Battle of the Buzzwords

So I'm not real photogenic.  Don't know why, don't know what I can do to change it- maybe there's a remedial class somewhere I could take.  I really am only in normal looking pictures when I don't know they're being taken of me.  When I know it's coming, I tend to intentionally make a weird face to avoid making a weider face attempting to look normal.  It's just not natural for me.  Instead of simply looking like myself, I end up looking like myself trying to look like myself; I fake it, I am a step removed from what I normally look like.  I can't be intentional and authentic at the same time.

This is problem, of course, not just because of the vast number of slightly strange pictures of me on facebook or the even more vast numbers of pictures that were deemed to awkward to merit posting, but because it puts two of every good "missional" Christian's favorite buzzwords-authenticity and intentionality- in the ring together (like boxing each other, not on the same side in some elaborate metaphorical tag-team match where they team up together to defeat the two time belt holders "Indifference" and "Hard-heartedness").  Because intentionality is at some level inauthentic, it's somewhat unnatural, we have to force ourselve to do it, intentionally.

I don't want it to seem like I'm saying we shouldn't be intentional in doing all we can in ministry. We tend to the easiest way, the path of least resistance; intentionality saves us from all this, nakes our service an affair of the will rather than simply our desires.  But it is not intended to stop there, it needs to deepen.  We are called to love, not simply to act lovingly.  Fortunately this does not depend on human will alone, the Spirit meets us in this, enables us to love, declares the beloved to be also made in the Image, and births in us an authentic love of our fellow guilty men.  Grace reconciles authenticity and intentionality.  (To return to the boxing metaphor it makes them like Stallone and Carl Weathers in Rocky III where he teams up with Apollo Creed to train for the fight against Mr.T- but that makes it seem a little too ridiculous, I suppose ).  On own however, loving acts don't necessarily deepen into love.  I've heard stories of new members of churches having what they described as "love bombs" dropped on them- members were giving, kind, generous people- until they got you in to the church- then since you joined the team they could slip into a comfortable indiferrence; perhaps a handshake or a headnod from across the room during the "hug and howdy", but no more radical acts of kindness were needed: you're on the roll, you've been saved- "mission accomplished".  Now part of this is our problem of reinterpreting the Great Commission to read, "Go ye therefore and make saved folks to fill the pews" rather than taking an active interest in making disciples.  Evangelicals have left alot of people homeless, far too often walking the aisle is the end and not the beginning.  But part also is our effort to be intentional without being authentic.  Grace puts them on the same team, lets us love like Jesus.