Am I a Pharisee?

Man! How do you respond when one of your good friends tells you that they don't feel close to you anymore because you went back to church? That they don't like hanging out with you because you are always hanging out with your friends from church and they make him feel uncomfortable. He feels he can't be himself. He can't drink, can't swear, just feels uptight I guess.

I really felt disappointed and although we are boys for life, I can't help but feel divided.

I told him our church is not very judgmental. I told him that he doesn’t need to feel uncomfortable, a lot of the guys drink, and a lot swear too. We are all just sinners hanging out together.

This makes me think, how are we supposed to reach out to the unchurched if we act all churched? I remember several years ago, Mary brought a couple of her friends from work to one of our bowling nights and they felt very uncomfortable. First because they didn’t know anybody, but second they bought some beer and they were the only ones drinking. They asked me, "Is it ok if we drink?" And I was like "Of course it is." Funny right, we were all acting like a bunch of Pharisees. Most of us drink, but when we hang with a certain group under a "church event" umbrella, people act differently then they would normally act. Basically more pious.

I understand that everything has its place and sometimes alcohol at a certain "church event" is just weird. Like at a retreat or a prayer meeting. But when we invite our non-churched friends I feel we should try to make them feel as comfortable as we can.

What about swearing? I've pretty much tried to cut swearing out of my life, mainly cuz I just started to dislike the way I sound when I swear. But my wife and kid have a lot to do with it as well. I know that a lot of people in our church swear and for some reason when they are around me they feel free to swear. Do I bring that out in people? Maybe I do. I admit I still swear occasionally. Granted there are several verses in the Bible where it puts swearing in a bad light, but the only thing it forbids is not to take the Lord's name in vain. But people swear, most of our non-churched friends swear. There's a lot of fuck and shit words being thrown around. Are we to freeze up when we hear these words at a "church event" pretending like we've never heard the words before?

It's definitely open to debate and I definitely need to chew on it some more. But I really welcome any comments. I'm throwing it out there because of my friend and I think it's a relevant topic for Christians to discuss, especially in a church whose purpose is to reach out to the unchurched.