Strong in faith, not a church fanboy

Another world shaking idea that surfaced with deconstruction and rebuilding is being strong in my trust and dependence on God and seeing how different that is from being a big fan of "church" or "going to church" or things like that.

In the past, the two were inseparable.  In fact, you showed your trust and dependence on God BY being a big church fan and making sure you supported everything about church.  As a student of history and sociology, that makes 100% sense, but it's still very misguided, to me.

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It's almost like students in most public schools these days learning and/or having classroom activities that prepare them to take "the test" at the right time.  You know, the test the government has schools take, essentially to show they're still qualifying for government money to keep flowing their way.

There's nothing wrong with prepping to take a test, but when your entire system is wrapped around that particular thing, it completely shapes the whole of the educational/school experience into something that is likely NOT beneficial to the average student, but 100% keeps the beast of school funding fed.

Think about it - how many kids do not have a love of learning different topics because it has to be taught a certain way so as to meet certain mandates?  How many teachers could teach their topic with passion and enthusiasm if they weren't tied to certain "standards" that many kids don't ever connect with?

I could go on and on and it could get really political or on to other topics, but the idea is the same - the goal of an institution experiences "mission drift" and changes the purpose of the institution, usually to keep the institution alive and funded, even if it is doing the opposite of its actual, assumed goal.

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If the point of trust and depending on God ISN'T to support, defend, and spread "the church", then what's the deal?  What are we doing again?  That's how blended and blurred church, God, faith, and such has become in our culture - that if you "mess with" church, people don't know what else to do - it's their focus.

So, to be a person of trust and dependence on God - in many ways that are counter to what I learned growing up - means to trust and depend on him as an individual and not just as a corporate contributor.  The group, the family of God, is important to the degree we are connected to God as individuals.

What makes me a part of God's family is that I am connected to God first and HE connects me with his family, his church.  

It's very possible to join a group of people who are not connected to God primarily and have their main connection as some religious flavored things.

So that shifts things dramatically!

If I am connected to God primarily and HE connects me with his people, then I'm following him and not just the social winds of the group I'm part of that say they're also his people.  

It can make it a little easier to say, "Well, that's not where he's leading me. You all let me know how it goes for you after you've walked that path for a while; I'll catch you later."  

I can separate from others without any extra need to critique what they're doing.  Or at least that's what I'm learning right now.

A part of this process has been to winnow through the ball of mashed ideas, feelings, and such and process things in their own categories and not make everything the same thing.

For example, a lot of personal junk came up over the past few years - bad personality clashes, people making choices that caused a lot of pain, learning that some folks are indeed giant self-absorbed beings that I thought were not that, etc - learning to parse those things separately from what's true, good, right, etc about God.

The ability to separate those things from the larger ideas of forgiveness, God's spirit in us, what his family or his church is in reality versus what religious pop culture taught me, and so on - that has all been huge and it has reshaped, even more, how I read and hear scripture.

How?  As mentioned earlier, I used to hear everything God related through the voice of "Keep the church as the main thing in your life" and now I can hear and think about "the church" through God's voice, allowing him to shape how I think about everything, even if it runs counter to "church" things and potentially takes a lot of attention, time, etc away from "the church".

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When I was in high school, I used to have discussions with people about religion, church, etc - or at least I thought I was.  I reality it was me attacking the beliefs of anyone who wasn't in my tribe and, statistically, it was usually some kind of Baptist or Assembly of God person.

One of the more common things discussed was instrumental music and how your tribe is wrong if you have a piano or used any kind of "mechanical music" in your church service - you know, "because that's what important to God..."

I remember talking to a guy who was really a good singer, good musician, and loved to perform, and he was a Baptist who was part of a church with a really good music ministry.  

I asked him that if God showed him in scripture that "worship music" with instruments was indeed wrong, would he be able to trust God and walk away from a church that had pianos, a band, etc.  After some deep thinking, he said "No."  And I admired his honesty and straightforwardness.  

I think he even shocked himself.

Now, I don't hold to that belief anymore about worship services and such, just to be clear, but I often think about that exchange for the clarity of thinking that guy had.  

He knew what he was "in it" for and could separate out his wants, desires, etc in a way I'd never seen before.

What I see now is just how important that kind of ability is - to have that kind of clarity of who and what you're committing to and investing in.

To be able to trust God enough that if he leads me away from a long standing church belief or practice, then I can trust him completely and depend on him to provide what he wants me to have.  

I don't have to try to pour new wine into old wineskins, I can let him provide anything and everything in his own way.

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I'm sure it's just my experiences that are unique to me, but in the past I was all about the latest "Christian music group", especially if they were from my tribe.  Or the popular speakers that were at all the big conferences - after all, didn't they have a special connection with God?  “Surely so,” I thought.  

I'd never come out at say it back then, but my thinking was definitely along the lines of "This is God's thing.  These are his people.  This is all he wants - for us to enjoy all this church stuff, to encourage and invite others to join us - this is the highest good we can do in this world."

Now, keep in mind, my world and my worldview and my experiences were really limited and that world was all I knew at the time AND, perhaps important to remember, it was the world that "the church" put in front of me and others on repeat - so we'd grow up thinking and believing the church was of greatest importance relative to anything else in the world.

Now, after a LOT of other experiences and education, AND after choosing to step out of that local social network, I don't see anything like that anymore.  

Looking back on how I interacted with all that church stuff, it's like walking into your childhood home (if it still exists) and thinking about how you saw life through your toys, your bedroom, your friends at the time, etc - I’m grateful those experiences were used to carry me through time…

…but to be loyal to them today to the degree that I want everyone to experience and know those things and "hallow them" as I did growing up, well it would be almost like demanding to remain a child.

I think about the fact that there are so many people who love their heritage, their church history, etc SO MUCH that it's one of the main things they pass on to their kids over and above trusting and depending on God.  

Why would they do that?  Because to them those are the same things.  God and church, as they know church, are the same thing.

But they are not.

So, coming out the other side of all that, wow!  God is SO MUCH bigger than the peep show that I used to worship would allow me to see.

I'm no longer studying to take "the test".  I'm no longer promoting a particular brand of religious experience, per se.

There's no more "If you died tonight, where would you go?" kinds of manipulation.

There's no more, "Wasn't ____________'s sermon just the best?! I love that guy."

There's no more, "Oh yeah, ______________ was a member of our tribe when they were growing up!"

There IS stuff like, "You 100% can know that God loves you and you are 100% good with him already."

There are moments like, "Yeah, when that person suggested that if we weren't giving _______ amount of money to that thing, that we weren't really committed to God, I decided that wasn't someone I'd listen to anymore."

Or moments like, "Yep, just like you are, right now - you're good with God, just because you believe what he said.  Nothing else you need to do.  Nothing you can do to make him love you more.  Just enjoy it."

Or moments like, "Wow!  God really does love people and John 3:16 is actually true without all the baggage that was added to it by my tribe!"

And so much more.

More soon.

Grace and peace.