The same in Chicago as Santa Cruz

I have written about how when we were once filming an interview type of video up at the University of California in Santa Cruz and asked the question "What do you think of Jesus?" and then asked the same people "What do you think of Christians?" we got some polarized answers. People expressed respect and admiration for what they knew of Jesus, but when they thought of Christians they responded with answers like "judgmental, negative, anti-intelligent, dogmatic etc." I play that video when I speak places and I have got asked many times "Well, is this just a California thing? Are people like this in other places?" which I always want to say, "yes they are like this, if you break out of the Christian bubble and listen you will see". There is a church in the Chicago area, who actually created their own with these very questions and got very similar answers. It is Orchard Valley Community Church in Aurora, IL and the pastor Scott Hodge has a blog and posted the video there. If you go to his blog here - you will also see the Powerpoint he used when teaching this. Very nicely done Powerpoint graphics, I wish mine were that nice. But above is the video they made, and it is worth watching as it shows what people are thinking and that it is not simply a local thing in California, but all over the place. It is also all the more reason to be missional people and show that not all Christians (the bulk of them) are not actually like the ones they describe. But it is the ones who are usually the loudest, who then gives impressions of Christianity and Christians to everyone else. That is why we must break out of the Christian bubble. So my feelings are you would find very similar responses in most parts of the country today. There might be some parts of the Bible belt which may differ, but I bet even there this is the type of thinking that is becoming more then norm.