And what does it have to do with Topo Chico?
Of this we can be sure: what our world needs most is not just more of all that it has.
What’s needed are things in short supply, hard to come by. Uncommon gifts: different, unusual, even strange.
In a word, distinct.
We do our neighbors no service merely by mirroring their patterns and restating their wisdom. Such salt, Jesus says, is good only for trampling. It brings no savor. Toss it on the trail. At best, it might kill the weeds.
What is needed, says Jesus, are people who’re gladly in the world but not of it. That requires dwelling near, right alongside. Yet also not quite normal. We’re to be people of whom it might be said, “They’re the best neighbors I’ve ever had … but also a bit odd.”
The old King James language helps us feel this. It describes Christ-followers with words like “aliens,” “strangers,” “peculiar people.”
I remember not liking that vocabulary much as a kid. I wanted to follow Jesus with all my heart … but also to fit in. And besides, I thought, to make much difference in the world, I needed to be relevant – which seemed to entail being as much like the crowd as one could be without sinning.
If the world was Coke, then Christians should be Diet Coke: all the taste, just without the calories or cussing.
But that’s not what the world is aching for – just more of the same with some of the worst ingredients removed. That way of living produces lukewarm stories, saccharine art, tepid lives.
Diet Coke won’t slake our neighbors’ thirst. Far better to offer Topo Chico. Or perhaps an old tin cup dipped deep in a mountain stream, so pure and cold it makes your fingers tingle.
Of course, the point is not to be different for difference’s sake. Uniqueness has little value in itself. If we’re aiming only to signal virtue or curate an identity, we’ll offer as much substance as a smoke machine, nothing more.
Rather, the distinctiveness of a Christ-follower springs from its singular aim: to align all that we are with God’s will and His ways, reflecting His life and His light as we grow more like Jesus every day.
That kind of distinction yields a life that is different without even thinking about it.
What the world needs
Our moment is aching for such people, such gifts. Consider the query asked by tribesmen in greeting on the African savannah: “Are the children well?”
The US Surgeon General recently answered this question with a definitive “No, declaring a “Mental Health Crisis” among America’s youth. Anxiety, depression, suicide, and myriad other indicators of disintegrating health have risen dramatically across Western nations and beyond. In the US, 57% of teen girls say they feel “persistently sad or hopeless.” (Seriously, if you haven’t already, pause and lament that for a moment.)
It is not only the children. Their struggles are the proverbial “canaries in the mine” – visible indicators of a deep unwellness that touches every corner of society. It’s all around, from pervasive isolation and loneliness to loss of trust in vital institutions, from online rage to tech addictions, from falling marriage rates to declines in religion (though recent figures suggest this trend has notably leveled out). Ultimately, all of this manifests in the mental and physical ailments that these trends fuel, much like combustible plastics feed a house fire.
The point is not that our era is the worst of all time. Far from it. We enjoy privileges and opportunities that princes, czars, and monarchs could only dream of in days gone by. Rather, it is every era – every society and culture and moment in history – that needs something beyond what comes to it readily. Even when most prosperous, the world cries out for more than just an echo of its assumptions, excesses, and insights. It longs for truth and life and grace of a kind that are always in short supply.
And that is what, when drawing deeply from His life, God’s people have to offer! Like a farmer whose perennial spring flows even in drought, we hold gifts sufficient not only for our own flourishing but to aid our neighbors’ as well!
A moment ripe with opportunity
This is not a moment for self-protection but self-giving. Not paralysis but redemptive action. Not despair but confidence – humble and winsome, but also bold.
The fields around us are ripe! The God-rejecting ideologies that seemed so potent just decades ago have run their course, from moral relativism and therapeutic culture to “free love” and the “death of God.” Certainly, these ideas still hold many in chains. But their harvest is increasingly visible, and it is shriveled and bitter. They are aging movie stars, once arrogant, now tired and exposed.
In this, science is not the enemy of faith, but its friend. Certainly, ill-formed theories will continue to don the mantel of science, claiming far more than science can know. But the scientific method – when applied with rigor and honesty about its own limitations – increasingly confirms so much of what the wise have always known. From believing scientists like Dr. Byron Johnson to incisive agnostics like Jonathan Haidt, from the Harvard Human Flourishing Program to the Institute for Family Studies, serious inquiry points to a fundamental reality: the ways of God are deeply good for people.
Mounting evidence echoes the age-old testimony of Scripture as to what humans need to thrive. It is not only our spirit, but also our mind, body and relationships that flourish when our choices reflect the will and ways of God. It’s things like:
- Thanksgiving (Ephesians 5:20)
- Generosity (Luke 6:38)
- Forgiveness (Matthew 6:12)
- Prayer (Philippians 4:6-7)
- Service (I Peter 4:10)
- Frequent time out in God’s creation (Psalm 19:1)
- Authoritative parenting – that pairs affectionate warmth and firm boundaries (Eph. 6:4, Heb. 12:9-11)
- A weekly rhythm of Sabbath rest (Exodus 20:8)
- Gathering regularly for worship and fellowship (Acts 2:42, Hebrew 10:25)
These commitments are not true because they “work.” They work because they are True. They align with God’s Heart and the grain of His universe. And in a culture where their practice is tremendously rare – every culture! – they radiate life and light, distinct without even trying.
This does not mean that Sunday worship is for peppy people with perfect teeth. The church is far more hospital than Gold’s Gym. We’re not sculpting chiseled abs. We’re all stroke victims learning to walk again.
