Wade Poe

Wrapping up week # 3 of reestablishing daily writing and about to turn a corner from one focus to another.  This will wrap up most of the high level, fly over view of a lot of the notes that have been pitched into my Notes App over the past few months about deconstruction and after today, will move toward the notes that are more in the rebuilding pile, but acknowledging there will be a bit overlap with occasional forays back into the deconstruction side to explain what's being built or rebuilt. In other words, for writing's sake, the new thing is going to take focus from this point forward.  Instead of "What's does Wade seem mad about today?" we will move to "Where is God leading Wade?".  It's funny, one of the most common questions I'm asked is, "Where y'all going to church now?".  Very few, like two people, asked where I am "with God" in all this change that's happened.  And that summarizes a lot of what I've bee...

One of the early pictures I heard/got about God's grace versus his anger or justice was this: Justice is like if you get pulled over by a state trooper and the officer tells you what you've done wrong and writes you a ticket for the law you broke.  That's justice and you got what you deserved. Mercy is like when the same officer tells you what you've done wrong and instead of writing you a ticket, lets you off with a verbal warning.   That's mercy and you did not get what you deserved. Grace is when the officer pulls you over for doing wrong and instead of a ticket or warning, the officer writes themselves the ticket for your offense so they have to pay for it and it goes on their record and not yours AND also gives you their vehicle, their gun and uniform, AND as they hand you the keys to their vehicle, tells you about $10,000,000 in cash that's in the trunk that is now also yours as well AND to have a nice day.   Grace is not getting what you deserved, but ...

Some years ago a friend and I were in a conversation about a trip we were both taking to somewhere in Oklahoma. After about five minutes of talking, we were considering riding together to save money.  And after about five more minutes, we realized we were talking about two separate events in separate cities. Though the events were kinda, sorta similar in description, they were definitely not the same. A part of "deconstruction" and rebuilding for me over the decades has been having conversations with people - some planned and some happening organically, right on the spot, perhaps providentially.  These conversations over the years were like the one I just talked about above, though not as comical and yet way more subtle and impactful on my understanding of God, church, and relationships. You know the kind of conversation - where you're both assuming what the other person is thinking, that your pop culture references are the same, and that you're both talking about the...

One of the things I've known or heard all my growing up years was, "You don't HAVE TO go to church, you GET TO go to church."  This was usually said after I was attempting to convince my parents that I was coming down with something so I could stay home and watch the Disney show that was always scheduled during Sunday night church service. And so, from that and many other experiences where we used the word "church" to refer to a place we went to at certain scheduled times of the week, the idea of church was still a building that was bought by church people that was exclusively for getting together to "have church".   We used the word in an almost abusive manner - "Since we're the church, let's get ready to go have church at the church with the church." It was simultaneously the people, a building, and a certain kind of gathering. So there actual word "church" has a lot of roots, but the word we use in English has a some ...

"Hindsight is 20/20" - well, sometimes it is. And at other times, hindsight removes the viewer from the events or objects being viewed to such a degree that their interpretation of what was seen can be overly influenced by new awarenesses or perceived realities that were not present before. We can then reinterpret our past based on what we feel, think, and want to be true today.  And that's one of the confusing parts of deconstruction and what follows.  And it's what determines whether what follows deconstruction is a rebuilding or complete destruction. Good deconstruction, in my biased opinion, allows for both an interpretation of past belief or ideal in the context of "where you were at the moment" and not simply where you've "matured" to be later when you make a new interpretation after consideration of your current situation. Looking back over several months and years, I can see intellectual deconstruction occurring but not in some kind of ...

There are lots of ways to see how "church" and "God's plans" change over time.  Also, there are lots of ways people have interpreted how God's plan/the church is "supposed to be".   Here are summaries or large generalizations of some I've heard over the years.   1 . God put the Bible in place (through mainly sinful and likely lost people) and it's our job to figure out what God's intentions for us are through the correct interpretation of "the Bible".  The truth that is "the Bible" is like a seed that, regardless of where it's planted, it will grow and produce the exact same plant, anywhere on the planet.   Like if a seed gets stuck on the wheel on the landing gear of an airplane in Chicago and then, when landing, it drops off the wheel in Hong Kong and lands in the dirt, that seed will germinate and grow and be identical to the plant in Chicago that it originated from. And with that idea in mind, a person is sup...

If you don’t work for a church full time anymore, why do you care? Why don’t you just move on to whatever is next and not “pee in the pool” for the rest of us who are still swimming in it? Good question!   First, to reestablish the daily discipline of writing. I have many scraps of writing - ideas, thoughts, questions, to do lists, reactions, sounds - and such the like on my Notes App on my phone.  I might be driving or doing something else and a thought will come to mind and I'll use "talk to text" to make a note for later.   Much of it is for the purpose of reflection and looking back over my day or the week to see what I was thinking at the time and "Is it still important or was I just running low on coffee?".   Some years ago I learned that if I don't make a note somewhere, I'll spend too much time later trying to remember it, so just write it down and just don't forget where you wrote stuff down. A lot of those notes are simply raw material I...

Here are a few before and after places in my journey.  Some verbal images of heavy weights or baggage I've put down. And probably where many will think, 'Yeah, that's what I was hoping to see finally so I could decide whether to stay interested or not". 😊 And that's okay.  I used to think that was really important and now I don't.  Here we go: Before, I thought people were being soft for complaining about sitting in a pew for an hour and a half listening to some people talk and being cajoled into singing with everyone else, having pressure to have similar emotional responses as everyone around them and now I see that people are or were just being honest - some of those things are truly silly and more Hollywood than they are Holy Spirit. Before, I wasn't sure where the New Covenant or promise that God made started and the old way was fulfilled or ended.  Probably didn't even know there was a clear dividing line.  Now, I realize we fully live in the time...

A good follow up to previously discussed questions has been - "So what exactly are you taking apart? What did you think before that you don't think now? And what do you think or believe now?" You really don't know what you're taking apart until you start taking it apart.  You might think you're deconstructing (see the first two blog posts on this thread for a rough definition of deconstructing) one thing, but you get into it and realize that one thing was built on top of several other things and that to get to those things, you're gonna have to take out a load bearing wall and put in something to replace it's function for the time being, etc.   In other words, it can be complicated.  It's not a matter of "Did you just get tired of church?".  If it were that simple, it would nice. So I'll try to simplify it for myself and for others. It's gonna be in stages. Occasionally I'll do a before and after quick picture, but I'd ra...

As I move along the path of writing down this journey of deconstruction and rebuilding, some common themes keep coming back up from people: Are you mad at Central Church's people? Are you mad you didn't get the preaching job a couple years back? Things at church were going so good for everyone, why wasn't that true for you too? Those are all fair questions, especially with my departure being so abrupt and without any warning or explanation to the "general public". Short answers:   No, no, and I'm not you. Longer answers:  Are you mad at Central Church's people?  No. My faith journey *includes* the good people of Central Church, but doesn't exclusively revolve around them.  Sure, some interactions and relationship dynamics contributed to my faith journey/deconstruction process, for better or worse, but God was and is certainly involved in the process as well and sometimes he moves people around for their individual needs and that is the case here. Are ...