Prologue
Some of what I am sharing here I have shared before and so, you may already be familiar with this part of my story. Furthermore, I am going to do the best that I can in ‘protecting the innocent’ (and the guilty, for that matter) as I do not believe it necessary to put folks on the spot here for the sake of sharing my journey with you.
This particular entry largely involves the past and that is exactly where many of the details belong. So I will spare as much of that as possible while, hopefully still sharing enough to tell the story that I feel needs to be told– one that is honest and realistic, and one that communicates a particular era in my life journey.
Some of you, my dear readers, know more about my past than others. You know names, maybe faces, and some may even share some common experience with me and my family….
If you should choose to react with what I am sharing here, all that I ask is that you help me in maintaining an honorable level of dignity in the course of this series by being careful in how you react and respond.
Myself and others would greatly appreciate that. Feel free to be honest, but feel free to also be kind. I will try to do the same.
With that said, I am fully aware that I have lots of friends who ‘go to church’ and I know more than a handful of Christian ministers who either make their living in that setting or who are deeply involved.
If this is the case for you, dear reader (or someone you know), please know that what I am saying in this series of posts is not meant to belittle nor undermine what it is that you consider yourself to be a part of or of what you believe yourself to be.
No. This series (and this post in particular) is about my personal background as a new Christian, how the Lord has called me and what I believe He is calling me and many others to.
On the other hand– be forewarned. 🙂
I do not have a problem with “being myself” as I’m writing these entries. There is a tricky balance to maintain here for sure, but to be honest, I believe that I truly have no other recourse.
I’m okay if what I share here bothers you a bit. Maybe it should. Maybe it shouldn’t, and maybe you should forgive me if I cross any boundaries that you, yourself would never personally cross.
Some might say,
Oh but you do have another recourse. You could die to self and write as the Christ who is in you, etc…
It is this point EXACTLY which I hope to elaborate on somewhere in the course of this series of posts. To such a statement, I will say this much for now:
The man who said It is no longer I who lives but Christ.. is the same man who said, It is not as though I have already attained….
Please do take some time with that last sentence.
As much as I like the old saying (“If you don’t have anything nice to say…”), I don’t know that it is always prudent nor wise.
Jesus, Himself, broke that rule on more than one occasion….without sin. Nonetheless, it is my desire to season the entirety of this series with grace, as this is very much how the Lord has continued to season the entirety of my life–including the events which I am writing about here.
What I am sharing here and in the next few posts is not simply an opportunity for me to rant about how things are (or were) and how things should be. Sure, that is no doubt a part of it.
Before anyone raises an eyebrow to what I am saying here and before any accusations of me being ‘an accuser of the brethren‘ begin to well up in anyone’s mind, just take a moment and ask yourself how much of the ministry which you are a part of or which you support involves a pointing out of those things which are viewed as ‘missing the mark’ and a prescribed course of action meant to remedy the problem.
Thank you.
The heart behind this, however, is more about me, making sense of and processing where I have been, where I am at and where I am going in this Life Journey.
It is my hope that what I am writing here will help bring a sense of connection to and even facilitate encouragement for others who have been engaged in a similar process and who continue to follow the Lord in His grand eternal purpose. And who knows? Maybe we will, one day, find ourselves walking side by side in this pilgrimage towards and into the Promised Land.
I have lot’s of friends who ‘go to church’ and who, quite honestly, may have no idea what the term ‘organic church life’ means. For the most part they are probably quite satisfied with the way that they understand and practice ‘church’.
If this describes you, then you may want to stop reading now. Then again, …maybe not. I can’t tell you what you should or shouldn’t do. You might disagree with some of my thoughts and conclusions concerning Spiritual things.
Some of my readers may even embrace the fact that the Journey is not all that bound up in our personal satisfaction.
Amen to that sentiment!
I agree! On the other hand I am going to go out on a limb here to say that neither is this– for me– simply about my personal satisfaction.
It is about the heart of God for His people, for His Church and He has blessed me with the same passion for which He gave His only Begotten Son.
You may be one whom I have come to know in the course of this journey, one who has continued on in a direction other than the one which I am following. If this is you, let me simply say to you that I desire that our God would continue to bless you in your journey and wish the best that He has for you in it all.
It is not my place to insist that you go the same route as myself. Just as I have departed from the company of others in order to be true to the convictions on my own heart, I can only respect you in the same manner that I wish to be respected. There is only one Church.
