In the middle of this week, I heard some seriously bad health news about a good friend. Yesterday, I had to turn down an opportunity I really wanted to accept. Last night, I got a confusing and frustrating work-related letter. Today, I’ve really struggled to relate to the three worship experiences I’ve been part of. Tonight I received an email from a major blogger bluntly telling me about the depths of my “self-absorbed” character.

I could drive myself bonkers thinking about spiritual warfare on days like today. When I was a young Christian I imagined the devil tormenting me with all these difficulties while God stood by waiting for me to do the right thing, i.e. pray some prayer, take a bold stand, rejoice….something.

Now I believe this is simply life in the fallen world. It’s being human. It’s being 53. It’s being in relationships. It’s working with people. It’s writing. It’s just a day. In fact, this collection of blue days is so much better than most people’s lives it’s embarrassing to think about it.

In Galatians, Paul warns us not to grow weary in doing the right thing. If that’s the case, it’s also true that we should be on the watch for growing weary in the daily grind, the problem relationship and the unsolvable, uncomfortable problems that come along with staying with things.

And that’s right at the core of things. Staying with it.

I’ve stayed in ministry, and that means I’ve stayed around to see a lot of people be sick, suffer and some die. Hopefully, if I stay around for the whole show, I’ll see them again in much better shape and in much better circumstances.

I’ve stayed at one place for 18 years, and that brings the inevitable personal conflicts that simply won’t be resolved. I can waste my time explaining things for the 100th time, trying to fix things or I can just do my best, live, learn and keep my hand to the plow. There are a LOT of ways to look back when you are in long term ministry, including by looking forward or away. Don’t give up, even when the people around you are always going to be who they are without real change, and some of them just can’t like you and never will.

I’ve stayed with worship leadership and worship attendance when every ounce of my strength has told me to walk away for my own survival. So there are days that I am drowning in what evangelicals call “worship,” but that’s because I have chosen to stay and not quit. Not give up. Sometimes it’s a long time between gasps of air, but I’m still afloat.

I’ve stayed with writing and earned a place, opportunities and an audience. Along with that comes the feedback of people who don’t know me. The more I write, the more readers will write to me to say whatever they think. That’s the deal. Mentors tell me that it’s time to stop reading the mail. I don’t want to be an addict in a medium that thrives on addiction. But it’s hard to be that person who says “I don’t care what anyone thinks.” We’ll see. It’s not easy.

Staying the course doesn’t get any easier. Not at work, church, writing, life or family.

I’ll get up tomorrow and read my Psalms. Then I’ll share this prayer with my prayer group. It’s John Wesley’s “Covenant Prayer.”

I am no longer my own, but yours.
Put me to what you will, rank me with whom you will;
Put me to doing, put me to suffering.
Let me be employed by you or laid aside by you,
Enabled for you or brought low by you.
Let me be full, let me be empty.
Let me have all things, let me have nothing.
I freely and heartily yield all things
To your pleasure and disposal.
And now, O glorious and blessed God,
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
You are mine, and I am yours. So be it.
And the covenant which I have made on earth,
Let it be ratified in heaven.
Amen.

Stay the course. Walk the path. Boast in the cross and the crucified one. Don’t look at what you’re gaining or losing today. Be determined to gain Christ in the end.

Love where you can. Forgive as you go. Humbly admit your errors. Seek other pilgrims.

And keep going.

There was a time, in the last decade, that I constantly and painfully struggled with regrets about various choices I’d made in my life.

I regretted not finishing doctoral studies. (I made it 37 hours in and never finished the paper.)

I regretted staying in youth ministry so long. (13 years full time, then back for 18 years where I am after 4 years as a pastor.)

I regretted staying in Kentucky. (I had opportunities to go to Oxford, Mississippi and to Texas, but followed my hillbilly instincts.)

I regretted that so many of my friends were pastors of First Baptist Churches and I never got close. (The cost of not getting that Dr. degree.)

I regretted a bunch of stuff I can’t talk about. (You don’t want to know.)

Sometimes, I’ve honestly regretted staying at one ministry in the mountains of Appalachia for most of two decades. There was a time I was constantly called to do speaking and seminars, but almost from the day I came here those opportunities stopped. Say what you want, when you’re in the mountains of southeast Kentucky, you’re off the radar. It can be very disorienting.

I’ve spent a lot of time- too much- regretting all kinds of aspects of life in ministry. You’d have to be there to understand that struggle, but it’s a hard calling and I’m not ashamed that it was hard for me.

I made a lot of mistakes as a husband and a dad. I’ve spent a lot of time regretting them. (In God’s grace, my marriage and kids are wonderful.)

Recently, I’ve regretted the time I spent as a Calvinist (still struggle with that) and even the entire fact that I wound up in full-time ministry at all. (It wasn’t my fault, but full-time public school teaching combined with ministry as I had opportunity was a better fit. But in the church where I grew up, the only thing they knew to tell us 16 year olds was “be preachers.”)

I regretted the lack of friendships we’ve found wherever we’ve been, seemingly no matter how hard we tried. (Still one of life’s big mysteries and a sad aspect of ministry.)

There have been a lot of regrets involving the church home we never quite found as a family. (Denise and my kids have all found churches. My home is with the homeless.)

I was a tortured soul for many of those years and those regrets poisoned my experience of the goodness of God. If I could have seen it at the time, I would have confessed that I’d made ministry my entire life and set expectations in ministry that would always leave me disappointed.

A good counselor could have shown me the footprints of all this regret, stalking me for many years. I brought childish, self-centered attitudes into adult life, ministry and marriage that constantly tried to prop up my own insecurities and deficiencies with various aspects of success in ministry. I tried to fill up empty places with “success” as a minister. That’s a real wall to hit, and I’ve hit it repeatedly.

Where am I now? I’m at a much different place. I would never claim that I’ve moved beyond the swamp of regret, but I’ve learned some things that are bearing much helpful fruit.

