This past Monday marked six years since my beautiful high-school sweetie and I said "I do" in front of an auditorium full of family and friends on the campus of our undergrad alma mater, Pikeville College. (The ceremony was supposed to take place at sunset in the courtyard in front of the library, but a torrential spring downpour sent everyone scampering for cover. And to this day, we rarely speak of it.)
A couple of weeks ago, Quest Community Church celebrated ten years since opening. It was an awesome sight to see, as the handful of visionaries who put everything on the line in 1999 looked out over the thousands of spectators who have since come to view Quest as home.
And, in a couple of weeks, it will have been exactly one year since my wife and I first wandered through the doors of Quest.
I think there's much to be learned about that last one, based on the other two. In January of last year - before we found out we were expecting - if someone had told me that within a year and a half I'd be going to church every weekend (looking forward to it, even) or that I would happily volunteer to give up every Sunday evening for a bunch of guys calling themselves a 'life group,' it's hard to say what I would have thought. Probably something decidedly un-churchlike.
Just like a new marriage or the launch of a new church, though, it's the passage of time that gives perspective and meaning. "Doing" something is all well and good, but "still doing" something counts for a lot more. I feel I've covered a lot of ground on my spiritual quest over the past year, but looking forward I see I have a ways to go. I'm excited that the journey is still going!
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Saturday, May 16, 2009
On Identity and Being Chosen
This is in some ways a continuation of my last post, dealing as it did with my ongoing struggle to find an identity for myself. My church just last week launched a series on the book of Ephesians, and after reading the book this week (first time for everything, eh?) I've found "identity" to be an overarching theme for it.
In the kickoff for the series last weekend, Pastor Pete spoke on the topic of being "chosen" and what that means. The service itself, like so many at Quest, was deeply moving and - this is the single most important aspect to me of Quest - relevant to today. The concept of being "chosen" for something, for anything, runs deep in the human psyche regardless of one's spiritual leanings. I know I certainly put a great deal of stock into being 'chosen' by a college, then by a graduate program, then by an employer, and so forth and so on. I chose my wife, or she chose me, or both. Together, we chose our boys (our kids of a feline or canine persuasion). Choosing, being chosen - whatever the direction, the concept itself is certainly sound and relevant.
What was truly interesting was seeing this theme turn up in a 2000+ -year-old letter from a guy in prison to a bunch of churches around Asia Minor. Peter defines himself solely as chosen - specifically, "chosen by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus" (Eph. 1:1; NLT). So Peter, as well, draws his identity based on his status of being chosen.
However, it doesn't require a theologian to realize that being chosen by God and being chosen by, say, an office committee to attend a conference are two rather different things. Heck, I picked up on that, and I'm (as the title goes) a simple seeker. It wouldn't be too far off base, though, to suggest that there are people today whose identities are as tied up in secular concerns as Paul's was in God. Unfortunately, I'm afraid I'm in that same lot. Trying non-stop to define one's own identity diverts vital energy from other aspects of life. The hope in last week's service sprang from the idea that, whenever a person is ready, the same God who chose Paul also stands ready to choose them.
I've spent a great deal of time - my entire life, essentially - trying to craft my own identity. Frankly, it hasn't been the most fruitful of pursuits. Perhaps at the end of this journey of self-discovery something, somehow will convince me that it has never really been up to me to do that anyhow.
In the kickoff for the series last weekend, Pastor Pete spoke on the topic of being "chosen" and what that means. The service itself, like so many at Quest, was deeply moving and - this is the single most important aspect to me of Quest - relevant to today. The concept of being "chosen" for something, for anything, runs deep in the human psyche regardless of one's spiritual leanings. I know I certainly put a great deal of stock into being 'chosen' by a college, then by a graduate program, then by an employer, and so forth and so on. I chose my wife, or she chose me, or both. Together, we chose our boys (our kids of a feline or canine persuasion). Choosing, being chosen - whatever the direction, the concept itself is certainly sound and relevant.
