Wade Poe

Most people are born into belief.   You don't have to decide about a lot of things, you're just "given" those things and you assume that is how things are and how the world works. As you grow and develop, you begin to run into and/or pick up different ideas and experiences.  At some point, you have to begin defending what you already believe or  begin considering the different ideas and experiences as possibly something to take into your world or belief system. Safety, trust, the possibility of loss or benefit, and a whole host of unspoken but strongly felt thoughts and considerations begin unfolding inside a person IF and when they begin to take other things inside their heart and mind. _______________ When I was a child, my family moved from the country and into a small town. One of my first memories of meeting other people around my age was after a church gathering on a Wednesday night. I don't remember why we got on the topic, but me and another boy got into a...

Is deconstruction the same thing as “being woke”? No, they *can* overlap, but one does not mean the other is present - at least in the way that the word “woke” is used in our culture today. For me, deconstruction simply means that I changed my thinking on a lot of big picture issues when it came to what I believe about faith in God, what scripture is and what it’s for, and what “church” is supposed to be in my life and what it is “supposed to be” in real life for those who believe. To an outsider who comes from another Christian religious tribal background or tradition, they would probably just see me as someone who changed a few of my beliefs about Christianity. To an outsider who does not come from a Christian religious background, they also would possibly see me as someone who changed a few of my beliefs about Christianity. To many from my religious tribe of origin, they would probably see me as someone who has abandoned my faith entirely, but that’s not how I see it at all. In our ...

A lot of church people don't understand why outsiders or non-church people don't want to be part of church. A lot of outsiders or non-church people don't understand why church people seem to be so interested in church things, getting rid of certain sins, and other things that seem so disconnected from their life. There is a cultural and communication difference that doesn't seem like a lot of people try to cross over or build a bridge over in order to communicate better. Outsiders aren't too motivated to be the ones who have to cross over and translate for the church people. Church people often seem like they assume the outsiders "already know better" and are just holding out and not wanting to commit to what they know they should commit to. Outsiders aren't completely unaware of the ideas of right and wrong, know generally who God and Jesus are in a pop culture sense, but get hung up on some of the details that seem really genuinely arbitrary to them....

Steven Martin made a movie called "Leap of Faith" back in the early 90's putting the spotlight on religious healing, fake healers that make money at the expense of the gullible, and yet showing the possibility of hope and faith having real and powerful results. It was really good, even if a little cheesy.  It brought up a lot of good discussions about what it means to be healed and what we're possibly healed of or healed from.  And whether God has anything to do with it. A lot of water has passed under the bridge since then and the meaning of healing has changed a lot for me.  A lot. _______________ A lot of times, healing doesn't look or appear or feel like you think it's going to look or feel.  Most healing is not external and physical - most of it is internal and spiritual or emotional. It isn't a lot of emotion  and fantastic moments of revelation.   That's what a lot of people try to sell, but it's not real and it's not what works. Most o...

For some people, words literally trigger physical senses or involuntary emotional reactions.  It is called synesthesia and includes things like tasting, smelling, or physically "feeling" or experiencing a word. It's a neurological phenomenon that affects a small number of people naturally and a slightly larger number who have it triggered by outside variables. It might not be exactly the same thing, but certain words, names, or ideas have that kind of impact for me.  Probably because some experiences in life coincided with other experiences, things got tied together in my mind. It's especially true for things that have to do with names, locations, and other situations described in the Bible.   That's likely the case because whenever I heard certain words or stories on a repeated basis, I was probably around other stimuli that tied them together and left a feeling, a sense, or a word picture, imprinted in my mind. _______________ For example, whenever I heard the t...