We are universally one in Christ regardless if we come to the same conclusions in our thinking and regardless if we live in the same locale or not.
The truth is that Christ is not divided.
Whatever the case, there are many brothers and sisters who instinctively know that there is something fundamentally off-center with the traditional mode of church practice and “Contemporary Christianity” in general, but dare not question the authority of those who lord ov–, Oh, ….I mean, those who lead them week in and week out, year in and year out, decade in and decade out…
You get my point; There is something wrong with the system. I hope to give some details to this statement in the course of this series.
Beyond that, I know and love, personally, more than a handful of Christian ministers who, in being faithful to their perceived call (just as I am in mine), either make their living in that setting or who are deeply involved in that world in some way, shape or form.
If this is you, Dear Brother or Sister, please know that what I am saying in this series of posts is not meant to belittle nor undermine what it is that you consider yourself to be a part of or of what you believe yourself to be.
There are “pastors” who, no doubt, are truly Pastors and there are “elders” who are truly Elders. The same goes for all of the other perfectly biblical nouns and verbs. But I would be dishonest if I were to imply that I do not take issue with how the majority view and practice Church Life or act as if I thought that “form” just really didn’t matter. As far as that goes, “form” is kind of like “fruit”.
Therefore, a form in which the majority of the congregation is essentially passive; submissive to and dominated by a leading minority, then there is something wrong at the root level. But enough of that for now…
This series is about my personal background and in this post it is about the Lords call in my life, where I’ve been and, later on where I believe to be going. As far as I can tell, the insights and understanding that I have concerning Christ and the Church are more faithful to both the spirit and text of New Testament scriptures than what I loosely refer to as Institutional Christianity, the I.C. , Churchianity and yes, sometimes even Christianity.
This isn’t because I believe myself to be any smarter, wiser or better than anyone else, but rather because of the grace that God has given me in regards to understanding these things.
Is that arrogant of me? Is it somehow wrong for me to believe that I have insight which the majority of the Christian tradition has lacked for the last eighteen hundred years? Is that why Martin Luther is still considered to be a heretic by much of the Roman Catholic Church?
Dare I be so bold as to compare myself to such a historical figure?
Why not? He was just a man who began to question some things that needed to be questioned. I don’t believe that he was right about everything that he said and did, but I respect him for standing up for what he believed …even if he did so imperfectly.
What is encouraging to me is the fact that I am not the only one who sees things the way that I do. In fact, the Lord has used various Brothers and Sisters throughout the years, both their writings and their personal friendship, to speak to me about these things…and part of the way that I see things includes the fact that I don’t really need for you to agree with me about everything. This is another related subject we’ll come back to later on.
It’s been nearly eight years since the Lord called me and my family out of the ‘traditional church’ system and into a life of following Him into community. In all honesty, I’m not surprised that I didn’t last very long within such a system.
I wasn’t raised up in it and, in fact, my parents did a pretty good job informing me as to the inconsistencies between what is commonly known as church today and the Church which can be found within the New Testament.
But my parents weren’t hateful or bitter in expressing these things, they simply spoke the truth about the situation.
Besides, we all know that there are serious problems with what has come to be known, today, as ‘Christianity’ (and ‘Church’). In fact, if we were all to dismiss this reality, most of the preachers would have very little to talk about. Just admit it. Sure, some folks will criticize this set of issues, and others will criticize that set of issues….
But my calling isn’t to just simply be a critic of Contemporary Christianity.
Oh, but did I ever so passionately go through that phase!
But regardless of the various symptoms of an ill system, I feel that the root malady exists on a much deeper level.
“Follow Me.”
I was a relatively new ‘convert’ to the Lord Himself. A few years after an initial half-hearted altar call experience, God spoke to me in the middle of the night and said, distinctively,
“Follow Me.”
No joke. It was the voice of the Lord. Not externally audible, but internally. Real enough to wake me from a dead sleep.
It was a scary moment to say the least and it had me rattled for quite some time. But it wasn’t just the call that rattled me. It was also my own reaction to it.
My only response at the time was, “I can’t.”
Crazy, huh? I felt kind of like the rich young ruler…
I was saddened to know that the Lord God presented me with an opportunity to follow Him, and yet, at that time I was unable to let go of the self-centered lifestyle which defined who I was. But that wasn’t the end for me. Not yet, anyway. I had yet to learn that the gifts and calling of God are without repentance. From that point forward, I knew that I was called, and I knew that this was going to be a journey of Life with the One True God.
