Declarations of Faith

I've been feeling God leading me to speak at my church for a long time now, and I think I've been putting off starting work on it for too long now.

I would normally say that it was my idea, something that would be cool to say I've done ("Oh yeah, I preached a sermon at church.") but the idea comes and goes as it will...and it's always strong and completely out of the blue when it hits.

So I thought I might start throwing around ideas online...starting with my testimony.

I was raised in a Christian home. I attended private school starting in first grade. I became a Christian when I was four...I don't think I really knew what it meant at the time, but I knew my parents believed it and that was enough for me, I guess. Bible class and chapel, along with verse memorization and Bible camps in the summer. So it's safe to say I knew the Bible, as well as the basic tenets of the Christian faith, fairly well. When I met my best friend RL in the 3rd grade, it came as somewhat of a shock that he was not a Christian. I don't think the idea of having a belief system other than mine had occurred to me until that moment.

That was probably the start of my initial loss of faith.

I started listening to secular music, and most of what he listened to was not the tamer, more uplifting stuff like The Fray or Anberlin. I didn't too heavily into the hard rock scene, but I did listen to a lot of Limp Bizkit (famous for dropping 142 f-bombs in one song) and Linkin Park, as well as Blink182, who had some of the dirtiest minds in music as revealed on their live album. At the time I didn't even notice my downward spiral because I don't think I had ever had a real connection with God. Sure, I'd come back from camp spiritually energized and ready to take on the world...but once I was actually in the world, even at a sheltered private school, things just got that much harder.

So I went on with my life, and I started to hate going to church, and eventually I started to hate God. I mean, he didn't want me having any fun anyways, right? I was growing up and I wanted to experience life, my own way, and no one was going to tell me otherwise. My parents tried to keep me active at church and youth group, but eventually I think they gave up trying (they never did stop praying for me though) and just let me do my own thing in hopes that God would get through to me.

I was never a really bad kid. I liked to stay out late, I drank occasionally in the later years of high school, and I did some other things I'm not proud of because I was angry that my life wasn't going the way I wanted it to. I never had the best grades, the most friends, much money, or anything like that. I was always just sort of average in every respect. I never skipped school though, and I never stole or got sent to juvy or anything like that but I still wasn't living the way God would want me to.

The summer after I graduated was when things really came to a head. I was going off to college. I had been thinking more about Christianity that summer, and my boss had given me a book called Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith, an excellent book by Rob Bell that I highly recommend. It put a new spin on Christianity, as a faith that isn't just a bunch of rules set down by some old dead guys, it is a way of life, the best way of life, and something that can literally change the world when enough people band together in His name. That was something I felt like I wanted to be a part of, but I wasn't ready yet.

College did not go as planned. I devoted 99% of my time to AS after her breakup, and I ended up failing all my classes first semester. But one important thing did happen: I redevoted my life to following Jesus Christ. She was instrumental in that, more than she knows I think. I had never met someone who was so calmly sure about their faith, while also being entirely rational and open to discussion and criticism about it. Whatever else I think about her, I have the highest regard for her in that aspect. We had talked about it a few times over the summer, and it would come up every few weeks in our phone conversations. She never pushed me, only asked where I stood. I think she understood the idea of faith being a beginning, not an end, better than almost anyone I knew.

Christianity isn't something that happens and then is over and done with, a way to get into Heaven and nothing more. It's a living breathing organism. The Church isn't a building, it's people. We are constantly showing people who Jesus is. That is my goal as a Christian, not to convert tons of people, give 10% to the church, or give all my time and energy to mission work.

My goal as a Christian is to be Jesus, to as many people and as often as I can. Whether that's listening to someone discuss their problems on the phone, or covering a shift at work without complaint, or watching a neighbor's kids for free, or tutoring someone at school, it doesn't really matter what it is, as long as you do it like Jesus would do it.

And that's where I stand now. I'm not an expert by any means, but I'm ready and willing to learn and I'm excited for the journey I'm just beginning.