Down the Straight and Narrow

So I began this a few days ago and have been meaning to finish it but have been distracted by, you know, life and such.

The last post long and drawn out. Seemingly, it was also full of tangents as well but, let me assure you, it was all relevant information. And now, for some more random pieces of information.

A long time ago, before I was a member of a church in the area, I was going to Church 1 and speaking with the Pastor about the church's theology and structure, talking with him about every question I could think of, from baptism to ordination. Three things happened in the process:

1. The associate pastor asked me to be a Youth Counselor while I was visiting one time. You know how that turned out from my last post.
2. I was convinced that the church's theology had no faults that I could find and became a member (along with my wife)
3. I had the thought put in my head that I might want to be a pastor

That is a crazy idea I had not thought about at all.

I was raised Christian but when I was in high school, my family started to drift away from going to church. I felt something missing in my life at the time so I began looking for a church. Time and time again, I was sorely disappointed by the way I was treated as a teenager. No one took me seriously and why should they? The examples of Youth Groups around include kids who came, sang a lot, had fellowship time with each other (heaven forbid, teens would talk to adults), and never talked about deeper theological or spiritual topics. After a time, I became so frustrated that I crafted my own thoughts on how a church should be constructed.

Honestly, I was pretty naive. I tried starting it as a bible study with my friends and that just fell into bickering over the most pointless of arguments. That was a rough time for me, spiritually speaking. That's not to say that things have gotten easy but I have definitely learned some ways to cope (prayer of all sorts, typically).

At any rate, I moved here for grad school, as I mentioned before, and I decided to give a campus ministry a try. What I found was quite astounding. The moment I walked into the ministry, I knew that it was where I needed to be. My fellow students were friendly and engaging. There were small groups where we dug through some more penetrating theological issues. I loved it. My hope that Christianity could be a vibrant, communal faith was restored.

Fast forward, through my conversations with the Pastor, I learned that the doctrine and structure of his church was uncannily close to what I had envisioned. In fact, the ideas that I had had were already in practice and refined to a much more practical approach. Ideas I had not thought about were in place and oversights that I didn't see become obvious. I was truly impressed at the structure.

In one of the meetings, the idea of ordination came about and, I'm not quite sure how it got there, but a bug got into my ear, metaphorically speaking. I would have screamed bloody murder if that had literally happened. What would it like to be a pastor?

I mulled it over a bit, put it in the back of my mind, and went about life. Every once in a while, it would creep up again. I remember having a conversation with someone else who had mentioned that they thought I was going to go to become a pastor. I recall talking to the Youth Minister about how many people who become pastors find their way through Youth Ministry. There have been other conversations that I've had with my wife that have made me think about it.

Moreover, when I began teaching Sunday School, I realized how much I loved it. I know, it's not the same thing as being a pastor. There's a lot more to it than preparing a lesson for a (hopefully) captive audience but it really made come to grips with the idea that what I really want in life, more than anything else, is to help.

Deep down, I don't want glory or even to be remembered. That series of blog posts I did a while back about my assumptions truly reflects who I am as a person. Yes, I do have shallow desires. I would love to be remembered. It's a great feeling but it's not what I really want out of life. I want to be that tsunami for good, not just a drop in the ocean.

Anyway, now I'm starting to ramble. The biggest thing that I want to get off my chest is that I've been thinking about becoming a pastor. A lot. I've prayed about it. I've talked to a close friend or two. So far, nothing of consequence.

Again, I feel like I'm cutting this short because there's more that needs to be said. I will leave that for another post.

And the truth shall set you free!

I've been somewhat distant lately. I almost used the word "secretive" but it's not anything nearly that interesting. I've been struggling with a few things that I've needed to work out and am still working out as I write this. I'm fairly certain that I will offend most people that live in my area that have a faith connection with me. If you are one of those people, I expect that you will neither take this personally nor walk away from this post thinking that I have abandoned you. I am merely expressing thoughts and feelings that I've had lately and, no matter what it sounds like, I love you.

So, let me start at the beginning.

I moved to this area about four years ago for graduate school and, to make a long story short, I began dating the woman who would become my wife. While we were dating, we began looking for a church to go to. After going to a few of them, we found one that we really loved going to because of the music they have and the progressive theology they endorse. It's the church we were married in and the church in which I became a Youth Counselor and a Sunday School teacher.