I have never found it satisfying to simply do the Calvinistic thing and talk about God ordaining everything. I need to understand how this has all worked and not worked for me. I can see clearer now, and what I see is that God is helping us to be persons, not success stories. His goal is that we be loved, not well liked- a la Willie Lohman- or well known.

A healthy Christian person must find a place where they can be themselves, and that place won’t be identical to our definition of “success.” Even if we succeed, the experiences that bring make us who we really are won’t be found in the spotlight of success. They will be found in God’s version of our wilderness.

That place may be a nursing home, or a tiny college, or a farm or a forgotten mission to the poor. It may be in another universe from the latest conference or well known ministry. It may have no potential for anything but small acts done with great love. If that is so, you should embrace it as your place. Yours, and a gift to you.

God has placed me in a life where the soil for growing a good and useful spirituality is plentiful. There is the rich soil of community and relationships, and there is the occasional fertilizer of human failures and disappointment. In this soil, I will grow. I will not be an object to be seen and heard. I will be a person, growing into a human image of the God we know in Jesus.

As an older man considering my place, I can see the value in my life of having predictability, schedule, structure and place. I can see why I need some of the simple things that guide and nurture my life that many “successful” pastors never find. These things can’t be found anywhere, but they can be found where I am.

There is a place and time to read the Psalms. There is a place and time to pray. There are people to love and to tell about Jesus. There is good work and comraderie, even if all is not perfect. There is labor and a mutual acceptance of pain. There is help, rejoicing and the grace of seeing the old and leading the young. There is family, time and room to breath. I know see these gifts in ways I did not before. I see them in such a way that many of my previous regrets are unappealing to me.

I do not understand why God has left me in youth and student work so long, but it’s apparent that my passion for and emphasis on Jesus and the Gospel isn’t found very many places in the evangelicalism my students know and experience. I am a communicator, and though I feel some weariness in my bones after preaching and teaching for hours, I am still certain this is why I am in this world and at this place: to communicate Jesus and his Gospel in a time of chaos and static.

It appears that this has been my assignment and the point has not been to have my name on a conference program, but to preach regularly to hundreds of students who don’t know Christ, and to do so in the mountains and to do so for years. My place isn’t telling someone how to do ministry, but to stand in front of kids and actually teach the scriptures. I still feel guilty that I am so old, but I know that I have gifts and opportunities that are rarely found together. So this is my place.

I don’t have to always be happy. I need the love of God not the happiness of men. I can grow to see the two coming together, but not if I dictate how they will both come to me. I have the privilege of embracing a calling and the road that is before me. I am not going to talk about the Kingdom or missional living. I am going to live in the Kingdom and practice missional living.

In all of the time I was having the indigestion of regret, I was also becoming something else: a writer. That was a calling that resonated within me for many years, but it was only here, in this life, that it could happen. I don’t have researchers knocking out books for me. Whatever I manage to write here or in a book will be 100% a result of what God has done in my life.

And along that road I found something else. I will have to, at some point, do interviews and publicity for the book. There’s an aspect to all of that self-presentation and talking like an expert which terrifies me, but in the last few months I’ve begun to realize that I know more about who I am and who I am not than ever before in my life. I have come to understand that a person with a spiritual influence isn’t a face on a screen or ten books on a shelf. I have begun to realize what is going on with men like Brennan Manning and Dallas Willard. They aren’t everywhere because they choose to be where they are and who they are. They have embraced place, personhood and influence without falling into the traps of success.

I can relax and accept that God has been at work in all of this for his glory and my usefulness and joy. I have no regrets unless I want to be God.

In the end, this out of the way corner of the world is the place where I want to be found. When God wants me to go elsewhere, I’ll gladly go, especially if it’s near a ball park, but in the meantime I’m not ashamed or regretful of the path the loving hand of God has given to me.

I am wasting far less of my mind and heart on regret. I’m finding that the wisdom of the spiritual life is not found in evangelical success and notoriety, but in coming to know who I am in the place and calling God has for me. My influence will be no less and no greater, in God’s Kingdom, here in the mountains than it would be anyplace on earth. In the end, it’s my privilege to belong to Christ and to use my gifts as he gives opportunity.

We’re also going to use another word some of you don’t like: formation. Now that we’re good and grumpy, let’s go for a ride.

I’ve been reflecting on the spiritual formation I’ve received as a result of my participation in the blogosphere. The Christian blogosphere.

What kind of Christian influences are coming into my life through the models of Christian faith I am exposed to in this medium? What is the shape of the spiritual formation I encounter here? Can I distance myself from it enough to make any kind of helpful observations?

I have to admit that the blogosphere is a unique experience to everyone. No one of us, no matter how many similar social networking or communication tools we use, encounters the exact same influences. I’m experiencing this medium from one place and through a unique combination of elements that I choose to read, view and participate in. Your mileage will vary.

But my experience isn’t radically different from most of you who will read this post. You, my readers here at IM and those I am connected to via other mediums, are the ones who will look at these reflections and judge their accuracy from where you are. I offer them not as flawless analysis or an indictment, but as my reflections and inventory of the world where I’ve invested a great deal of my mental and spiritual energies.

Two items before we move through my inventory of what I see in the spirituality of the Christian blogosphere.

First, there is much good to take note of. I experience a great of reflection on the Gospel in this medium. Much of that is good and valuable, though it has certain disconnections and abuses that concern me. I sense a wonderful commitment to the formative aspects of marriage and family life. I see a real appreciation of a variety of Christian causes, especially mercy ministries and missions. This, and more, are real positive spiritual influences for me.

Second, I spend much of my time in the real world, with students, co-workers and family. It is my hope that the blogosphere’s influence is outweighed by the influences I experience in the real world. But I have to be honest. Two years ago my wife pointed out to me the role that listening to Catholic apologetics was having in our marriage. She was right, and that wasn’t the end of it.

In short, there is much in the spirituality of the Christian blogosphere that concerns me. When I reflect on my own developing spirituality, on my relationship to God and others, these elements are an undeniable part of the person I have become.