What was truly interesting was seeing this theme turn up in a 2000+ -year-old letter from a guy in prison to a bunch of churches around Asia Minor. Peter defines himself solely as chosen - specifically, "chosen by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus" (Eph. 1:1; NLT). So Peter, as well, draws his identity based on his status of being chosen.
However, it doesn't require a theologian to realize that being chosen by God and being chosen by, say, an office committee to attend a conference are two rather different things. Heck, I picked up on that, and I'm (as the title goes) a simple seeker. It wouldn't be too far off base, though, to suggest that there are people today whose identities are as tied up in secular concerns as Paul's was in God. Unfortunately, I'm afraid I'm in that same lot. Trying non-stop to define one's own identity diverts vital energy from other aspects of life. The hope in last week's service sprang from the idea that, whenever a person is ready, the same God who chose Paul also stands ready to choose them.
I've spent a great deal of time - my entire life, essentially - trying to craft my own identity. Frankly, it hasn't been the most fruitful of pursuits. Perhaps at the end of this journey of self-discovery something, somehow will convince me that it has never really been up to me to do that anyhow.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
Taking the Next Step
I had my first Life Group meeting this evening. First impression: great group of guys, and I'm already looking forward to next week!
The Life Group ministry at Quest Community Church is designed to provide a smaller community setting in which, as Quest calls it, a person can 'do life' with others making their own way down a spiritual path. I have a feeling these guys are going to be an invaluable source of inspiration and advice as I continue on my own quest!
The Life Group ministry at Quest Community Church is designed to provide a smaller community setting in which, as Quest calls it, a person can 'do life' with others making their own way down a spiritual path. I have a feeling these guys are going to be an invaluable source of inspiration and advice as I continue on my own quest!
Saturday, May 9, 2009
A Little Background on Your Anonymous Blogger
Because I'm by nature a rather private person, I've decided there's no real reason to share my actual identity with readers. However, if there are any readers out there for this blog, a little in the way of personal information would probably help greatly to establish some context.
I'm in my thirties. I'm married to my wonderful, beautiful high school sweetheart and we have an equally wonderful and beautiful baby girl, with a couple of dogs and cats too. And, until very, very recently, I've never attended church regularly.
A big reason of this is that mine was simply not a church-going family growing up. By and large, if we were gathered in church, somebody in the community was probably dead. On top of that, the few Sunday church experiences I did have were not terribly pleasant - "church," to me, came to mean a building with no air conditioning where you sit on a hard bench for hours at a time while an old - usually VERY old - man yelled at you that you were going to Hell. It was the kind of endeavor, I decided at a very young age, that I could just as well do without.
In high school, I was friends with some die-hard lifelong Christian kids. I took part in prayer circle, not necessarily because I thought it would help anything but because I figured it certainly couldn't hurt. I went to a couple of youth-group lock-ins that were pretty enjoyable. I did vacation Bible school in the summer because in my rural community, the summer activity options were pretty severely limited.
In college, I took a New Testament course because it was required to graduate. It was interesting, and the professor (who has remained a close friend) was very good. Still, though, my 'Bible study' remained a very scholarly pursuit. I approached my NT reading no differently than my Brit Lit or my reading for Poetry & Prose.
Fast forward to grad school and beyond. I've set goals, some loftier than others, some of which I've met and several I've missed. Through it all, religion came to the fore exactly once. It was the year before I was to finish my MA work, and the pressure was fast becoming unbearable. The graduate workload far surpassed anything I'd experienced as an undergraduate, and the resulting lack of any free time meant little time for friends - not that I really had a lot of those, anyhow. In desperation, and having found out that grad students simply don't have enough discretionary income to purchase alcohol in sufficient quantities to drown all their sorrows, I found my thoughts drifting back to those aforementioned Christian friends from high school. They always seemed so gosh-darned peaceful in their approach to life. I wondered if there might be something there.
