walking in the mud

i'm from a generation that knows church... knows it exists, knows the general beliefs, and knows what it talks about, regardless of the fact that i, personally, attend a church almost every Sunday... my generation, here in Europe, a place of ancient culture, tradition, and religion, does not know these things... people don't grow up in the church here anymore, and this is a new world for me... i hang out with scientists... i've done that for over four years now, the evolution stuff, the "creation is irrelevant" stuff, the "if God existed" stuff, the "science has replaced religion" stuff... i've heard it before... i don't have all the answers, but i've heard it before... talking with someone who doesn't know who God is, has no pre-conceptions of the Christian church other than "religious" people go there on Christmas, maybe Easter, and the super-religious go every Sunday... why? who knows...
she says that i'm religious... i try to read my Bible every night... why? aren't all the stories old, written to the people of that time, irrelevant now? prejudiced and used to justify war? why do missionaries feel the need to go out and treat people but then convert them? this Jesus guy, what difference would it make it he hadn't been killed, he been married and such... why go to church? why believe in something? why would such a big God care about our puny, individual lives? He/She/It wouldn't have the time to listen to each one of us...
not new questions, but the voice of a generation that is ever-present in Europe, and it is coming to rise in the U.S... a generation that really doesn't know Christ... our biggest complaint as Christians at Mac was that people had been exposed to the church and had bad experiences/correlations with it... this familiarity will be gone...
back in the day, Scotland was a hotspot for the Reformation --- now it is a pagan country... Africa is sending missionaries here... twists the definition of the third world...
I find it easy to forget that I am a missionary... this computer lab, this city, this church, my friends, God loves them... I am one of many vessels for His word... I have been sent here, and it's not a project... it's life...