My Former Life As A Bobber

Even though I was saved in childhood I quickly realized how much I hated church.

Not hating God, not hating or mis-trusting the Bible ... I hated what church was. I hated wearing wearing a coat and tie (think Florida humidity in July) on Sundays. I was bored senseless during Sunday School and I dreaded the hour spent during the sermon squirming around trying to find the sweet spot on hard-backed pews.

I hated and tuned-out the 200 year old hymns that sounded like covers from "Solid Gold Funeral Hits" and I inwardly cringed at every thee, thou, art, and thine that seemed to suddenly errupt and echo up to the balcony during every prayer.

Don't get me wrong, I still believed ... I just had trouble applying what I heard and saw happening on Sunday to what I heard and saw happening the next day at school and at work as a teenager. The worship service seemed so rigid and God seemed so angry that I was never sure which sin, maybe my next one, might earn me God's fury and forever cancel my salvation. And so far as actually inviting anyone else to church ... well, I'd rather have eaten a bucket of live roaches with a fork and no gravy. Just couldn't bring myself to do it.

Church seemed so far removed from real life that it wasn't hard for me to understand people who argued that church was threatening to make itself irrelevant. But any suggestion, even the most well-intended and politely-phrased idea about changing the service's rituals to make worship more accessible seemed sacriligious (and our church seemed fairly open-minded ... at least we had a piano, and the pastor didn't always read from King James) .

But I did what a lot of people my age did ... I quit going as soon as I could. Not because I didn't believe but because I felt the traditional church service (with its organ preludes and choir robes, rooted back in the 1700's), had lost touch. My impression was that many church leaders refused to see the need for a more relevant worship "translation" for what was happening in our lives.

I'm not talking about changing the message just to get more people through the door ... because God's word never changes. I just didn't feel compelled to travel back in time to the 18th century in order to worship.

Meanwhile I was still difting around on the spiritual surface like a bobber on a bass line, waiting for a big strike. But unlike me, some people had stronger faith and a greater committment and were determined not to give up on church. They believed God was still relevant, and shared a vision of what church could be like and how the community might respond to it ... and were inspired to do something about it.

Now jump ahead to 2004 ... and I'm gonna leave out names here, because individual names don't matter.

A friend invited me to visit a new church here in town. Six different people had already invited me about ten different times but I resisted, figuring that any church that attracted so much enthusiasm from so many different kinds of people (some of these people actually had tattoos and piercings!) just had to be preaching a watered-down, Anything-Goes so Here's-A-Big-Hug message. Otherwise there wouldn't be so many people of all different ages so excited about asking me to visit.

But knowing my friend's previous beliefs and her severe mistrusts about organized religion in general, well, seeing her enthusiastic about-face was the spark I finally needed to check out this new church for myself.

What happened? Within an hour my world got rocked upside down because it was like no other church I'd ever seen. I saw people actually standing in line waiting to get in, and hardly anyone seemed dressed-up for church. Once inside the auditorium, instead of an organ this new church had an awesome band with drums and electric guitars. Instead of hymnals they put the words up on big video screens with graphics. But I particularly was impressed (overjoyed) because I didn't have to wear a big VISITOR button so everyone could shake my hand when they made me stand up and feel like a two-headed giraffe alone in the middle of a corn field.

But wait ... somewhere around the middle of the message I started squinting at the stage wondering, Who was this wild man of a pastor? By the time the message ended you understood you'd seen a real flesh and blood man who'd actually known sin and who confessed he'd been powerless against it until he accepted Christ... and he wasn't the least bit reluctant or hesitant to spell things out in plain English: God has a plan for your life and He WILL rock your world.

I mean, this guy not only spoke with strength and authority, but also with the conviction that comes from not just believing but also from experiencing and knowing God's grace and forgiveness. This was no watered-down feel-good message from a strung-out weirdo like I was expecting ... this was a big, tall guy who seemed entirely & physically capable of pounding your head if you so much as dented his car car ... but instead he seemed on the edge of coming down from the stage and literally shaking you from your seat with his conviction to have you understand what God is capable of doing in your life if you'd just give Him the chance.