And yet, if Scripture speaks true, then we can anticipate that ordering our lives by God’s instructions will yield good fruit over time. We’ll see that those who hear Jesus’ words and put them into practice increasingly reflect Jesus himself: less anxiety and more peace, less self-absorption and more self-forgetfulness, less rage and more mercy, less complaint and more gratitude and gladness.
And that, though never perfect, is in fact the case. As study after study confirms, children in families with strong religious commitments and practice are doing remarkably better than their peers. A 2022 Springtide study found that of youth who describe themselves as “not religious,” a full 44% report that they are “not flourishing” in their emotional or mental well-being. Of those who report being “very religious,” less than half that number (20%) say the same. Conversely, only 17% of the not religious say they are “flourishing a lot,” whereas 40% of the highly religious report this high level of wellbeing.
But here is the simple truth: we will not experience and share such gifts if our lives are only superficially different, if our habits and priorities and patterns are indistinguishable from our neighbors, just without the calories and cussing.
What we must not do
Perhaps the worst thing the church could do for the world is to import its assumptions and sprinkle them with Christian lingo.Youth groups geared mainly to entertain. Self-indulgence repackaged as “soul care.” Healing ministries built on Freudian theories overlayed with Bible verses. These products are, in fact, worse than nothing. Like white bread fed to a starving man, they fill the belly with little of the nourishment he so desperately needs.
Let’s take that further. Merely adding Christian activities to otherwise typical lives will not be sufficient, either. In fact, it may undo us. Far too many earnest-hearted Christians pile ministry onto already-overloaded schedules, trying to do everything our neighbors do PLUS foster care and weekly worship and a dozen other activities. Little wonder so many justice-minded Christians are worn so thin.
No, the differential must run deeper. Not Diet Coke. Not even Diet Coke with Christian cherries. Topo Chico. Living water.
This isn’t merely about distinct beliefs. It’s about the ways those beliefs reset our compass – redirecting our priorities, our habits, our every step. In short, Christian distinctiveness is most visible not in sweeping actions or public displays, but in countless small choices of daily life. Choices to find life by losing it, to gain wealth by giving it, to discover oneself by forgetting oneself.
- It’s a very different approach to our time, often doing fewer things, not more.
- It’s a very different approach to money, aiming to maximize not security or pleasure but joyful generosity.
- It’s a very different approach to home, not as a waystation for life-out-there, but as a hub of family life and refuge of hospitality for the hurting.
- It’s a very different approach to technology, not as a constant companion but as a tool that must be decisively kept in its place.
- It’s a very different approach to opponents, not as enemies to be thwarted, but wounded souls to be loved and won into friendship.
What pure religion looks like
To use another old word, laden with pious baggage, this is a glimpse of what it means to be holy – set apart, different, distinct.
Contrary to what we may imagine, there is nothing in true holiness that is pinched or persnickety. Not in the least. It’s ample. Abundant. Full of light and air. Like throwing open the windows of a dank, oppressive house, letting fresh winds race through it like laughter.
Such holiness is not like a pristine teacup, set on a shelf, never to be dirtied. No! It is pure, but always with great purpose. Unpolluted that it might be useful.
James 1:27 expresses this beautifully. As Jesus’ little brother explains, “pure religion” is unstained by the world. It does not share its assumptions and habits. But neither is this true religion aloof and disdainful. Quite the opposite. It plunges in to aid and serve, especially orphans and widows and others in deepest need. It is not of the world but deeply in it. Its heart is pure, but its hands are muddy. It is both holy and helpful – or, more accurately, its very helpfulness flows from its holiness.
How is that? Consider foster care. If your vision for the good life reflects what’s typical – things like comfort, convenience, and control – then welcoming tough kids into your home makes no sense. In fact, better run the other way. Even if you have a humanitarian streak, why not just mail a check or volunteer at the soup kitchen? As a Darwinist might put it if speaking unfiltered, “Why upend your life for kids who don’t share your genetic material?” Only if you’re really different – different values, different vision for time and home and hospitality, different priorities for your bio kids, different objectives in life, even (as some might whisper), “Different in the head,” – only if you’re different like that would you embrace foster care. The holiness is the wellspring of the helpfulness.
The world does not need your relevance. It needs your holiness. And in that, you will offer the most relevant gifts imaginable.
What gives rise to that kind of life? Not mere willpower. Not superior breeding or intellect or character. There is a single Source. It is the gospel of God’s love made visible in the life, death, and triumph of Jesus. We love – ever and always – “because He first loved us.” (I John 4:19)
That is why Christian distinctiveness carries no judgment, no hint of superiority. What feeds us and fuels us is a constant sense of God’s grace, received when we least deserved it. “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5:8) That love is the atomic power to fuel a life that is truly, deeply, inescapably different.
Our role in this differentness is relatively minuscule, yet still essential. We learn, day by day, how to receive and reflect God’s holy-and-helpful love “with ever-increasing glory.” (2 Corinthians 3:18) What happens then?
Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky as you hold firmly to the word of life. – Philippians 3:15-16
Only in this can we offer the world the gifts it so badly needs, gifts it simply can’t find anywhere else. Not just more of the same with Christian dressing. But hearts and lives that are indeed distinct.
Introducing the theme of CAFO2025 …
If that’s your longing, join the whole CAFO community for CAFO2025 – October 1-3 in Houston, Texas. We’ll gather as God’s people from across the US and all over the world to learn, share, inspire, worship and explore together how to grow as people who live lives and offer gifts that are truly, deeply distinct: different from the world for the world.
