When Christians are an embarrassment

“May those who hope in You not be disgraced because of me, O Lord, the Lord Almighty; may those who seek You not be put to shame because of me, O God of Israel.” Psalm 69:6
I don’t know about you, but when I see people on TV doing strange things and justifying their behaviour by saying, ‘I’m doing this because I’m a Christian’ – whether it’s walking down the street with banners condemning everyone to hell, or holding hands and gazing up at the sky with glazed looks because they are convinced that today is the day of Jesus’ second coming, or liberal churches putting up sacrilegious and blasphemous billboards to ‘spark debate’ in a community – I feel mightily embarrassed. These people are ridiculed by the world, and rightly so. Unfortunately, those of us who are Christians who don’t do these things, are usually lumped in together with the ‘redneck’ ‘Bible thumping’ ‘fundamentalist’ ‘fanatics’.
I can’t do much about the behaviour of those people I see on TV. But I can take time to examine myself and my own behaviour. We often think about whether we are a good example of a Christian to non-believers. But equally important is to think about whether we are a good example to believers. Does my behaviour edify other Christians, or does it embarrass them? If I am being persecuted, is it because I am living a life of righteousness that silently highlights people’s sin, or is it because I do weird things worthy of being made fun of? Am I disgracing the name of Christ among my brothers and sisters by anything I am doing?