As I said, your mileage may vary.

1. The Christian blogosphere is overwhelmingly male. It is not only male; it thrives on “maleness” in perspective and voice. For various reasons, some confessional, some not, many of us have a seriously limited exposure to the feminine mind, voice and experience of the Christian journey. In fact, our “maleness” is affirmed in the blogosphere in ways that are useful, and neutral and harmful.

At the BHT, our experience of incorporating and keeping female members could be used by anyone to demonstrate that there’s something seriously male-dominant about the Christian blogosphere. (Probably that women are too involved with actual human beings to spend this much time with computers.)

2. I see little evidence of personal evangelism, either on the medium or reported through the medium. Lots of talk of everything surrounding evangelism, but evidence that those who populate the blogosphere are involved with evangelism is sparse, to say the least.

3. The relationship of Christianity to the various vocations represented in the blogosphere is also rarely discussed. (There are very notable exceptions to this at certain blogs.) I can’t recall more than a handful of discussions that were specific to vocations, business ethics, evangelism in the workplace, vocational missions and so on. The world of work is frequently referenced, but not often related to the faith. Trivial reporting of work activities are common, but how are Christians doing vocation as a Kingdom work.

4. The evidence of ongoing personal spiritual practices in the life of blogosphere participants is also quite sporadic. It’s clear that for many in the blogosphere, the purchasing of consumer goods and the pilgrimage to conferences are a search for a kind of devotional life, but the practice of individual/group prayer, spiritual reading, lectionary reading of scripture and so on is occasional at best. This may be because devotional practices don’t translate to the blogosphere very easily or they are not an easy topic of conversation.

5. Much of the spirituality of the blogosphere amounts to identification with teachers, “teams,” ministries, churches and authors. This is a phenomenon that is easily observed and it takes up a remarkable amount of time and energy in the blogosphere. I believe it is one of the great “false” forms of discipleship, much like consumerism. By identifying with Driscoll or Piper, a person may feel they are the kind of disciple exemplified by that person. But this is clearly not true. How many of Piper’s followers share his approach to personal sanctification? How many of Driscoll’s followers are 100% with him on gender issues?

6. The spirituality of the blogosphere is primarily expressed in the church’s ministry of preaching. Other aspects of the life of specific faith communities are in the background. To an extent, this is correct by the evangelical model, but it has to be of concern that such a minority of voices in the blogosphere ever report anything from church life other than the theology of a sermon. But the blogsphere promotes a preacher-shaped spirituality, no doubt about it.

7. The deep influence of the culture war model of discipleship is everywhere. In fact, the pervasive presence of political rhetoric and opinion is a constant intrusion into the Christian blogosphere, at times obscuring all other discussions. As in several other things, the meaning seemes to be found mostly in identification, not in participation or practice. This shapes us toward the belief that politcal conviction is the fruit of spiritual growth. I would disagree.

8. There is a deep involvement by those in the blogosphere with media, and this is integrated into their spirituality. This is especially true regarding movies and television, which are the preferred narrative modes as opposed to reading fiction. Issues regarding the secondary and spiritual influences of media are rarely heard. Being “up to date” with the latest media events is mandatory. How does this fit into my spirituality? Are we underestimating its formative effects?

9. One sees very little that is of a really radical nature in the discipleship or community exemplified in the Christian blogosphere. Despite a lot of adjectives suggesting radicalism, the Christian spirituality of the blogosphere appears to be quite conventional, especially in regard to issues of comfort, finances, lifestyle, children, community, mission, etc.

10. I see little evidence that the spirituality of the blogosphere has made Christians more informed about and congenial toward those with whom they disagree or differ. Instead, stereotypes and extreme examples are more easily created and brought into what are often “cut and paste” conversations. There is much to learn from those with whom we differ, but I rarely see any evidence that opposing sides are using the net to learn from one another. It is overwhelmingly about being reinforced in our own positions.

I am more convinced than ever that while any one of us can make the formative experience of the blogosphere far more positive than it is, most of us won’t ever do that. The possibilities for positive formation, mentoring, even devotional practice are amazing. But most of us are trivial people, and the blogosphere presents us with the opportunity to have a universe where we are powerful; where we can shape reality, fight battles, be the hero and the expert. It is an illusion creating medium, and many of us are quite enamored with that aspect of the technology.

I would hope there would be more helpful reflection of “blogosphere spirituality” in the comments. Let me suggest that if you haven’t read the comment moderation section of the F.A.Q., you do so, lest you be surprised at my moderation of a thread that is sure to be controversial.

I can’t say I learned a great deal, but I did begin a lifelong journey of making observations and drawing tentative conclusions about myself. If I would have paid attention to all I’ve discovered about myself, I’d have a very different life. Some psychologist can tell me why I routinely ignore the lessons I’ve learned and repeat all the same mistakes.

One thing I’ve learned is that I’ve got some holes in my personality that go a lot deeper than I can understand. They are caverns in my self-understanding; potholes in the soul, so to speak. Like a series of tunnels that connect with points in my past and experience, these dark places are imperfectly mapped, sometimes frightening and very, very real when you fall into one.

What I’ve found in some of those dark places can be amusing, irritating or terrifying.

Of course, I’ve learned to avoid these traps whenever possible, and some of the time I’m successful. I have the most well known holes in my soul marked with warning signs that I respect. The trouble is that you never know when a new hole is going to appear, often in the most unexpected places. And you never know how that dark place in your soul is going to help you understand what you’d rather not even thing about.

When it became apparent that my wife was going to go down the road to the Catholic Church, I fell down one of those holes. It was, in a word, an overpowering dark place of fear and anger. It came from someplace in me, but I couldn’t see where. For many weeks, it was my world.

In that hole was everything I heard about Catholicism growing up in a fundamentalist church more than 30 years ago. In that hole were a collection of fears about things I thought I understood and had under control. In that hole, was my fragile concept of vocation and marriage.