As time went on, my heart would gravitate more and more towards the One who approached me in the night. Sure, I was seeking and exploring all kinds of different avenues in hopes of finding Him in any other way than ‘church’. After all, the vast majority of church people who I had encountered personally seemed to be, basically, hypocrites and nuts (with an exception or two, of course).
(Thank God for exceptions, amen?)
From the Independent Baptists shouting hellfire and brimstone on the street corners, to the Charismatic side shows produced by money-grubbing charlatans….
I just never believed that God was into all of that. For the record, I still think the same way. I mean, yes, ultimately, He IS in All things. But that is, in a sense, beside the point.
And it’s not like I was really any ‘better’ than they were. After all, I was just a half crazy, pot head,womanizing drunk.
Okay, totally crazy.
I confess; Most of the folks that I knew of who claimed to be Christians in my home town just seemed to be, uh, how would one say it?
WRONG.
But the truth is that so was I. I was just a different kind of ‘wrong’…. but wrong nonetheless.
The Religious Landscape
I grew up watching a particularly mean-spirited old preacher on TV who would, with chalk, draw huge murals which illustrated his teaching sermons. Cool concept, really, but the guy was just flat-out bitter and mean.
From early on, I began to, subconsciously, associate God with a cranky, crotchety, bitter old man.
The world is full of preachers like this! In hopes of teaching their flock ‘The fear of the Lord’ they merely succeed in impressing upon them their own angry and crotchety image instead.
The fear of the Lord is, indeed, something which belongs in the heart of any true child of God.
After all, It is the beginning of wisdom. However, this ‘fear’ would be more properly translated as ‘reverence’ and I submit to you that when one truly has a revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ, reverence comes about quite naturally.
If you want God’s people to revere God, present to them Christ.
Over time I began listening to various Christian radio stations (there were several to choose from in my hometown), soaking in the different varieties of teaching, preaching, and musical offerings. This was especially the case after I took a job as a delivery driver for a local Florist chain and was driving around listening to the radio eight to ten hours a day. I ‘learned’ a lot of bible teaching in a relatively short period of time. So much so that I had become a Super Christian in my own mind.
Long story short…. I eventually I humbled down a bit. I was separated from my first wife and moving towards a very complicated and painful divorce and was struggling with all that goes along with that. When things got really bad for me, personally, I decided that it was time to get even more serious about God.
These were desperate times and they called for desperate measures.
It was time to find a church.
Yes, going in, I knew that there were going to be things that I just didn’t agree with, but at that point, I just didn’t know what else to do. I mean, Christians “go to church”…..don’t they?
Of course there were many varieties of ‘Church’ to choose from. In fact, this was one of the very first thoughts that crossed my mind after the Lord called me to Himself. I didn’t have to have anyone convince me that there were major problems with Institutional Christianity. I was a first hand witness to a religious war where a myriad of camps, each in their own way, claimed to have the right way, the right teaching…., you know, ‘the goods’.
The question for me at the time was “But shouldn’t there really only be one Church?”
Alas, this just wasn’t the case, practically speaking, anyway. But I wanted ‘the goods‘…and I had to pick and choose from literally hundreds (thousands?) of ‘churches’ in my surrounding area, where I would hope to find them. It was during this time that I began to understand that having ‘the goods‘ was directly related to the reality of the undivided Universal Church of Christ (No. It’s not a denomination or institution…). More on that later…
There were several options for me: I could have joined the more militant group of KJV only folks who occupied the city streets on the weekends, waving around bibles while yelling at people, calling them names (like “Sinner”), or I could have joined together with my more charismatic brethren and done cartwheels in the park for Jesus. Admittedly, this would have been way more fun but these were the same folks who also promoted the Big Holy Ghost revival which was taking place (and taking money) at the big AOG Church down the street. Of course there were myriads of other variations as well, one just about as good as the other, I suppose. (just check out your own yellow pages sometime).
In the System but Not of It
I was now recently divorced and remarried (Yes. Apparently the unpardonable sin for some, and not quite that for others…).
Yep. I was a severely screwed up guy who was desperately needing a serious ‘unscrewing’. I had known for some time that I had serious issues, but not until after the divorce and remarriage did I begin to see the depth of depravity which ruled over my soul.
My new family and I had begun attending a local not-quite mega church (non)denomination. Since a friend of mine had recently graduated from their Bible college, I decided that we would at least try it out for a while and see what it was like.
