Point Number Two & What I Didn't Know

Next Post coming soon... Life as a Teenage Super Christian

So now, for my second point. Do you remember it from way back there? It was this: My first real encounter with Jesus came somewhere along my 8th year of life. I know it was real for at least two reasons. One... (read "The Long Walk I Didn't Know About) Two, at the moment my surrender came there was the most unquestionable transition in my thinking and the way I felt. There is a part of me that wonders if my reflection on this memory is really accurate. I know I was only eight years old but I really had a sense that in that moment something dramatic happened. Let me be quick to say that the setting was not dramatic at all. Sometime during the previously mentioned Sunday morning war with the back of the pew God clued my oldest brother in to what was happening. I find this fairly amazing for a number of reasons. Mostly, unlike you might assume, my brother did not attend the same church. So there was no opportunity for him to "witness" (pun intended) my Sunday struggle. He didn't see my tearful face or grieving spirit. But somehow, he knew it was time.

One day, very simply, we knelt by the bunk beds and he shared with me Jesus' love, my eight year old brokenness and my need for God to save me. We prayed a very traditional prayer, I wept like baby and when I stood up I felt lighter than air! I can't imagine what great load of guilt I was carrying at such a young age. I was one of those really good kids who never did much wrong. I liked the way "adult" words bounced around in my mouth on the playground, and snitching an extra cookie when I wasn't supposed to. But that was about it. But no kidding, when I prayed to God to become real to me, some massive darkness lifted from my soul. And there my problem began.

I didn't notice it right away, but the seeds of it were planted long before that moment. Years of churchiness before and after coalesced into a flawed understanding of the life I had just entered. I toddled along into my teen years and got active in a church youth ministry and in a church that was focused on what I now realize were "engineered ministry moments". It's that word "moment" that would become the source of my struggle. In this same church, years later, I would become one of the staff members who was devoted to engineering even greater, more dazzling moments than the ones that came before. I had grown up in an era of church musicals with orchestras and acting. The latest greatest names in church music performed on our stage. The most notable evangelists provoked us to more faithful service. And over time each successive event had to outdo the next. It was like a drug addiction, or eating chocolate. The first taste is sweet, the initial high is gigantic. But over time it takes more and more of your particular drug to satisfy you. in my ministry and Christian life the monkey on my back had become pursuing the next big event, or moment, and it absolutely HAD to be bigger and better than before. Sometimes I find myself being lured back in the direction of doing ministry that way. No doubt, it was exciting. There were some great times, and thank God! There were many times that in spite of my own stupidity and lust for recognition God even used my silly pursuits as His avenue to touch people's lives. You may be asking yourself, "What's wrong with all that anyway? Isn't that how a lot of churches still do things?" I guess some of my answers would go like this.

At least in my own life, both as a "regular" Joe working in the church and, later as a Pastor, I spent so much of my time chasing the next high. And when it didn't happen, or my efforts fell short the crash was personally devastating. I attached so much of my value to how well these events came off that when something was lacking, I was lacking. I can recall times getting so upset over missed lighting cues, blown musical notes, feedback, poor attendance and a countless host of other things that were beyond my own control. In the process of getting upset I trampled the spirit a number of wonderful people who bore the focus of my ire.

God began to speak to my heart about how wrong that all was about 2 years into full time ministry. A lot of churches do still operate in a way that looks, at least in appearance, just like what I've described. All I can say is that I hope their hearts are in a different place than mine and my church's were. I'm speaking in fairly broad terms here, but the end result of being who we were was that people and their eternal condition became a commodity that we tried to buy with glitz, glamour and nifty tricks. As soon as we completed the transaction in the form of church membership or "salvation", we had a church culture that moved on to the next transaction. And most of those who came, if they stayed, seemed to be caught in some kind of holding pattern. They, along with me, never really seemed to get "better", or closer to God, or more Christlike than when they first arrived. In fact, in so many cases, they seemed to become worse people.

Collectively, I think we were all really grumpy about that fact that we were racing from one big moment or event to the next. The amount of effort was huge, the sense of community was as fleeting as the moments. I knew in my own heart that I had been tricked somehow into believing that this way of living the "Christian" life was how God intended it. Tons of frenetic effort. One big moment after another. What I didn't know was that God had said repeatedly that this was not what He intended at all. If anything, this life was supposed to be a journey. A long walk. A marathon. Endurance was the motto of the trip. I realized his other great metaphors were equally long term, slow producing and ultimately satisfying. Birth, gardening, trees, fruit, wine. Sure, all of these metaphors have "moments" before, after and within them. But anyone who is intimate with these ideas and experiences will tell you that you can't separate them from one another.

For instance, if you separate the moment of birth from everything that comes before you end up with a paradigm that only cares about the arrival of offspring. This denies the thrill of conception, the nurturing of the growing life in the mother's womb, the wonder at the miracle of fetal development and so on. A wine maker loves more than the bottle of wine. In fact, for those who know how, the taste of the wine reminds them of all of the qualities and conditions that went into making the wine. Weather patterns, soil composition, aging barrels, aeration. Hundreds of variables that came into play in the process of making the wine. In the same way, when I look at my sons, I simultaneously recall the joys, pains, heartbreaks and celebrations of their existence, not just the moment they were born.

It is in these examples that the picture of life in Christ is revealed. It is not intended to be a succession of one moment greater than the last. But rather, a tapestry of landmarks woven together to create a whole. A journey where each step moves the sojourner but the next step is informed an enriched by all of the ones that came before. It is a journey of awareness and revelation as much as destination. Destination may even be completely divorced from the idea. Since we are said to be living in Christ, it could be said that it is about proximity, not destination. How do you see these ideas in your own Christian history? Do you find yourself today running from one big moment toward the next? Have you discovered the simple luxury of walking the journey?

