny dippers will show up. Often looking for some form of a superstar status.
Along with them, many others will be attracted to what God is doing. And there is no one whom God cannot transform. The demon possessed, the angry, the prostitutes, and so on. And, yes, the skinny dippers, too!