World View

I'm participating in a study at church called The Truth Project. So far it is interesting, a little slow, but interesting. One of the major truths is that each era, generation, age, whatever has a world view.
This is not new information to me. I teach American Literature which requires me to begin each unit with the World View of the people who lived in that time. I know that this generation's world view is very open-minded. The by-words of diversity, tolerance, and political correctness are tossed around in educated circles, and those very words offend other circles. Those words do not offend me. If I have a message to get out to a person that I have encountered, I need to realize that misusing labels creates a barrier to my message. My Oral Communications degree still comes into play sometimes, huh? Although I have spent 32 years teaching Language Arts, I also majored in Oral Communications. I studied speech, drama, debate, persuasion, group discussion just as much in college as I studied grammar, literature, and composition.
In those communications classes 35 years ago we were taught that any barrier to communication distorts the message. If I use a word that is offensive to people while I'm trying to convince them of something, I lose them. They will not hear my message about the love of Jesus if my language is judgemental and intolerant. You can call it political correctness if you want; I call it horse sense.
All of us have a world view, individually and collectively. I can't speak for the collective world view, but I can speak of my own. I want everyone that I come in contact with to see me as a positive representative of Christ. I fail so often that I shouldn't even be writing this, but every time I think "I'm not good enough to post something like this," I'm giving the devil a foothold in my life.
I'll never be good enough, but I know the truth of Jesus's salvation. I have no choice but to share it with others. That means I will have to be tolerant of the lifestyles of some people; I won't win them by looking down at them. I will have to use unnatural "politically correct" language if I want to reach out to the hungry souls in my life. I don't have all the answers; I just know that I have never known of a person becoming a Christian because someone ridiculed them for their lifestyle, thoughts, or opinions.
Father, let me see people as you do.