I visited a friend in Ohio last weekend. On Sunday morning I was driving in my rental car when I had a funny experience. I had scrolled through the radio stations to find the local rock station. It was playing a song called “Why Don’t You Get a Job” by The Offspring. I remember it from high school and it’s actually a bit of an obnoxious song.

If you’re not familiar with it, here’s what it sounds like (heads up: there’s some language in the song).

At some point from my hotel to the church, I crossed into competing radio space. In the middle of the song from The Offspring, the radio suddenly started breaking through with a local Christian music station. The song they were playing is “Battle Belongs” by Phil Wickham.

If you’re not familiar with it, here’s what it sounds like (I think this song is obnoxious for different reasons as I’m not a fan of ‘war worship’).

The mashup literally kept going back and forth as if an imaginary radio DJ was intentionally combining the two stations together for some bizarre audience that would be stoked to listen to both songs at the same time (I don’t want to meet those people). I was laughing to the point that I got self-conscious since I was driving by myself.

My first thought was: these songs don’t belong together.

But as my custom mashup continued, I realized that the more bizarre reality is how we try to compartmentalize our spiritual life. We play different songs depending on which version of ourselves we want to be. Perhaps my new vantage point with the church affords me more trust with people, but I seem to hear from more and more people all the things they wish they could share about their lives with others but don’t for fear of crossing some imaginary Christian line. So we go to church, act the part, and then go back to the ‘real’ version of ourselves for the rest of the week.

Maybe my radio edit was a God-given reminder to fully be ourselves as we live out our faith. If we can’t share what we really feel or who we really are in a church context, we’ve got a problem. The problem is either the church culture we’re in or that we lack the boldness to live fully into who Jesus is calling us to be. Either option will keep us from thriving in the life that Jesus invites us into.

So let’s blend those songs together my friends. It’s essentially what we’re attempting to do with Communion Wine Co as we bring people together around wine to experience Jesus in new ways. Most people we talk to love the idea. But not everyone. I was recently told, “You need to be sitting listening to the sermons — not giving them at this time.” So there’s that.

Meanwhile, I think I’ll switch out Offspring and Phil Wickham for some better options, but I’m going to keep remixing them together. There is no spiritual and secular. There is only life.

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