So, it was off to the local 'everything's $1' store, where I purchased a Bible. It was a 'New' King James version, but reading-wise it was pretty much everything I remembered from childhood. I could smell the stuffy air and feel the hard bench. I slogged all the way through to Deuteronomy, then slammed head-first into the wall that IS Leviticus. With a sigh, I pushed the Bible off to the side of the itty-bitty coffee table in my equally itty-bitty first apartment, went to the itty-bitty kitchen and got a (full-sized!) beer from the itty-bitty fridge.
I drifted a little more. I let what began as a part-time job morph into my proclaimed identity, which became a big problem once I came to the slow realization that I actually hated the work. I left that job and took another, then set about redefining myself in light of it.
A friend who was younger than me committed suicide. Another, also younger than me, died a shocking death from cancer nobody even knew he had. I finished my master's degree but quit a year into my doctoral work, having already come to the conclusion that I would probably never use either because to do so would just bring back a lot of bad memories.
I drifted still more. After a year out of grad school, I started to miss it. So, I went back and enrolled in different program. I finished that one, got promoted, and now when people ask about me I define myself in terms of that.
All of which is a long-winded, roundabout way of saying that, for someone who prides himself on knowledge, I can be a very slow learner at times.
When we found out we were going to have a baby, my wife and I decided that we wanted to find a church so that he or she could have that sort of influence growing up. Starting around the end of January 2008, we began spending each Sunday with a different church, trying to find one with the right 'feel.' My wife regularly attended a fairly traditional church growing up, and luckily for her suffered no ill effects from it. As such, it fell to me to bring all the excess baggage to this grand experiment. I wanted my child to have a religious influence, but I didn't want it to be the same negative experience that I had.
And, by the time May rolled around, that's precisely what I was afraid we were going to end up with. Week after week, congregation after congregation, we kept finding boring, unwelcoming groups claiming to be churches. (In fairness, they weren't outwardly, hostilely unwelcoming; rather, they just didn't really go to any great lengths to make newcomers feel at home). In desperation (a bit of a theme is cropping up, no?) we decided to go for broke and try one of the area 'megachurches,' Quest Community Church. At least, I had assumed it was a megachurch based on the simple criteria that they have a large building visible from the highway.
I couldn't have been more wrong. Quest is a large place, without question - but it feels much smaller. It's the first place we went where we actually felt as though people were genuinely happy to have us. And, tellingly, it's the first place we bothered returning to.
And we've kept returning. At the end of this month, it will be exactly one year since we stopped church-shopping and set up base camp in the back left corner of Quest. Our daughter has since arrived, and already seems to enjoy the time she spends each weekend in the nursery of the kids' section. Now that I'm 'here,' though, I feel the need to figure out why, and exactly what it is I'm supposed to be doing. This blog will hopefully chronicle this experience, as I continue simply seeking the truth about Christianity and what it means for my life.
I'm in my thirties. I'm married to my wonderful, beautiful high school sweetheart and we have an equally wonderful and beautiful baby girl, with a couple of dogs and cats too. And, until very, very recently, I've never attended church regularly.
A big reason of this is that mine was simply not a church-going family growing up. By and large, if we were gathered in church, somebody in the community was probably dead. On top of that, the few Sunday church experiences I did have were not terribly pleasant - "church," to me, came to mean a building with no air conditioning where you sit on a hard bench for hours at a time while an old - usually VERY old - man yelled at you that you were going to Hell. It was the kind of endeavor, I decided at a very young age, that I could just as well do without.
In high school, I was friends with some die-hard lifelong Christian kids. I took part in prayer circle, not necessarily because I thought it would help anything but because I figured it certainly couldn't hurt. I went to a couple of youth-group lock-ins that were pretty enjoyable. I did vacation Bible school in the summer because in my rural community, the summer activity options were pretty severely limited.
