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“Everyday people are straying away from the church and going back to God."
Lennie Bruce, The Essential Lennie Bruce, 1972
I am one of millions of Americans who received his first taste of God in an old fashioned, singing, praying and preaching Sunday-go-to-meeting church. The fact that I was the son of a preacher man probably had some bearing upon my experiences with godly stuff, but in retrospect, I believe I was wired from birth to want the best that heaven had to offer. (I also seemed to be naturally curious about what the people headed for hell were doing.) Some of my earliest memories are of standing on the church pew beside my mother shouting at the top of my lungs, “Do Lord, Oh do Lord, Oh do remember me!” To my peer group of pre-schoolers, volume of voice, the louder the better, was what determined the quality and sincerity of your singing. Understanding the meaning of the words, however, was not a priority, apparently, for my favorite God-chorus was primarily a plea for God to remember me when I would one day be “way beyond the blue”. This I sang in spite of the fact that I also uttered, “I’ve got a home in glory land that outshines the sun” because “I took Jesus as my savior, you take Him too”. So much for the doctrine of eternal security.
While it is possible that I was partially motivated to follow the Christian path by a guilt-fired fear of burning forever, I was none-the-less interested as a young child in doing God’s will and in Him feeling good about me. Being good for goodness sake worked well for most of my childhood until I saw a girl in a tube top dancing before the Lord at a teen conference at which point my new motivation for being a good Christian boy became wooing girls with my goody two shoes. This lasted for one summer until I noticed that the bad boys (guys who smoked, cussed and wore dirty jean jackets) seemed to get more attention from both good and bad girls than well-behaved, clean-cut boys like me ever dreamed of getting. So I, like many righteous males and famous preachers over the years, traded in my goodness for badness in order to get girls. My problem was that I, unlike the professional hypocrites, never figured out how to be iniquitous and maintain a righteous front while at church. During my seasons of bad behavior I would avoid the church scene altogether in order to do the immoral thing full throttle. As all social degenerates know, steering clear of uptight saints and holy rollers keeps the conscience from feeling any additional guilt or fresh remorse through reminders of what is right and who is wrong. This is one reason most perpetual sinners don’t attend church very often. Another is they don’t like being asked to sing songs they don’t understand or half-believe.
So, in time I also became one of the millions of people who, after having heard the truth and found it too hard to live up to, made a conscious decision to ignore it in order to explore what other truth or appealing theories about truth might be out there. This included rejecting all religious teaching and information about drugs, alcohol, sex, money and career choices. Therefore, by the age of 16, like many of my 1970s generation, I had become a sexually active agnostic alcoholic with a brain full of Bible and a belly full of booze. This planted me firmly in the camp outside of the church and nowhere near the kingdom of God. According to what I would later learn in Bible College, the fact that I had once known the truth and had repeatedly turned my back on it qualified me for what is referred to in Matt. 12:31 and Hebrews 6 as “blaspheming the Holy Spirit” interpreted by some to be the “unforgivable sin”. Fortunately for me, the God I understand doesn’t feel that way for I have received more than my share of last chances in spite of a history of backsliding. As a result of this bottomless pit of Christ’s bountiful grace, I have found my way back inside the walls and the ways of the Church and enjoy unlimited opportunities to share my story of redemption with those in need of hope, direction and unconditional love.
While there are countless directives in the Old and New Testaments for living the righteous life, I have gleaned three principles from Scripture-tested living that I think contain the nuts and bolts to living in the sacred Now. From these sources, confirmed by my own experience and that of mature disciples I have studied over the years (such as the Thomas’s: Thomas Merton, Thomas Kelly, Thomas Keating and Thomas Moore), I rest secure in the knowledge that, when in full compliance with the following values, I am a progressing pilgrim journeying with complete confidence that the kingdom of heaven is within me.
Value #1: Make and Maintain a Personal Connection With God
I am responsible for my relationship with the Creator. I come into this world alone and leave in the same company. Connecting with God is, first of all, an individual and private matter, though it rarely remains an activity of isolation. God makes this connection possible as I partner with Him for the willingness to do the work. For me this means a non-negotiable daily practice of surrender, seeking the mind and spirit of Christ with holy readings, journaling and prayers. It also includes being true to the desires God plants in my heart to create, embrace, celebrate and strive, making a point to listen to His voice through His Spirit and agents in this world. As the rapid currents of selfish ambition would sweep me into a desperate search for financial security and ego satisfaction, distracting me from God's purposes the best assurance I have of staying close to God's will and steering clear of the influence and love of mammon is the regular exercise of asking God to keep me in His way. And trusting in His ability to do just that.
