I also strive be real. The person you see at church will be the same person you see at work or out shopping or playing sports or even at my home. I’ll never fit some people's idea of what a "minister" should be, but those whom God gives to work with in ministry will see someone absolutely real. Struggling with life's issues... succeeding and failing just like any other. Hopefully, even in my failures they'll see what it means to be a believer who, with God's help, lives a life faithful to our calling.
Authentic Christianity:
This is a phrase that I've just recently started using. But it's something that has deep meaning for me. For years I've struggled to get people to be real with one another. We've gone to church and seen the beauty pageants or the manufactured services and none of it is real. It's all just a show for the masses. I'm long called this "plastic Christianity." It's just not real. No one is like that in real life!
Well I'm tired of it. I want to return to the days when faith was fresh; when we didn't know we had to hide the darkness inside of us from everyone. To the time when we were naive enough in our faith to just say what we thought and asked the questions that challenged the patience of the churchified.
I've discovered in the ministry God has let me have that every one needs someone and someplace where they will be accepted just as they are, for whom they are and where they will find the love of God being walked out every day in the imperfect ways that people always love. Yet, even though our ability to love is imperfect it's still God loving through us.
One of the Apostles in the Bible said, "Where I am weak, God is strong." While we might not love perfectly as human beings, God can make up for our imperfection and turn our attempt to love into the very thing that's needed in your life!