I fell into that hole and stayed there for a very long time. All I knew was how I felt. Feeling and fear were everything. I was thinking, reasoning, talking and asking questions, but I could not pull myself out. My journey out of this irrational, fearful darkness was slow and may still be incomplete.

The other night I picked up my son for dinner. I noticed that he had pierced his ears.

I have no problem with this sort of thing. He’s almost 21 and engaged. I don’t tell him how to live or dress. I have dozens and dozens of friends with pierced ears. I teach a lesson on this very issue in Bible class. I’ve told my son a dozen times that I don’t care, God doesn’t care and it’s not an issue.

But there I stood, and for that moment, I was falling down a well of feelings from another place in my soul. I was overwhelmed with feelings of anger and disappointment. I had failed as a dad. My son was going down the wrong road. I was hurt and wanted to say how I felt; to express my disapproval.

It was, in a word, irrational.

Now in just a few moments I recalibrated myself back to rationality. My thoughts and my feeling matched back up with what I know and believe, and those moments in that dark place of irrationality faded away.

Now, why am I talking about this? More iMonk whining and dirty laundry? No, something different.

How much of our lives do we spend reacting entirely out of those places of darkness, fear, irrationality and disconnected feelings? How many of our conflicts and problems come because we are deep in a hole, and do not recognize where we are?

How many of us are dominated by aspects of our history and experience that we are unable to view truthfully and rationally? Instead, we are speaking and acting in ways that are destructive and hurtful to ourselves and so many others?

I wonder how many of us are dealing with our spouses and our children out of places of darkness, but we are so submerged in the darkness and so afraid to see where we are that we will fight to the death anyone who challenges out view of reality?

When I listen to Christians speak- especially pastors and other leaders- I hear a lot of anger. I wonder where it comes from. I hear anger from Christians over things they say they believe deeply about love, truth and justice, but what comes out from so many is confusion and bitterness, but they don’t realize this is happening. They are unable to see that they are living out of fear and irrationality.

Years ago, a friend- an older man- was widowed after caring for his sick wife for many years. Six months later, he remarried. But his son, a good Christian man who I knew to be a loving and reasonable person, went completely over the edge objecting to his father’s marriage. His behavior was embarrassing…and it didn’t take a great deal of insight to see that his feelings came from places within himself that he could not acknowledge.

I can point out this fellow as an example, but I believe many of us are as conflicted and live out our lives in similar embarrassing conflicts. And I believe that if we can find a place where we can see what is happening to us, we will realize that these “holes” of emotion and irrational fear are not where we want to spend our lives.

The answer? Certainly we need to ask for insight in prayer into how we are living our lives, what we are living “out of,” and who we have become.

We also need spiritual direction, or at the least Godly counsel of those who can gently help us see the illumination of the Holy Spirit on the effects of our words and actions.

In our personal journeys, all of us should begin to map out those dark places we are aware of, and we should consider how we can grow in ways that will not lead us down those roads so easily.

Where we’ve done damage, and where we’ve insisted we were right and rational when we were, in fact, irrational and wrong, we should go back and make amends.

Somewhere, we need a community that can come to know us with an honest awareness of our personal “potholes of the soul.” In the honest acceptance of others, perhaps we can learn to accept ourselves with grace, contentment and compassion.

I will never come to a place where these “holes” of fear and emotion are not part of me, but I can live aware of them, transcend them by the grace of God, accept forgiveness and continue the journey on a better path.

Let’s stop here. If you’re reading this, here’s a question for you: What do you expect to hear now?

Thought about it? Good. Let’s go on.

Most of what she told me about would go in the category of signs and wonders.

A prayer was answered with the sudden appearance of a rainbow, and so on. Mystical, personal stuff in the realm of answered prayers and personal experience. Her entire spiritual life is not studying scripture, but about what she describes as a “deep, personal experience of God” that includes His very real activity to show His hand in signs and wonders.

Scripture isn’t absent, but my friend’s journey is one where experience is leading and scripture is following. My friend is immensely happy, by the way, and closer to Jesus than ever before.

I had to immediately admit that this isn’t my journey and isn’t likely to ever be. I’m honestly afraid of anything in the category of “signs and wonders.” I’m very suspicious of any and all personal religious experience of this sort. I’m a skeptic when I hear most testimonies of miracles or signs. I tend to think that it isn’t true, is exaggerated or won’t last.

I’m ruthless to preachers in this regard. When I preacher talks off into a story of a miracle, sign or wonder, I’m wearing a helmet that says “Don’t try that stuff on me.” I’m kinder to regular Christian folk, but I’ve still got a skeptical attitude that the devil himself would admire.

I believe that religion, as a human phenomenon and by its very nature, creates a world where people believe that things happen that haven’t happened. The line between fact and reality goes very thin and takes a good bit of the week off.

I don’t find it at all unusual that a guy like Todd Bentley can say the last three rows at his meeting were all in caskets dead yesterday or that angels are tossing elephants around in the green room. And I’m not surprised that people believe him and defend him.

Now I won’t argue with you that there’s a problem with me in this area. (If you haven’t noticed.) Christianity is a religion of miracles that are essential to its existence. While I would stand by my frequent assertion that the number and frequency of miracles in the Bible is generally over-emphasized and exaggerated, I’m all signed up to affirm that the Bible is a record of miracles, signs and wonders.

I know that the Christian worldview is open to the intervention of God. I’m not a deist. I pray for God’s intervention all the time. I’ve experienced it. My family was once awakened from a sound sleep to discover our house on fire. How? By a noise in the street that I just happened to get up to check out….and thereby discovered the laundry room on fire. I’ve seen God answer prayer for my wife, my children, my mother and the ministry where I work.

But there’s no doubt that I have a bias in this area. Is it an over commitment to logic? An inevitable part of the Protestant use of the Bible? Residual damage from being a Calvinist?

There was a time, when I was a very young Christian, that I was part of a Charismatic prayer group that did little other than sing, pray for miracles and talk about miracles. When I left that chapter of my journey, I didn’t leave angry or hurt, but I wonder if I left feeling superior? Convinced I- at that time a dispensationalist- knew more than those kinds of people?

