Unfashionable : Making a Difference in the World by Being Different

by TCHIVIDJIAN, TULLIAN

• ISBN13: 9781601420855
• ISBN10: 1601420854
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2009-04-14
• Publisher: Multnomah Books

Summary

This book is an important and necessary reminder that Christians who strive to be relevant end up being redundant, while those who challenge our culture just may change the world--Michael E. Wittmer, Professor of Systematic Theology.

Author Biography

William Graham Tullian Tchividjian (pronounced cha-vi-jin) is a Florida native, the founding pastor of New City Church just outside of Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, a visiting professor of theology at Reformed Theological Seminary, and a grandson of Billy and Ruth Graham. A graduate of Columbia International University (philosophy) and Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando, Tullian is the author of The Kingdom of God: A Primer on the Christian Life, and Do I Know God? Finding Certainty in Life’s Most Important Relationship. The author of numerous articles Tullian is a contributing editor to Leadership Journal. Tullian speaks at conferences throughout the US and his sermons are broadcast daily on the radio program "Godward Living.” When he is not reading, studying, preaching, or writing, he enjoys being with people and relaxing with his wife Kim and their three kids Gabe, Nate, and Genna. Tullian loves the beach, loves to exercise, and when he has time, he loves to surf. 

Excerpts

From the foreword to the book by Tim Keller:
“Here you will learn how we must contextualize, how we Christians should be as active in Hollywood, Wall Street, Greenwich Village, and Harvard Square (if not more) than the halls of Washington, DC. And yet, there are ringing calls to form a distinct, ‘thick’ Christian counter-culture as perhaps the ultimate witness to the presence of the future, the coming of the Kingdom.”

1 A Cry for Difference

One of the great attractions of Christianity to me is its sheer absurdity.
—MALCOLM MUGGERIDGE

I wish everyone could have had my upbringing. I come from a line of devout Christians who have been used by God in various ways to change the world. As far back as I can trace, strong Christian conviction
and devotion to Jesus Christ have been defining marks of my family legacy—a gracious gift to me from God, something I neither asked for nor deserved.


That heritage goes beyond my maternal grandparents, Billy and Ruth Graham, faithful servants of the kingdom of God for the last sixty-five years. It also includes my dad, a respected psychologist, who has always put service to God and others before himself. And it includes my mom, a Christian writer and speaker whose ministry to women, especially to mothers and wives, has spanned the globe.


With a large family entrusted to them (I’m the middle of seven children—five boys and two girls), my parents worked hard to create a home atmosphere that encouraged us kids to take God seriously but
not take ourselves too seriously. The flavor of Christianity they cultivated in our family was joyful, warm, inviting, hospitable, and real, not legalistic or oppressive. We laughed hard and often, mostly at ourselves.We were trained to think deeply about God, to feel passionately for God, and to live urgently in response to God. The gospel, according to my parents, needed to be understood with our heads, felt with our hearts, and worked out with our hands. Anything short of this was a less-than-balanced expression of true Christianity. They taught us to think, to read, to pray, to sing, to cry, to love, to serve.


Growing up,my brothers and sisters walked the straight and narrow for the most part, rarely giving my parents any real trouble. And then there was me. Different story!


Maybe it was because, despite my healthy upbringing, I found it difficult being the middle child. There’s a large age gap between my three older siblings and my three younger ones, and I couldn’t figure out if I was the youngest of the older set or the oldest of the younger group. I was in the unenviable position of being both a youngest child and an oldest child. Faced with this tension, I should have “cast all my
anxiety on the Lord,” as I was taught. But I didn’t. Unsure of where I fit inside the family, I set out trying to fit outside of it.


At sixteen I dropped out of high school. Then, because my lifestyle had become so disruptive to the rest of the household, my grieving parents decided to kickme out of the house. But I refused to go quietly.On thatmemorable, dreadful afternoon, I was escorted off my parents’ property by the police.


I’ll never forget sitting in the back of that police car and looking out the window at my crying mother. I felt no grief, no shame, no regret. In fact, I was pleased with my achievements. Having successfully
freed myself from the constraints of teachers and parents, I could now live every young guy’s dream. No one to look over my shoulder, no one to breathe down my neck, no one to tell me what I could and
couldn’t do. I was finally free—or so I thought.


My newfound freedom had me chasing the things of this world harder than most othersmy age. I sought acceptance, affection,meaning, and respect behind every worldly tree an

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Excerpted from Unfashionable: Making a Difference in the World by Being Different by Tullian Tchividjian
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