After much careful thought, I have finally decided to renounce the Christian life. I have already resigned from “professional” ministry so this is the next step. Those who know me best and those who have known me the longest will certainly be shocked. In fact, they only continue to read this in order to get to the punch-line. There is no punch-line. This is a radical life change!
I don’t mind being controversial. I don’t mind being wrong. I do mind staying the same. For years, I have struggled with this issue. I resigned from ministry because of the internal struggles that I had regarding this issue. The chasm between what I felt inside and what I saw, both around me and in me, was too great. There had to be something more. There had to be something different. I have found it!
After years of study, I have found the crux of my issue. I have discovered the bridge to the great gulf fixed between where I am and where I want to be. It is biblical living! Some of you may have read the above paragraphs and thought that I was renouncing my faith. Let me assure you that I could sooner desert my family whom I love dearly than I could my Father who loves me dearly. However, any initial emotion that you may have felt that resembled shock, disappointment, or anger only serves to prove a point that I read in 1997. Dallas Willard writes in The Spirit of the Disciplines that “my Christian fellowship circle (friends, small group, Sunday School class, etc.) will allow me to NOT follow Jesus. They will even allow me to PLAN not to follow Jesus, but they will not permit me to SAY it.”
For those of you who actually study your Bibles for yourselves, please allow me to ask you a question. Does the difference between the church you read about in the New Testament and the church you see today bother you? I long for the life and vibrance contained in the early church. I desire the community and unity written about and observed by Luke when he wrote Acts. And I KNOW that it is possible to have now. I just don’t know where to find it.
I will not use this space and these words to rant on the local church. I have spent countless hours in the past doing just that. (My apologies to those who willingly endured it.) What happens when we rant about the local church is that we become a fog horn in our communities to believers and unbelievers alike, or perhaps a burglar alarm is a better analogy. How often do you pay attention to a burglar alarm that is not coming from your house or car? You may glance occasionally at the source of the noise, but rarely, if ever, will you seriously investigate the cause of the noise. Alarms, once rare, are so common place now that they simply blend into all other noises that fill our heads. So it is with those who rant about the local church. Change never comes from occasional glances at the source of the noise. Change comes from seriously investigating the cause for alarm. And there is cause for alarm!
We, “christians,” have seriously depleted the power and majesty of our Messiah. We have created clever clichés, pithy programs, and beautiful buildings, but we have sacrificed freedom, transparency, and sometimes integrity to get them. Jesus does NOT care about our clichés, programs, or, dare I say, even our buildings. He cares abundantly more than we can fathom, though, about us. We ARE the church that the gates of hell shall not prevail against. It’s time we act like it. It’s time we become it.
It starts with us recognizing that our concept of salvation falls far short of the biblical concept for it. None of us can seriously believe that the only reason Jesus made the agonizing, ultimate sacrifice was so that we can be “saved” and spend eternity with Him. The simplicity of that, and that alone, does not resonate with the sacrifice that Jesus demanded of His early followers. It cost them something. It cost them everything. But we seldom teach that to potential converts or new believers. We soft pedal the commitment and obedience issues. We fail to mention the promised persecution that we will face. Do we feel it necessary to make Jesus more palatable than he made himself just to gather more followers for Him? Does that really make sense? Is that His expectation of us?
At the risk of sounding like a Dallas Willard publicity agent, let me use a paragraph from his book The Divine Conspiracy. “Does Jesus only enable me to ‘make the cut’ when I die? Or to know what to protest, or how to vote or agitate and organize? It is good to know that when I die all will be well, but is there any good news for life? If I had to choose, I would rather have a car that runs than good insurance on a car that doesn’t.” Pg 12
Jesus died so that we can have both. We, you and I, not pastors and missionaries, need to teach what being a follower of Jesus means in life, not just in death. But our teaching will not utilize platforms or pulpits, it will involve careful and intentional demonstration of Jesus’ words radically changing our actions. We need to unapologetically teach the things we wish the Bible didn’t say. Things like the fact that Jesus did not come to bring peace (Matt. 10:34) and many, many other difficult truths.
The biblical life is not easy because it demands. It costs. It requires something. Transparently, I do not presume to know the extent to which it actually demands, costs, and requires. But I am willing to find out. I already have the “good insurance” now it is my job to make sure my car runs. I do not want to be a fog horn in my community but a light house. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 4:16 that the believers in Corinth looking for an example to follow should imitate him. That is the confidence that I seek.
I do not know where this journey will take me. I do not know who, if anyone, will go with me. The journey will be hard. It will cost me everything. It will insure that I be persecuted as a fruitcake, a weirdo, and perhaps even a heretic. But I am really in love with my Jesus. That demands that I live a biblical life, not a “Christian” one. Again, I do not fear being controversial. I do not fear being wrong. But I am absolutely terrified of staying the same.
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I know how you feel Jason. We have gone through so much spiritual growth over the last 10 years and all it did was move us farther away from what we have been taught all our lives to "spiritual" or "normal". Going to church, doing this doing that. None of it produced anything really spiritual, or brought me closer to God. It just seemed like ritual, going through the motions. Even being "plugged in" ugh, I hate that term, I'm not a lamp. It was just piling burdens on us and just took up time and really was just baby sitting teenagers that didn't care to be there or playing music to people that didn't want to hear it, or it was too loud or to quote a so called pastor, "too rocky". Anyway all that being said, finally realized it was not about going somewhere or doing ritualistic things, it is about me and my Lord, my relationship with Him. It all starts there. It is a good thing to get away from all that stuff. Religion is a man made thing anyway. The so called Christian life I have found is not at all what "they" the so called leaders of the faith, want you to think it is. It's not about doing stuff, it's just "being" with your Lord, where you are. Where you are is your ministry, not traveling to some foreign land, maybe for some people but its not "the" only ministry.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, just trying to encourage you, not that you need it, but it just sounds a little familiar to me.
Read a great book recently. Was exactly where I was at and explained a lot of the things I was feeling. it's called "So You Don't Want to Go to Church Anymore". Really good read.
Talk to you soon,
daniel