Brother Lawrence writes of practicing the presence of God in all of life, making even our daily work an act of loving God. And while we may pursue God by being attentive to His will for us as we work, play, create and rest, seeking God must be intentional to be productive. My wayward heart does not naturally crave the pure things of God, but longs for the empty canyons of flesh satisfaction and self-centered delusion. This is but one reason why I need more than what comes naturally to me; I must have direct access to the supernatural. In the book, Alcoholics Anonymous, Bill Wilson, referring to his and others’ miraculous relief from alcoholism wrote, "...that God could and would if He were sought". If this is true, as millions of recovering alcoholics can attest, then it is also possible that God can't and won't if He is not (sought). God makes this choice possible through the double-edged sword of free will. The surrender of this will to the Will of God is the gateway to eternal life that is more about a quality of existence in the holy present than a quantity of pie in the sky by and by.
Value #2: Experience the Journey in the Company of Others
In spite of all my lifelong desire to be a James Dean-type rugged individualist, in some way or another it has become an imperative reality that I trek the path of spiritual growth in the company of other travelers of like mind and soul. This, for me, means gathering frequently with those who would call themselves Christ-followers. This also includes not shying away from those who seek God, but who do not necessarily pledge allegiance to the Christian flag. These days I am not so quick to label people as unsaved, heathen or lost. Tags such as these when applied too casually help create an atmosphere of separation between "us" and "them" that can inhibit or prohibit relationships with the very people with whom we would share our faith. Sometimes, God will even use people who would not consider themselves believers to minister to us. On numerous occasions I have gathered with people with whom I shared a creative but not spiritual common bond that, unbeknownst to them, encouraged me in my God walk. Go figure.
My perspective on the Church is that her members consist of believers, inside and outside the walls of a particular congregation who may or may not practice well the faith they espouse. As we know, it is by the work of Christ that the grace of God saves us, not by any level of obedience or determination we exhibit. It appears to me that the Church, rather than being an exclusive religious order, may well be inclusive of many God-followers outside of our traditional parameters of Christianity. It may be that many in our midst who seek to follow the light of reason, inner truth or higher consciousness as best as they know how, have yet to recognize that this as the Light of Christ at work in them. This perspective, one that encourages me to look, as God does, down a progressive timeline at the development of faith, solves many dilemmas regarding the various world religions and spiritual practices. It also allows people who may not know they are being saved but who never the less nurture a mustard-size seed of faith in their hearts to be my (actual, if only potential) brothers and sisters in Christ. This is the true work of evangelism: seeing people with a God’s eye view and loving them for who they are as well as who they are becoming.
Value #3: Practice Christ's Love Through Service And Sacrifice
As has always been the case, there is much talk around the topic of evangelism in church leadership circles. The business-like air surrounding some conversations about reaching the lost is ofttimes confusing and bothersome to me. Too often, attendance figures are thrown around as if they are more important than the people they represent. To be blunt, when I hear impassioned speeches for the need to “win souls” I can't help but feel that I am in a multi-level marketing seminar being pumped up to earn diamond pins or a pink Cadillac. While I don't doubt that there is value and validity in "leading people to Christ” and that Jesus is definitely interested in all souls coming to know Him, Scripture tells me that Christ is the One who “came to seek and to save the lost" and that when He is lifted up He would "draw all men to Himself”. In Acts 2:47 Luke records, “And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved”. The Lord added, not the miraculously multi-lingual blue-collar disciples turned articulate apostles. The Holy Spirit does His or Her work by making available the stuff of heaven not available on eBay or the Home Shopping Network to a hungry world in search of a solution to their emptiness and despair. And the vehicle of choice appears to be one fragile and frail Church attempting to live out the principles of the kingdom of God while juggling a career, a family, a house and a bowling schedule. By stepping up to ask my friend or neighbor, “What can I do to help you?” or humbly praying, “Here I am Lord. Send me”, and then actually going, we fulfill our destiny of faith and complete the cycle of re-birth by dying to self. This is the Church in action, fueled by the love of God for the benefit of those who are lost and in need of relational redemption. The true religion from the letter of James that God considers pure and faultless…”is to look after widows and orphans in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.” From what I have seen, the former helps make the latter possible. There is nothing like service with a smile and a sacrificial spirit to help relieve one from the bondage of self and to lift the merciless obsession for more of everything. Nothing takes my mind off of me like serving those who have nothing to give in return or loving those who can give you nothing but reasons not to love them. Christ’s mandates for the Church to love, pray, give, forgive, comfort, encourage, share faith and make disciples are as much for our own health and well being as for the expansion of His kingdom. As they say in 12-Step rooms all over the world, “You gotta give it away in order to keep it.” This is true today and will likely be true “way beyond the blue.”
This material is a chapter from book by Dan Gilliam entitled, God Touches: Finding Faith in the Cracks and Spaces of Life. It will be released in early 2007. Please do not reproduce, copy or transmit this material without written permission from Standard Publishing (Cincinnati, OH). Thank you. For more info, please visit www.DanGilliam.net.
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