I was not only stunned, I was hooked ... hooked through the gills. Over the next two years I heard the same lessons from the Bible I'd heard in church as a child, but this time they were taught and explained in a relevant, creative way that I could finally grasp and apply to my life as a Christian and a believer.

Whoa. Jesus Christ really is real ... He's alive and doesn't just live on the back rows of white columned church buildings on Sunday mornings between 9:45am and 8pm ... and He doesn't think I'm especially reverent or humble if I mumble thee's and thou's inside my suit.

For the first time I understood that Christianity is a relationship with the living God and that He knew me, and had a plan for my life, from before I was born.

Yeah, I didn't see it coming ... but overnight I got real excited about church.

Once during a message when our pastor asked, "How much of the Holy Spirit can you handle?" I realized God's is in control and that His power is infinite ... and if I acknowledge that sin separates me from Him that He will help me remove all of those obstacles, any sin I'm dealing with ... and He's not hiding around life's next corner ready to pounce and yell "Gotcha!" the next time I fall short.

It's inevitable I guess, and sad at the same time, to learn first-hand that not everyone agrees or is as enthusiastic about this new church as I am. During the past two years I've seen perhaps a dozen people suddenly stand up and storm out of the service, their heads high and their footsteps maybe a tad too loud and deliberate (I don't wanna say their abrupt departures seemed almost timed or even rehearsed), as though to draw attention to themselves as they made their huffy exits and thundered off the parking lot in a smoking squeal of rubber ... maybe they were just in a hurry to get in line at their favorite Sunday buffet, who knows?

Over the past two years I've actually had people tell me that unless a church has Sunday School, hymnals, choir robes, Wednesday night services, a steeple, and a cross depicted on the outside of its building that my church is "not a real church" and therefore "even ya'll don't know what you believe in" (This last one from the deacon of another church, who I'd invited to attend our Easter services).

But lost souls have found Christ in amazing numbers at this new church, and hundreds of people have seen their lives radically changed through Him ... yet the most severe critics seem to come from other (traditional?) churches, from people and preachers who've never once set foot in any of our church's services and who are proud to tell you they never will.

Maybe they don't think God's word was meant to be exciting ... that piousness and self-righteousness are what matters most ... or maybe they don't feel that having a relationship with God through Christ is totally incredible and uplifting ... or they think the most effective way of witnessing to others is by complaining and being miserable, or by gossping about and slandering the leaders of churches who have worship formats they don't agree with.

In the meantime, during all the indignation and accusations ... maybe the enemy's building overflow seating in hell.

It hurts to hear other Christians criticize, I mean that literally, because it seems these critics have put the Gospel into a very confining, self-serving and barely accessible boxed-worship-service stamped with a big label "If you don't like the way we dress and do things, then you can go find a seat in hell" ... and untold numbers of people in our community may find themselves lost for eternity as a result of stubborn churches' insistence that their way is the right way & the only way. Just because their way is traditional.

Yet I've never once heard our pastor criticize any other pastor or any other church, or proclaim that a "new" approach is the only approach. What he has said is that We're All on the Same Team, God's Team, after all.

Our pastor isn't the only church leader to have had a major impact and been an inspiration in my life over the past two years. I could go right down the list and tell you about the people I've met on the church staff whose lives are inseparable from their witnesses as followers of Christ ... but names don't matter ... it's God who deserves the glory. They're mentioned here in passing because every day I'm inspired by them to learn, even when it's a struggle and it seems impossible, to lead a more Christ-like life.

This comes from a former church-hater who didn't see any reason to ever try going back.

My life changed as a result of the people God inspired and worked through here in Anderson, the church leaders who despite all the critics and the snickering, still felt called to try something new and exciting. Looking back now I can see how close this church-hater was to drifting away from church completely ... and I'm thankful for the ministry God used to prevent that from ever happening.