In college, I took a New Testament course because it was required to graduate. It was interesting, and the professor (who has remained a close friend) was very good. Still, though, my 'Bible study' remained a very scholarly pursuit. I approached my NT reading no differently than my Brit Lit or my reading for Poetry & Prose.
Fast forward to grad school and beyond. I've set goals, some loftier than others, some of which I've met and several I've missed. Through it all, religion came to the fore exactly once. It was the year before I was to finish my MA work, and the pressure was fast becoming unbearable. The graduate workload far surpassed anything I'd experienced as an undergraduate, and the resulting lack of any free time meant little time for friends - not that I really had a lot of those, anyhow. In desperation, and having found out that grad students simply don't have enough discretionary income to purchase alcohol in sufficient quantities to drown all their sorrows, I found my thoughts drifting back to those aforementioned Christian friends from high school. They always seemed so gosh-darned peaceful in their approach to life. I wondered if there might be something there.
So, it was off to the local 'everything's $1' store, where I purchased a Bible. It was a 'New' King James version, but reading-wise it was pretty much everything I remembered from childhood. I could smell the stuffy air and feel the hard bench. I slogged all the way through to Deuteronomy, then slammed head-first into the wall that IS Leviticus. With a sigh, I pushed the Bible off to the side of the itty-bitty coffee table in my equally itty-bitty first apartment, went to the itty-bitty kitchen and got a (full-sized!) beer from the itty-bitty fridge.
I drifted a little more. I let what began as a part-time job morph into my proclaimed identity, which became a big problem once I came to the slow realization that I actually hated the work. I left that job and took another, then set about redefining myself in light of it.
A friend who was younger than me committed suicide. Another, also younger than me, died a shocking death from cancer nobody even knew he had. I finished my master's degree but quit a year into my doctoral work, having already come to the conclusion that I would probably never use either because to do so would just bring back a lot of bad memories.
I drifted still more. After a year out of grad school, I started to miss it. So, I went back and enrolled in different program. I finished that one, got promoted, and now when people ask about me I define myself in terms of that.
All of which is a long-winded, roundabout way of saying that, for someone who prides himself on knowledge, I can be a very slow learner at times.
When we found out we were going to have a baby, my wife and I decided that we wanted to find a church so that he or she could have that sort of influence growing up. Starting around the end of January 2008, we began spending each Sunday with a different church, trying to find one with the right 'feel.' My wife regularly attended a fairly traditional church growing up, and luckily for her suffered no ill effects from it. As such, it fell to me to bring all the excess baggage to this grand experiment. I wanted my child to have a religious influence, but I didn't want it to be the same negative experience that I had.
And, by the time May rolled around, that's precisely what I was afraid we were going to end up with. Week after week, congregation after congregation, we kept finding boring, unwelcoming groups claiming to be churches. (In fairness, they weren't outwardly, hostilely unwelcoming; rather, they just didn't really go to any great lengths to make newcomers feel at home). In desperation (a bit of a theme is cropping up, no?) we decided to go for broke and try one of the area 'megachurches,' Quest Community Church. At least, I had assumed it was a megachurch based on the simple criteria that they have a large building visible from the highway.
I couldn't have been more wrong. Quest is a large place, without question - but it feels much smaller. It's the first place we went where we actually felt as though people were genuinely happy to have us. And, tellingly, it's the first place we bothered returning to.
And we've kept returning. At the end of this month, it will be exactly one year since we stopped church-shopping and set up base camp in the back left corner of Quest. Our daughter has since arrived, and already seems to enjoy the time she spends each weekend in the nursery of the kids' section. Now that I'm 'here,' though, I feel the need to figure out why, and exactly what it is I'm supposed to be doing. This blog will hopefully chronicle this experience, as I continue simply seeking the truth about Christianity and what it means for my life.
Seeking What?
This is a blog about personal religion or, more specifically, the process of finding personal religion. I want to believe. It seems important to go ahead and get that out, up front. But while I want to believe, I have yet to be able to do so. Why? That is where this blog is headed.
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