The Long Walk I Didn't Know About

Next Post Coming Soon: Point Number Two & What I Didn't Know

In the opening paragraph of his book "Blue Like Jazz", Donald Miller http://www.donaldmillerwords.com/ says this...

"I Once listened to an Indian on television say that God was in the wind and the water, and I wondered at how beautiful that was because it meant you could swim in Him or have Him brush your face in a breeze. I am early in my story, but I believe I will stretch out into eternity, and in heaven I will reflect upon these early days, these days when it seemed God was down a dirt road, walking toward me. Years ago He was a swinging speck in the distance; now He is close enough that I can hear His singing. Soon I will see the lines on His face" pg. 1

My first real encounter with Jesus came somewhere along my 8th year of life. I know it was real for at least two reasons. One, the leading up to the day of my first surrender to God's whisper in my ear was completely unrehearsed, unpredictable and devoid of any actual interest on my part. Two, at the moment my surrender came there was the most unquestionable transition in my thinking and the way I felt. Now, I know feelings can be deceptive, but for God's sake (really). When you meet the creator face to face and realize His love for you as fully as you are able to at any given moment... I think it certain that you should feel something. I mean, He created that ability to feel didn't He? And if this whole believing thing is supposed to be absent any feelings, based on reason alone, we're doomed. Because ultimately it makes no sense. But, more on that later.

Let me explain number one a bit. When I was eight my Dad was a pastor. We spent most of my childhood in small churches with earnest people. As I recall they were mostly old earnest people. I have very few remembrances of other children, though surely there were some. I have a very clear remembrance of a particular period of time when I was eight. I was the only kid in Sunday School. It was not very exciting. My teacher, whose name I cannot recall, was one of the old earnest women of the church. As I sift through some mental pictures I can see her gray hair and a navy blue dress. I can also recall that she was incredibly kind. I somehow know that I was not simply an obligation, but that she really cared about me. I don't remember a thing that she said.

At that same time, each Sunday after Sunday School, I would attend the main church service. We sang hymns, listened to organ music, people would pray, an offering would be received... and my Dad would preach. Like the Sunday School teacher, I do not specifically remember a thing my father ever said when he preached those Sunday sermons. I was hopelessly preoccupied with other things. Shortly after the sermon began I would invariably dig into my mother's purse to retrieve her Parker ballpoint pen. On the weekly bulletin I would use every available white space to draw shapes and lines that only on rare occasion resembled anything like a picture.

Sometimes, in the course of finding the pen, I would be rewarded with the discovery of a roll of Life Savers, Wint-O-Green of course. To this day the taste of a Life Saver will transport me back to my mother's purse. I can instantly smell the blend of her perfume and the tobacco from her cigarettes. I can feel the brush of her clothing across my cheek and see her small, slender hands as they supported her bible in her lap. And there I would sit, scribbling on my paper with her pen.

At some point, my father would end his sermon and begin what we called the "invitation". Many churches still use this same tradition which consists of a direct appeal to those in attendance to make a public statement of their decision to become a Christian by walking to the front of the church. Once there the pastor or other church member would counsel with the repentant soul and they would be presented to the church. On most Sundays, for as long as I could remember, the same thing happened. We would stand and sing, my father would make his appeal, we would sing some more, we'd stop, we'd go to lunch. Except that at one point, with no warning or precipitous event, each time we started to sing my little heart began to break. I wanted to weep. I was unable to sing because of the lump in my throat. I didn't know why, but I knew without question that I was supposed to walk down front. Somehow I even knew that God was wooing me to Him. That there was something transcendent of bible stories and hymns and church. God Himself was trying to elevate me to that something.

I know. Pretty damned heady for an eight year old. But I'm not kidding. I knew, week after week as I stood there white-knuckled on the back of the pew, that the reason my heart hurt so much for the last ten minutes of church was that God's finger was poked into my little chest and He was tugging on me. My father became a conduit directed at me of the mysterious, frightening, compelling presence of God. For some weeks I did not go. And He did not relent.

Begin the Journey

I’d heard about this book called “Blue Like Jazz”, by Donald Miller for some time. Different people that I respect; friends, peers, students, reviewers – all of these different voices, with their varying opinions about its merit came together on one clear note. They said it was different. That it laid bare the bones of Christian belief in a way that was frequently humorous (not that unusual… everyone tries to be funny, don’t they?) and just as frequently, honest in a rather disquieting way.

I find myself doing something all of the time that drives me nuts. As I get older, it gets worse. It goes like this: I have in my mind something I want to do, acquire or remember. The success of my desire is dependent on my remembering to do it, acquire it or write it down at a particular time. For instance, I may think, “I need to get milk”. My problem is that I will recall this detail at 2:00 in the morning when I’m searching for something on television that isn’t total crap. More annoying still is that I have been to the grocer once, sometimes twice, the previous day already. But while I was at the grocer’s I didn’t remember that I needed milk.

This book was like that. I’d be walking along the road, riding my bike, grilling a steak and the thought would crash through my head – “I need to get that book!” – but the thought never occurred to me while I was out at the mall, or driving about, or for God’s sake at the blinking bookstore.

One day, while I was buying milk, I walked past the book section of the superstore and there it was. Without hesitation I stuck it in with the groceries and took it home.

Over the next several weeks I want to explore some of the ideas and themes of the book. I’ll tell you what I think, and I’ll ask some questions. If you feel like it, post your comments, but that’s not required. It might be good if you read the book too, but I hope that won’t be necessary either. There will be times where I won’t even reference the book at all, but the blogs I post will probably have been influenced by something I have read.

If you have a website, or an online community, do me the favor of giving me a link. The more people in the conversation the better. Installment number one should be here early next week.