I tried today to have a day when I didn’t think about church, theology, philosophy and culture. It worked. Almost. At 11.05pm God spoke to me, and it was a message I couldn’t ignore. Just a short message, but one I knew was so spot on I had to share it then and there. You ever have those moments, when something clicks and you HAVE say it that moment? This was it.

I heard a song and one of the lines in it talked about the phrase ‘break the mould’.

Heard that phrase before? Often in tributes to people “Oh, when God made that person they broke the mould” or about an artist, musician or cultural figure. When we say that phrase we normally talk about people who broke convention, people who pushed the boundaries, who revolutionised their field, who wasn’t afraid to do something different, which changed the world.

It occurred to me that we often think that these people are unique. We assume only certain people can do this or will ever do this. Like Bono (below, pictured at Cardiff) for example.

Why?

Is that a compliment to them, or an escape clause for us?

You see, we were created break moulds. God made us with the ability to create, to make things, to learn, evolve and develop. He imparted a part of Himself into us, that visionary, creative, innovate side. Its in all of us, not just some special people. God made us all with the ability to push boundaries, to do new things. If we didn’t then we’d be static. Things would never change. The world would never change.

Without these people we don’t grow.

This is what God wants as the norm. If we let convention, stability and comfort rule our lives, and we don’t push boundaries in our own life, then we also stagnate. We only grow when we go out of our comfort zone and make a step of faith – whether we’re a person of faith or not. If you look at a lot of the most successful people earlier in their careers, they were risk takers, they all broke the mould, they were all able to see things differently, and weren’t afraid  to pursue that vision.

Now not everyone may have the gift of vision, of seeing the bigger picture. But we can all grow. We can all mature, learn and improve. God wants us to become the best we can be, the way He designed us. Life is a journey of becoming the person God designed us, and playing our part in His restoration of the world to His design.

The world we live in, the convention and culture of the world, is very different to the kind that God originally designed for it, and for us. God calls us all to help restore the world to how He originally designed it, to partake with Him, co-create and participate in the restoration of all things. He calls us to a life by His values, His teachings, redefining culture and bringing heaven to earth in our everyday.

God made us all to be the kind of people that ‘break the mould’. It doesn’t mean we have to be famous, high-achievers, or go off and do missions somewhere. No. It can do, but not for all of us. God wants us to break the mould every day. By doing things differently every day. By bringing the way of God into our everyday life. By bringing the sacred and common closer. By choosing His way in our everyday lives. Our decisions, how we treat people, our language, our values, our habits. All a little bit different to how the rest of the world do it.

That’s as radical as standing in front of 1,000 people preaching change. In fact, in many ways it can be even more powerful – especially in a culture where people are less and less inclined to believe what people say in public. Big change will come when many people change their daily lives to reflect a different set of values. Then it becomes a movement, it becomes more part of our culture, and in turn our culture starts to become a little bit more like how Jesus intended.

Christians started the movement against slavery. And it started with people who supported it making small changes. Changing their own lives to reflect what they believe. Not being afraid to be a little different. Then the more people saw this, the more people understood, and a movement grew up.  In the end, legal slavery was brought to an end. The big issue now is the environment, which was hardly an issue about 25 years ago. But something happened, someone saw a problem. They started little changes and eventually everyone cottoned on, and now suddenly we are all bound by law to be environmentally friendly. Indeed, its through the little things we make such a big difference to our environment.

You see, we can all do our bit to change the world, help God restore it to His design. We simply cannot afford to stick to the world’s mould or be static. Jesus didn’t.

Breaking the mould shouldn’t be something we allow a minority to do.

Its what all followers of Jesus are called to do.