Have I spent so many years preaching, that I’m convinced God works by argument? By debate and verbal persuasion? How did I get so biased against the many other ways that God certainly uses to wake us up, draw us to himself and assure us of his presence?

Am I frightened by the unordered, uncontrollable aspect of God the Holy Spirit? Have I fled to the security of God working through chapter and verse so that I can understand him? Does my skepticism give me the illusions and delusions about God that keep my feeling safe and in control?

My friend’s spiritual journey hasn’t made her a raving loon. She doesn’t claim to hear voices or see visions. If she did, I don’t think it would turn her into someone bizarre and embarrassing.

My friend Pat had two heart transplants before he died a few years ago. When he came back from his first one, he was profoundly changed by a vision of Jesus on the cross, there in his hospital room. He told the story many times, with obvious and sincere emotion. It assured him of God’s love and salvation. After years of alcoholism and living far from God, he loved the cross of Jesus, and he believed he’d been taken to it that day.

I know a dozen explanations for what happened to Pat. Doctors can explain it to you. So can most psychologists and more than a few counselors. But the thing is, Pat didn’t see Jesus all the time, like Harvey the Rabbit. He saw the cross once, in a vision, and his life was changed. It was “outside the Bible,” but it was very much inside the Bible, too.

My friend’s journey isn’t an exposition of Romans. It’s a discovery that God is out there, beckoning her own to another chapter of loving God and loving neighbor. She’s sane as a judge. And she believes a rainbow appeared out of nowhere, just for her.

I’m the skeptic, and I assure myself that my skepticism makes me a believer in what God has said in scripture. (I mean, I have an ESV Study Bible!) But I have to face the fact that I’m often an unbeliever in the God beyond the page. I’m a skeptic about experiences happening today like those I read in the life of Abraham, Jacob and Moses.

Somehow, I sense that for all the theology I’ve imbibed, by faith and my connection with God are smaller. And while some will say that my friend and others have walked away from the Bible, I’m wondering if they have taken the Word into the Wild, where the God who surprises with signs and wonders still lives.

This post is for a particular group of people.

People who really don’t have any choices about what church you attend. Through circumstance or choice, you are a church monogamist, not a church shopper.

You may be a person in a rural area, and your church choices are extremely limited. Maybe, if you are conscientious about your use of fuel and time, your choices are non-existent.

You may be in an area where there’s only one church of your denomination or tradition within reasonable driving distance.

You may be in a foreign country, either as a resident or in the military, and there is only one Christian or evangelical fellowship near you.

You may be a person in a missionary calling, and you must worship with the people/church you are seeking to plant or encourage.

Your marriage or family choices may have settled for you where you go to church. It won’t change unless you relocate.

Whatever the situation, you aren’t church shopping. When people talk about visiting ten or twenty different churches and comparing notes, you don’t relate.

Talk comparing worship leaders, pastors or parking lots doesn’t register with you. You take what you get and you count yourself fortunate to get it.

Perhaps you are forced to worship far from your own tradition. You are a Catholic forced into rural Protestantism. A Presbyterian among Charismatics. A Baptist among Catholics. You are an evangelical who appreciates the broader, deeper, more ancient church and you are forced into the seeker-sensitive, purpose driven wilderness. You are a person who loves traditional church music and you’re listening to a band made up of the youth group rockers and vocalists. You are a person with an education going to church with people who want the Gospel in a cultural form that’s hostile to education and difficult for you to relate to.

There are days that the sound of the same contemporary worship choruses or funeral home organ or out of tune piano makes you consider whether you can ever come back to church again without earplugs.

Perhaps you are loyal to one small group as your primary fellowship. Perhaps you are the supportive person who stays and supports the pastor no matter what else. Perhaps you are the only person who can handle the youth group. Whatever the reason, you are where you are being who you’ve chosen to be and going elsewhere isn’t an option for you….but you feel it.

When people talk about “quitting church,” you don’t hear “changing churches.” For you, leaving would be quitting. Every week, you are making a choice to stay and not leave, and you are making that choice in a situation where many other people would have moved on.

Perhaps you’ve been hurt by the church you’re in. (So many people hurt by churches….it’s hard to think about it.) Mistreated. Lied about and blamed. Maybe more than once. You realize your kids have suffered some disillusionment. Perhaps your marriage is paying the price. There may be conflicts and bitterness over this choice. You’ve wondered, “Is this the right thing to do?”

You’ve certainly wondered, “Why don’t I have the choices that other persons have? Why does my sister have ten churches in a mile radius while I have one?”

You’ve wondered if you been present enough, given enough, been supportive enough and now you need to step away.

You’ve wondered if your choice of this one church is a sign that you’re healthy, or that you’re weak.

You’ve felt good about yourself for being here, and other times you’ve hated yourself for being in this situation. Maybe this is a church where you are content, or maybe it is a church that has filled you with frustration.

God’s part in all of this is the most difficult part of all. Why you? Why here? Why this? Why Lord?

(You’ve probably learned, like me, that “why” questions are not going to get much traction, but they still come to our minds, hearts and tongues easily.)

I don’t know how many different versions of this situation you’ve encountered. I don’t know if you are content or restless, at the end of your rope or hopeful. I don’t know if you believe this is where God wants you to be or if you feel like God is no where near or far.

What do I want to tell you?

You aren’t alone.

You aren’t alone in what you are feeling or in what you are going through.

You may have someone to talk to, or you may not, but don’t think you are the only one who believes that if you could choose another church you’d have a much different life and experience. If you wonder if you’re a bad person for wanting to be in another church, you aren’t. And you certainly aren’t the only one.

I also want to tell you that God knows what he’s doing, but I am not his press spokesperson. I can’t explain his ways in these matters. I do know that you aren’t there by accident, and that the assignment has a place in God’s Kingdom script.