Let me take a slight tangent here in our story to explain a little about how this came about. My wife and I were involved in a campus ministry (in fact, that's how we met). However, when I knew that, when I graduated, I couldn't stay a part of a campus ministry forever (unless I became a campus pastor or something along those lines). So, I began to pray about what ministry I should enter into next. Now, I could go on and on about the power of prayer but I'd rather not spend the time in this post about it so let me just say that the prayers were answered by an associate pastor approaching me one day and asking me if I wanted to be a part of the Youth Ministry. I was apprehensive at first but, knowing that God answers prayers in ways I don't understand, I eventually agreed to take it on.

There is no doubt in my mind that it was one of the best decisions of my life. Personally, I have grown so much as a leader, teacher, and Christian since I became a Youth Counselor that I will never fully know the extent to which my life has been changed by being a part of this group. On top of that, I gotten to effect the lives of quite a few teens (hopefully, to their betterment as well).

After a year and a half of being a Youth Counselor, I was asked if I wanted to take over leading Youth Sunday School. Again, I was apprehensive but, again, it was one of the best decisions of my life.

I'd love to say everything turned out to be roses and rainbows but, unfortunately, I don't live in fantasy-land. After a while, it became more evident to my wife and I that the progressive theology that we fell in love with did not have the depth and relational background that we needed in a church. We knew that God loved us, we heard it every week, but we didn't walk away from sermons feeling challenged and we didn't walk away from services feeling connected. Now, while the former is an area of contention for which I think the blame lies more squarely on the shoulders of the clergy whom have no intention of changing, the blame of the later is mitigated by the fact that my wife and I are not the primary audience being reached by the congregation. The primary focus of the church is, more so, for children and people with children, a spectrum my wife and I do not fall into.

After several painful conversations and sleepless nights, we decided that we needed to move on. We began attending the church that sponsors the campus ministry we were a part of. This meant that I gave up teaching Youth Sunday School (something that I have still not fully come to terms with yet) in exchange for closer relationships and challenging sermons. Also, they found out that I was a Youth Counselor and wanted me to help out with their Youth Ministry. Now, I was still doing Youth Ministry at the other church but I saw that the times didn't interfere with each other so I told them I would try it out.

A few weeks into the school year, the new Youth Ministry decided to change the meeting time to the same time as the old Youth Ministry. So, again, I needed to make a tough decision. In the end, I decided to stick with the old Youth Ministry, since I had more of my time invested in it and I believe more so in its guiding principles.

So, that's most of the background information.


Here's the thing: the two faith communities lack exactly what the other has, as far as I can tell. I would sum them up with the following Bible verses.

Church 1 is Micah 6:8 - He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

Church 2 is Matthew 28:18 - 20 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

Church 1 is focused, very much so, on spreading God's love by acts of justice and kindness. For example, the Youth program does a mission trip every year to a place where the teens are shown how to help destitute people. Believe me, if you've never been on a mission trip before, I recommend that you do it at least once in your life. I've never felt better about a week's worth of work than when it's done out of charity for the less fortunate. Truly a humbling and inspiring experience.

Church 2 is focused, very much so, on spreading God's love by telling people the good news and building positive relationships. For example, the Youth program does a retreat every year to build relationships and reflect on the awesomeness of God. Again, I've been on retreats before and they've been eye-opening experiences into the core of my personal beliefs and convictions. Great experience.

Do you see the problem here? There's multiple ways to spread God's love.

The first approach is the Saint Francis of Assisi approach: "Preach the gospel at all times and, when necessary, use words." The way that it preaches the good news into people's lives is by taking a loving but hands-off approach to it. It's a selfless endeavor but too an extreme of almost not building relationships in the body of believers.

The second approach has it's benefits and faults as well. The way it preaches the good news into people's lives is by taking the direct route of building relationships with people so that they can know God better and more personally. It's a very spiritually-sound method of doing it but it can be, at times, somewhat self-serving since it focuses on building up the ranks of a church rather than truly helping those in need.

There's more that needs to be said here but this is long enough for the time being and I'll say the remainder in a different post. For now, I'll leave you to post your comments. I appreciate any that you may have.