The other week I came across an article from the Huffington Post about the way that they make McNuggets and other processed meats. The goal is to get EVERY piece of meat from the chicken as possible and I mean EVERY. In order to do this the meat is mechanically separated, and made into a paste. Then it is washed and cleaned in peroxide and then artificially colored (because the paste is pink) before it is made into the final product.
After reading the article I was struck by the way that the finished product doesn’t look so bad on the outside, but when you scratch the surface you realize how yucky it is.
As people who are in ministry with students and one another we have have to be more than surface deep. Lets be honest, there are time where we only have enough to give the surface amount. And there are other times that we only go surface deep with lessons and conversation. These are usually the times where we want to be in conversation on a deeper level and our student’s my not want to for a variety of reasons.
But we have to be ready for conversations with others that go deeper. We must be willing to share our story and share the Good News “in and out of season.” We are called to be people that feast on God’s Word and connect with our whole selves. But if we are trying to get a consistent diet from mechanically separated and sterilized faith we are only ever going to be surface deep Christians.
We need to dig into the goodness of God’s word and find our spiritual plates overflowing with the best, not the scrapes, that God has to offer.
If you want to read about the meat story you can find it here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/04/mechanically-separated-meat-chicken-mcnugget-photo_n_749893.html?ref=nf