I recently preached on the story of the rich young man in Mark 10 who refused to sell out and follow Jesus.

He was the star of the show. He had lots of choices He liked the script he was living very much.

Jesus invited him to leave that script, and come into the Kingdom script.

And to have no idea what tomorrow was going to be like. No idea where he was going to spend the night. No idea when he was going home.

His security would be Jesus. His script would be whatever Jesus wrote and directed.

There was no little brochure explaining all the benefits of following Jesus; how he would get his best life now, etc.

If you look at where the Apostles and many of the disciples wound up, there’s a good chance it wasn’t going to be in the comfort of a megachurch auditorium.

I think we all face that kind of choice with Jesus. And those of us who are far from the church choices, church benefits and church comforts that others are offered need to remember what it feels likes to get your assignment from Jesus for your part in the play.

For what it’s worth, I don’t think Jesus minds very much if we have some emotion and restlessness about this. He knows what we are like and he knows what we are made of. He knows that we struggle and that we wish for a different assignment sometimes.

He was, after all, one who learned obedience through tears. He was the one who prayed “not my will, but your will be done.”

As I’m sure you’ve guessed, I’m part of this group. I don’t feel like an evangelical most of the time. Evangelicalism is the piece of driftwood I’m standing on. What happened to the ship?

The ministry Jesus has given me has taken church choices of any kind away from me. I’m on the fringe of the fringe, preaching to the unlikely and those who normally wouldn’t come near a church. I get to meet them in a very unusual place, and there aren’t many of us who can make it in this ministry. It pays little and demands much.

And to be here, my church choices are non-existent. In my one choice, I’m as odd and out of place as I can possible be. My wife has gone elsewhere- Rome- to experience the church, and I am here, like one of the Apostles, telling the story to the nations that have come to my backyard.

To be here and to be this person in the Kingdom script, I must have my choices taken away, and replaced with the mission.

In other words, Christ leaves me with himself, and a mission that cannot be sustained apart from clinging to and following him.

Most of the time, Jesus is my church and my pastor.

So I have no Marine drill instructor correction for you. My heart is beating like your heart, and I feel so many of the same things.

You’re not alone, and God hasn’t left any of us. In fact, in this evangelical wilderness, he may be closer than you ever thought.

Many of you know the start of this story, but you may find some new things in the retelling.

In April of 06, I felt God instructing me to resign from the church I was serving. It was the church our family called home for a decade. I’d served them for 12 years. I had no idea that it was the end of almost any sense of spiritual “home” at all, and the beginning of a season of much change.

In May of that year, my son left home for college. In June, my daughter married. A few weeks later she would move to another state and temporarily quit college. (She’s graduating OSU in a few days, and I am very, very proud. But at the time, it was tough.)

In July of 06, my mother, who was living with us, came to the breakfast table and started speaking in a confused manner. Fourteen hours later, she was dead.

In September, I turned 50. The empty nest and the second half of life threw the party. I wouldn’t book them if I were you. Those guys are not much fun.

In these months, I was also trying to begin a home worship fellowship with some hope that, within 2-3 years, it might become the early version of a church. I was trying to preserve what my family had loved about worship in our little Presbyterian church and what I was discovering in the emerging tradition.

Despite many good aspects of that effort, it failed and in the summer of 07, I brought it to a tearful and embarrassing end. Two “church” losses in a year was devastating to my sense of having a spiritual home, and I still haven’t recovered.

In the meantime, God and my wife got together and decided that what I really needed was for her to start down the road to joining the Roman Catholic church. Everything my wife knew about Catholicism she’d learned from me, and she had almost no experience with the Roman Catholic church until Lent of 07. God’s directives to her at that time, however, were so clear that she knew she had to follow them despite the obvious consequences on various levels of our relationship and my ministry.

She told me the news, Pandora’s Box was opened and the Harpies took the keys to my life for the next few months.

Today, she’s somewhere in the RCIA journey and recently thanked me for my “support,” because she has been happier this past year than ever in recent memory. I had to laugh, because my “support” came from an experience somewhere between the rack and a 6 month root canal without anesthesia.

I was literally bombed out of my previous understanding of “the way things are supposed to be in a minister’s life.” It was like living through repeated showings of an imploding stadium, and I was the stadium.

Fortunately, God was determined to keep me in the wrestling ring until I yelled “Bless me.” I don’t have to tell you how that turned out, do I? I can now say “Bless me” in several Biblical languages.

I’ve still got an occasional bit of fight left in me, but the new version of my faith is considerably lighter, more Jesus shaped and – you’re going to love this- quite Shack/Greg Boyd influenced. (Oh calm down. I don’t believe everything Greg Boyd believes, but the last few weeks his preaching has been wonderful in its ministry to my confused heart.)

Oh. Did I mention that God and I are talking a LOT more these days, and I’m learning to recognize the voice of Jesus separate from my own head and the soundtrack of all the religious garbage that’s filled my head and heart for decades?

God provided a sabbatical so that I could have 8 weeks to work on the process of getting down to Jesus basics and knowing who I was in the new terrain of my existence. I appreciate it, because I needed (and need) it.

Simultaneously with all of these events, strange things began to happen to me at my job. Exceedingly strange. For instance, I was criticized for writing in my moleskine during sermons and for going to the restroom. All who live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.

Nothing you’d find interesting, but plenty to make me wake up every day and wonder if someone is filming a reality show about me, with the premise of changing all my certainties when I’m asleep and then watching the confused reaction. If you see Season One on DVD, I’d like to purchase a copy. Maybe I can laugh at the commercials.

Oh, I thought I needed a friend, so I bought a dog. The dog hates me.

When I talk to Jesus about all this recent history, he says things like “It’s all mercy,” and “The only response is to be a servant,” and “What are you here for?” and “Who are the people who simply suffer and pray? Ever thought about them?” and my favorite “Just let me take care of _______________.”

The genuine Jesus, if you can actually get the station, can really be annoying to your natural survival instincts of blame, self-pity and anger.