This was obviously a place where many of the more financially fortunate of God’s people gathered. We made a few friendships and connections there and after a while I became involved with a couple different aspects of their ministry.
They were a ‘Preach through the Bible’ kind of church, so I did get to hear a good bit of scripture and exposition. For balance they also believed (theoretically) in the Gifts of the Spirit and put a large emphasis on their “Worship Music”.
This experience did turn me on to actually reading the bible. That’s when things started getting really interesting.
I had an uncanny passion for reading the New Testament. In fact, I can remember getting to church early (before worship band practice), and sitting all alone in the sanctuary just reading through large portions of the New Testament epistles.
After a while, I began to wonder why there seemed to be such a dramatic difference between what I was getting from the book and what I was seeing on Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights. The more time went on, the greater my curiosity….and the more I had to turn a blind eye. No matter how hard I tried, I was having a very difficult time affirming what I had come to know as “Church” as Church!
You know, something is bad wrong when more money is spent on office supplies than given to overseas missionaries.
Yes, they used all the right bible terms:
God, Jesus, Holy Spirit, scripture, prayer, witness, song, sin, hell, tithe, forgiveness, pastor, elder, deacon, ministry, etc…
The problem that I had, though, was that I’m not sure that these words were properly transferred over from the context of New Testament realities. In fact, I’m now convinced , more than ever, that this church, and many, many, many more similar to it have simply inherited a version of Christianity which was passed down to them from traditions which the Lord God never had in mind for His Church.
Before long, the Holy Spirit, primarily through the scriptures, began to reveal things to me about both the Lord and the church that I could no longer dismiss.
Up to this point, I still had a kind of “I am dedicating my life to God” kind of mentality going. To boot, the music at the church that I attended was chock full of “I WILL worship…”. “I WILL sing of your love…”, “I WILL” this and “I WILL” that,….so it kind of reinforced the way that I thought about the Christian life; It’s about what I do for God since He did so much for me.
You may be thinking, “But what is so wrong with that? After all, God gave his only begotten Son. Jesus died for you”.
There is truth in that. God did give His only begotten Son. Jesus did die for me. But God did so much more than that and Jesus’ death for our sins is only part of The Story.
There is so much more to our relationship with God, in Christ, than being ‘saved’ from our sins–as vitally important as that is! Furthermore there is so much more to our Life in Christ than viewing God as one that we owe our lives to— even though this is also true.
Reconciliation to God in Christ is a wondrously powerful reality and, indeed, we should present ourselves unto Him as those who are alive from the dead, saying “Here we are, Papa! What are you up to and how can we be a part of that? What would you have us to do?”
But long ago, way back in the beginning, Father said some things to His children about eating and about tending a garden. He also talked about reproduction and having dominion. There were also some things about leaving one corrupt world and journeying to land of promise.
Could it be that these (and other) desires continue to radiate from the heart of God?
Could it be that he is the same yesterday, today and forever?
Could it be that the crucifixion of Christ was but the end of one divine paradigm and His resurrection the beginning of another?
Early on, all that I understood was that through the sacrificial of death of Jesus on the cross, God had successfully guilted me into trying to pay back the favor.
Something was missing in my understanding. This payback, as I would come to understand it, took the shape of going to church, reading my bible, praying, witnessing, being good and of course giving them lot’s of money.
In short my end of the deal was to act like a good Christian and submit to the traditions of the religion of Christianity.
Does that sound familiar to you?
Does it sound….right?
Does it sound complete?
Time to Go
After a good bit of internal struggle and seeking the Lords heart in the matter, we decided that it was time to leave that particular (non)denomination and start holding meetings in our home. Turning away from Institutional Christianity altogether, we began to pursue what the Lord had revealed to me concerning the church.
But could we do it without a pastor? Without a worship leader? Without a ‘covering’? Without seminary training or Bible College?
The revelation that the Lord gave to me was one of utter simplicity. At the time, I didn’t have a whole lot of theological undergirding to support what He had shown me, but I had something more important:
The fact that He showed me.
What I saw did not come with any theological dissertations. It was what the Church should look like….what it should BE like. What words could I use describe it?
Fullness.
Wholeness.
Completion.
How to get there? At the time I had no clue…but I was hungry for it. No. I was starving for it. Over the years the revelation has continued to open up and grow in my heart and to this day I continue in the journey….
(To be continued…)
PHOENIX RISING 