Today I watched Julie and Julia. It’s a story about two women finding their way in the world and it really opened my eyes. In one corner we have Julia Child, an amazing woman thrown into a foreign country with no language skills who has to find her way. In the other corner we have Julie Powell, a young, modern woman thrown into Queens from Brooklyn. Julie is a product of a generation who is stuck in the middle somehow. When her life wasn’t fulfilling she turned to Julia Child and her cooking as a source of inspiration.
As I watched it today while my son was napping I realized that part of the reason our church doesn’t reach those outside of itself is that we have lost the art of connection. We no longer teach. We don’t explain faith. We expect people to come to us and know exactly how to be Christian without any sort of engagement from ourselves. Julia Child engaged people at their level. She showed people how to cook and how to be fearless. She loved what she did and her passion was infectious.
I got a copy of ‘Mastering the Art of French Cooking’ by Julia Child from my sister for my birthday this year. I have yet to make anything from it but I have gleaned so much information from it’s pages because it is in essence an instruction manual. It tells how to create, step by step, delicious dishes. These instructions can be passed on and used in many forms. It’s a delight to read and very educational. Julia Child makes cooking seem like something we should want to put time and energy into.
As a Church we need to realize that faith and service need time and energy too. We need to remember that we are Christians first. We need to rediscover our passion for faith and we need to help others as they struggle to find it. We’ve lost the art of teaching. We forget that when people come looking for answers they need to be shown the way, not just told. We need to live our faith. We need to experience our faith and we need to help others do the same.
Julia Child shows us how to be passionate. She shows us what it means to love what you do. We need to love God and experience our faith like this. Imagine what kind of impact we could make if we truly loved and desired to help people grow in their faith. What would happen if we truly got involved in the lives of the people we serve?