You see, I’ve been trained my whole life to think like a pietistic Calvinist. There had to be a REASON for all of this. There has to be a LESSON. I get to ask WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO LEARN? So picture me spending all kinds of mental energy trying to find what was the great lesson at the core of all of this that, when I learned it, would make it all go away.

Riiiiight.

And when I ask what all this means and what I am supposed to learn, Jesus just asks questions back, or says things like “Why don’t you go down that road and see what happens. You’ll never know if you just pout.” Or “Just obey me tomorrow and we’ll find out.”

There doesn’t seem to be some resounding THEME or amazing LESSON. As Greg Boyd says, from my point of view, it just all seems to be hitting the fan. God BRINGS good out of it, but if I want to say that he caused it all (which I still do for lack of any other way to express faith and confusion simultaneously) with some CERTAIN LESSON in mind, I don’t get very far. Like he said, “Go down the road, and you’ll see what’s there.” Kind of God’s version of “When we get there, you’ll know.”

I’m a fifty one year old guy whose days leading churches in his denomination are probably over, whose wife got burned out in the non-existent “spirituality” of 30+ years of Baptist church life and ministry, who has been at his current job long enough for some people to wish he wasn’t, who has been stationed out on the frontier where there are no churches to shop, who spent so many years thinking so many things in his head were scriptural, reformed and right that it really hurts to have to admit he was wrong, wrong and wrong. In that order.

I’m just a guy with a life, and life is full of failure and loss. I wanted MINISTRY to be the ongoing reward. I wanted USEFULNESS to be my satisfaction. I wanted to be SIGNIFICANT. I wanted the contract to be in place and the insurance to protect me because I was the guy with the Bible. Well, that didn’t go very well, did it?

God thought it was time for all that nonsense to stop, and for the lifelong addiction I’d developed to my church as my universe, my wife as unquestioning supporter and my theology as my version of the inerrant Word of God to end. He made an appointment to pull the teeth, and I was not consulted in advance.

Ordinary life, extraordinary events and stuff that just don’t make no sense all combine to rearrange the furniture of my world. Every time I head for a comfortable seat, God sells it. Every time I look for the comfort food, the fridge is empty. Every time I get out my copy of “Things You KNOW Are True,” the dog has eaten it.

My faith continues. Jesus now fills the picture in a way he didn’t before. I realize I have a lot to learn from simple people who never get into pulpits and who aren’t supposed to know everything in the Bible like I supposedly do. My love for my wife and our Christian marriage continues, and there is much good that was not there before. I returned to church today, alone- something that in my anger I said I wouldn’t do. I was reminded that here I won’t ever be turned away from the table. I prayed for the five who were baptized. I was reminded that the faith goes far beyond me, my time, my preferences and my lifetime. I looked, and there were the people of God, and I was one of them. They asked me to lead in prayer, and the words were more careful than before.

I was grateful. I talked to Jesus and he told me it is all going to be all right, that I’m free to walk the new path as I can, and he will not leave me or forsake me. I felt sorry for my sin, and happy to know my Savior loves me.

Life goes on. Losses, gains, light, shadow, confusion, laughter, tears, God, Jesus, Denise, me.

When I look up from the road, I notice that the lights in the distance are closer and the noise behind me is not as loud.

Good journey friends. See you on up the road.

Can you find places in scripture where someone had to drastically revise their idea of God in order to know and follow the true God? If so, why and how?

I’m not asking for places where people just needed to learn some new information. No, I am talking about those in the Biblical story who had to radically revise, even abandon, the kind of God they believed in in order to take hold of the true and living God?

We can call it the Jonah 4 Club, because in Jonah 4, the reluctant prophet had to admit that God was a lot more merciful and gracious than Jonah had previously thought. Actually, in Jonah 4, Jonah is righteously ticked off that God is actually nice to pagans, and expresses pity and forgiveness for them.

Jonah had his idea of God all together on the issue of what bad people deserved and what God should do to bad people. Jonah had, of course, written quite a large check on the “I’m one of God’s truly beloved people” account, and he only found himself outside of Ninevah by the same grace of God extended toward him.

But like many Christians, Jonah prefers the God in his head and his prejudices to the actual Yahweh who is relentlessly forgiving to a whole culture of cruel and violent idolaters. (There were some pretty rotten characters in Ninevah.)

The Jonah 4 Club has some other members.

Abraham believed in some kind of moon god when Yahweh started speaking to him. In Genesis 22, when he has Yahweh all figured out, he has to think about God in ways no one wants to think about. When we’re sure what God will or won’t do, along comes a Genesis 22 experience.

Moses no doubt thought that God had hired him for a temp and was going to run the show himself, but he had to learn that Yahweh intended to work through a mediator and everything wasn’t going to be a Red Sea crossing. Sometimes, you were going to spend 40 years making a trip that should take 2 or 3 months at most.

The disciples of Jesus had a traditional Jewish idea of God and messiah, but hanging out with Jesus for 3 years put everything on the table for a revision. Jesus seemed to always be doing something that amounted to “tear up everything you believe about God, guys. We’re doing something different today.”

In Acts 10, God has to give Peter the vision of the unclean animals in a sheet in order to get through his stubborn belief that God has lots of rules of who can eat and fellowship with whom.

The Jonah 4 Club. I’m a member. That makes some people nervous, but I’m in very good company.

So how would you answer the question? And what’s been your own experience at joining?

Rollins has always intrigued me. Some of his ideas are difficult to grasp, but in this interview he does a fantastic job of describing some of the essentials of a Jesus-shaped spirituality. While his definition of being a Christian starts out well in the first sentence, it needs help after that, but the rest of this section of the interview is right on target for me.

This interview is taken from Rising From the Ashes by Becky Garrison, pp. 48-49.

Some would say this sounds un-Orthodox.

