Living-Deliberately.com

Life is fluid and wave-like and sometimes people fade in and out of our lives. Sometimes two people can have a common experience, have a varying degree of connection over it, but still not really know one another. Sometimes that common experience can lead one to have an openness to what the other has to say, or maybe breed a sort of loyalty where otherwise there’d be none.

Friends of mine had a baby. These were old friends, friends I grew up with and who fade in and out of my life. Another friend had a baby and the first friend directed me to the blog documenting the growth progress of the second friend’s premie. In visiting the little guys’ blog I linked into his ordinary blog. And from there I found another to link, a familiar name, back when we all were friends in the same youth group.

And so a decade plus later I’ve had names on my mind that normally don’t cross my consciousness. I’ve had an interest in what they’ve had to say, how we’ve all developed and grown, and where we are now.

I’ve also had a growing, nagging, spiritual discontent. Maybe surprising as I’m in a thriving, wonderful church community that feeds my soul every week. But I’m finally putting into words a self-loathing and dissatisfaction that I’ve found hard to articulate.

Specifically, I find a disgusting contrast between modern christianity/religion and the Christ of the bible. The disgust starts when I look in the mirror. I”m a pathetic imitation of Christ. I struggle and never seem to grow in sanctification, holiness, or purity. I feel ashamed to approach a “relationship” with Christ in which I’ve done so little to be more like Him. And yet…

very little, nay precious little of what I see around me, is any better.

I know very kind people. Moral people. Compassionate people. Outreaching, friendly, unprejudice people. There are denominations and persuasions galore and every single one thinks they have the corner on truth. Not a single one is without fractiousness and dissention on a schizmatic level.

I’m hungry. And I’m floating. And I’d so love to see an example of someone who vocally is persuing holiness that in some way actually looks something like the savior of the bible and the path He led. So when I found my old aquaintance’s blog entitled “YouCanKnowGod.com” I jumped at the chance to read what he has to say.The title is a bit….bold, but I was hoping to find a pursuit of holiness, a contemplative look at the christian life.

I’ll say right here that I approach this humbly. Mike’s blog does not seem to have comments on it; he may not want a dialog at all. For that reason I’m saying this here rather than in response to his post right on his site. I don’t typically raz other people’s blogs; thier turf is theirs to say what they want. This one though, really struck a nerve.

Mike is a pastor of a church in Georgia. His church is “partnered” with other churches and it’s vision is to “reach out to those disconnected to God”. Feeling my own sense of disconnect, I, justly or not, lumped myself in and read a few posts. You can do the same with this link.

I liked (a lot) what he had to say about culture and the way the church has traditionally viewed it. His is a church plant and as such I expected to hear that “pioneer in the wilderness” gritiness in his voice that would indicate he can retain enough idealism to fuel him through the lean times. It’s there. I thought I picked up on more than a little “church growth movement” hyperbole but I was really interested and didn’t want to pass a quick judgement so I swallowed it down.

Today’s post, though, brought it tumbling back up, like a bit of reflux. He’s apparently been attending some services at a church that is sponsoring them, helping them with lighting, and grand opening day stuff. Mike respects these guys and you can tell it’s not just polite gratitude for their help. He’s admitted they impress him and he called them “the real deal”. Here’s a quote from what he had to say about the meeting:

After the 2 Saturday night services, they had a quick evaluation meeting where they talked through the effectiveness of the whole service. They talked about flow, took a song out of the program, and gave feedback on the message.

Oh my. Brings up images of market analysis. You know, where the soda company (or the theme park) finds out what it’s customers want and then cater the product to please. “Effectiveness” measured by what standard and with whose viewpoint? Are we counting heads? Memberships?
Emotional responses?

I wonder what was wrong with the song. I have the feeling most of what we sing in my church wouldn’t pass these guys’ muster. I have a problem with boring old hymns that do little communicate the message or resonate with a changing culture too. What we sing isn’t very modern or often catchy and we like it that way. (we sing Psalms for the most part and I can’t /imagine/ any pastor having the balls moxy to say a psalm [scripture] didn’t fit the “flow” of his service but I know it happens).

I wonder what the pastor will do with his message feed back. Mike said he wanted that kind of feedback “as a communicator”. I can see that fleshly desire being quite natural. Problem for me is…where is the Holy Spirit in all of this? If the message didn’t “flow” right or didn’t fit the cultural vision, would it have been adapted?

Ultimately I wonder what such a manipulated and manufactured service/church can have to do with the Christ of the bible. How in the world is this anything like how Jesus lived his ministry? I can’t see the Twelve sitting around saying, “Hey Jesus, next time we need to speed things up a bit.” I want my grocer to stock what I’d like to buy and I want my doctor to listen to my desires on how to care for me. I want food manufacturers to listen to the people and stop putting in crap ingredients. But I’d never want a church to cater what it does to I think I want at the moment.

Christianity (I thought) was suposed to be about growing in grace. It is suposed to be a “step up”, a challenge for us to rise. We’re given a model that we were made in the image of; not the other way around.

Sigh. I read Mike’s Story and found much of my own reflected therein. We were indeed discontent, as a group more often than not, with such manufacturing. We were weary with “programs” that distracted more than anything else. Listening to his words I hear the same driven hunger to “know God”, the REAL God, that we knew we often were not being presented with.

I just don’t see where a “vision” like this makes any real difference. I want more.

My apologies to Mike if this seems harsh.

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