in but not of

So tonight at our cell group we were talking about how we can live 'in' the world but not be 'of' it. The writers of a resource called Living Simply suggest that the majority of Christians have it backwards... we don't live 'in' the world - we live in a huddle or a 'christian' world but we often live 'of' the world - in other words our lives (although cloistered from the 'evil' of the world) look remarkably similar to it. We are motivated and act almost identical to the world - our dreams and desires are basically the same.

So, we started thinking about how we could change it.

William Booth said every great Christian leader should lead with a Bible in one hand and a newspaper in another. I think we need much more than a newspaper. We need friends... we need variety and full living colour. We need to get to know people who are not like us - on purpose.
And that takes effort. Much effort.

We've got a great opportunity to give it all away at self denial this year - shunning the worldly notion that they more you have the happier you are... that's a start. But we really must figure this out... any suggestions?