Peter Rollins:….The word today has taken on a rather unhelpful Enlightenment-influenced definition as “correct belief” – the ability to affirm a certain creedal formation. However, in the more ancient tradition the doxa of orthodoxy does not refer to belief bit rather to praise. We see this in the word doxology, which doesn’t mean belief, but rather worship. So, orthodoxy actually means correct praise not correct belief. In that kind of a way, it becomes less about the affirmation of a theological approach- important as theology is- but a way of being like Jesus. We have to rediscover this idea that orthodoxy isn’t belief oriented but praxis oriented. In this way the approach I outline isn’t unorthodox if it helps to bring people back to wonder and praise…whether it does or not is of course open to question.

What then is the task of orthodoxy?

Peter Rollins: The answer to that is simple, and yet infinitely complex, for to be orthodox is to bring praise to God through one’s life. While people these days are asking the question, “Is Christianity true?” the more fundamental question must be, “What does Christ mean when he uses the word truth?” The reason I am asking that question is that when Jesus talks about the truth, he talks about life. The truth is what brings life. My axiom for today is that Christianity at its core doesn’t explain life but it brings life. We must thus ask whether our beliefs and actions bring life, healing and love to the people in the world. To bring live into the world is to know God for God is love. This is not the knowledge of creeds and theology but the knowledge of a transforming relationship with the source of all love. Truth in Christianity is thus different from the way we understand truth in the world, for the truth of Christianity is life, not description. This is what I talk about heretical orthodoxy, i.e. someone who does not understand God yet who changes the world in love.

What then does it mean to be a Christian?

Peter Rollins: It means entering into a journey of becoming one. It does not mean accepting a worldview but rather entering into a healing journey of life… To be a Christian also means that one is committed to exploring this life through the Judeo-Christian tradition, wrestling with it, learning from it, and being transformed by it. Being a Christian means learning how to be the opening of life into the world.

Why do you call Jesus a subversive prophet who signaled the end to all religious movements?

Peter Rollins: One of the most interesting things about Christianity is that Christ both founded a religion and yet signaled the end of all religions. Jesus said there will come a time when we worship in spirit and in truth rather than on one mountain or another….Christ thus can be seen as founding an irreligious religion, i.e., a religion that critiques the idea of religion, a religion without religion. This is one way of understanding deconstruction.

Charles is a church kid, and he’s a Christian. He’s also very, very serious about impressing the adult Christians around him.

He wears a tie every day. Almost no one on our staff does that, and the students certainly don’t.

He wears dress clothes all the time. Our ministry has lots of donated suits, and he loves wearing them. Especially the oversized ones. He especially loves ties and suspenders. He wears the tie at night, around the dorm, often during free time, work time and on Saturdays. Here in Eastern Ky, at a ministry where no one dresses formally, not even the local pastor (who wears overalls), he’s quite a dapper dresser.

Many days he carries a very large, leather, KJV Bible with him. Collins/World. Expensive leather. In the original box. I’d estimate it’s $125 of Bible.

He attends the worship times for youth, but also the adult services at a nearby local church, which is very unusual, but he likes church a lot. He got baptized at the start of the year, though I’m sure he’d been baptized before he came here.

Charles gets along with the other students at our school, but most of the time he either sits by himself- by choice- or hangs around with adults, who give him a lot of attention and strokes for his devotion to Jesus.

Now the spiritual formation of young people like Charles is a major concern of mine, and I want to say three things:

1) I’m not sure that Charles is being helped to follow Jesus very closely. I don’t know his heart- and I do believe he is a Christian- but it seems that most of what Charles is doing is a kind of adolescent quest for conformity. In his case, that conformity is to the Christian culture that surrounds him.

Charles very accurately reads what is expected, what is good, what is rewarded, and he does it. Now I believe that all of us make our first steps in anything in life by pretending more than we actually know, so I’m not carping at Charles. And I believe he hears the Gospel at our ministry and from adults.

What concerns me is that we are dealing mostly with externals with Charles. His focus is on behavior, and he’s an Olympian in training for doing what is expected of him from Christians. What kind of spiritual formation is that?

Those of us who should be helping in focus on Jesus are, instead, applauding that focus on externals. It’s an easy thing to do, but as we seek to make disciple, it’s a mistake.

2) Which brings me to the adults who will no doubt say that Charles is the finest Christian young man they know, because he wears a tie, carries a big KJV and goes to adult church. Are they mentoring him in a way that is actually discipling Charles? Or are they socializing him into the club that is denominational, “team sport” Christianity?

When Charles is held up as the best Christian we have, the fact that he has very few non-Christian friends and spends much of his time pursuing the approval of Christians won’t strike many people as ironic.

3) I’ve used Charles as an example, but we could be talking about lots of other people in situations with many of the same components. Change the names, ages and labels, and we’ve got “Charles” all over again.

Conformity is a human behavior. We all do it. We can’t be blind to it, and we can’t fail to see what it’s possibilities for making us something other than disciples.

In a consuming culture, there are t-shirts to wear, conferences to attend, MP3s to listen to, buzzwords to use, names to drop, churches to faint over, etc. Did I say money to be spent?

And half-truths to be told to one another. Like “I’m following Jesus” when I’m not doing much more than wearing a uniform and carrying some recognizable symbols to get me in the doors.

Jesus is provocative. He specializes in “getting real.” When we find ourselves on a path that’s well worn, with lots of chatty, happy people all wearing the same caps and eating at the same restaurants….do we know where we are? We might just be on vacation…on the wide road Jesus warned us to avoid.

Walking with Jesus through this world isn’t a vacation. It’s a vocation. It’s a conversion. A turning. A repentance. It’s the Lenten journey all the way home.

If you are on the way, or helping others along the way, put your focus precisely on Jesus Christ. Talk about him. Listen to him. Allow his words and way to permeate the superficiality of western Christianity and turn you down the narrow path.

The conformist’s consuming journey is always to the next “thing.” Our journey is a walk with Christ to the cross. Along the way, we see him, hear him clearer and closer.

As we come to Ash Wednesday and Lent, I pray that all of us find, walk in and mark out the narrow way of Jesus’ incarnation and example.