February 7th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
by sillyjoe (Feeling Bookish, Life and Introspection, Religion)
And I run to the arms of another song, another story by a man who’s dead and gone; When will I run, when will I run to the arms of God?
– Andrew Osenga – “When Will I Run?”
Now–here is my secret:
I tell it to you with an openness of heart that I doubt I shall ever achieve again, so I pray that you are in a quiet room as you hear these words. My secret is that I need God–that I am sick and can no longer make it alone. I need God to help me give, because I no longer seem to be capable of giving; to help me be kind, as I no longer seem capable of kindness; to help me love, as I seem beyond being able to love.
– Douglas Coupland – Life After God
I’ve been putting off writing this post for several months now, but a post over on Kari’s blog encouraged me to finally take the plunge. Right now, I’m listening to Andrew Osenga’s “Too Far To Walk” from his Photographs album. I could post all the lyrics to this song and they would apply to what I’ve been going through, but you’ll have to search them out for yourself. I need to get this out, and quick before I change my mind. If you read this blog, you know about the things I went through last summer (here’s the post about it), but I left out a crucial part because of the hurt that I feel when I think about it. I dream about it at least once a week, and it’s been the hardest struggle my mind has ever gone through. When my panic attacks started, I stepped down from leading worship at my church “temporarily,” until I could get things straightened out. I felt it was what I needed to do. I didn’t believe I could adequately lead the people of my congregation in worship when there was so much weighing down on me. This was supported by nearly everyone I know, including my family, my girlfriend, my friends, and the church’s pastor. After one failed restart (I had a panic attack on the way to practice on the day I decided I was ready to come back…I wasn’t ready, apparently), I finally knew, knew, mind you, that I was ready. That God had made me ready to do what I needed to do. I must digress to tell you that I believe more than anything in my heart that I’m supposed to use the musical talent God has given me to lead others in worship. So, I was ready. I met with my pastor and told him where I was at and how I felt. This meeting didn’t go the way I had hoped. I learned that my pastor believed the reason for my panic attacks, the reason for my depression, the reason I had struggled for three months was because I had somehow failed morally. He hinted that maybe it was because my girlfriend and I had slept together. This isn’t true, and to be honest, I was offended. I was hurt. I’d worked at the church for more than three years, and this man, my pastor, my friend, his first guess as to what has caused my problems is that I (pardon the commonness of this term) was screwing my girlfriend. Again, this isn’t true. Our conversation didn’t end there. He informed me that he would be happy for me to come back to leading worship at the church, after a four month probationary period, in which accountability would have to established, and I would have to earn back the trust of the church and its congregation. Let me restate that I stepped down from my position temporarily of my own accord, so I was confused as to where I betrayed the trust of the church. The meeting didn’t end well, and I haven’t been back to the church since. I’m fairly sure that no one there knows exactly what happened, and I haven’t talked to anyone from the church with the exception of a couple of folks. I regularly have dreams where I confront the pastor, asking him why he did things the way he did them, but the truth is I’m scared to talk to him. I know I should. I know it’s biblical (Matthew 18), but I’m afraid of what I might do. Yes, I’m really afraid I could become violent. I have so many feelings and emotions inside of me that I don’t know how I might express, or even how I could. My girlfriend and I attend church with my parents now, at a place where we feel welcomed and loved. I miss my old community so much, but I know in my heart I can never go back. I hope someday there can be reconciliation, but I fear there may never be. I pray there will at least be closure.
This situation has taught me, more than anything, and more than ever, that I need God. I need him more than the air that I’m breathing, and more than the blood pouring through these veins of mine. I know He’ll never leave me. I pray I never leave Him.
1 Comment
January 15th, 2009 at 5:13 pm
by sillyjoe (Feeling Bookish, Life and Introspection, Religion)
I’m currently reading A.J. Jacobs’s second book, The Year Of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible. Jacobs is a secular Jewish man (He says he’s Jewish like “the Olive Garden is Italian”) who decided to take a year to immerse himself in the Bible. To see what it would look like to follow the Bible as literally as possible, to the letter. Every jot and tittle, as they say. What results is a sometimes funny, sometimes profound, sometimes moving memoir. I’m about 3/4 of the year through and this passage I read this morning moved me so that I felt I had to put it somewhere for posterity. For context, this excerpt was written from Jerusalem during a short trip Jacobs took there.
Today I’m taking a rest from a walk on a set of stairs near the Jaffa Gate. Or maybe near the Lion’s Gate. I’m not sure. Frankly, I’m lost. But I’m resting here on the stone steps, which are cool and shaded and have a bumpy surface that makes them look like a Rice Krispies treat. I have my head bowed and my eyes closed. I’m trying to pray, but my mind is wandering. I can’t settle it down. It wanders over to an Esquire article I just wrote. It wasn’t half bad, I think to myself. I liked that turn of phrase in the first paragraph. And then I am hit with a realization. And hit is the right word– it felt like a punch to my stomach. Here I am being prideful about creating an article in a midsize American magazine. But God–if He exists–He created the world. He created flamingos and supernovas and geysers and beetles and the stones for these steps I’m sitting on. “Praise the Lord,” I say out loud. I’d always found the praising-God parts of the Bible and my prayer books awkward. The sentences about the all-powerful, almighty, all-knowing, the host of hosts, He who has greatness beyond our comprehension. I’m not used to talking like that. It’s so over the top. I’m used to understatement and hedging and irony. And why would God need to be praised in the first place? God shouldn’t be so insecure. He’s the ultimate being. Now I can sort of see why. It’s not for him. It’s for us. It takes you out of yourself and your prideful little brain.
Comments
June 6th, 2005 at 8:35 pm
by sillyjoe (Around the Interweb, Religion)
The folks over at Stupid People Church, the blog/podcast that I’m falling in love with and highly recommend, pointed me to this article, entitled “Escape From Consumer Church,” a GREAT article that says a lot of things that I find myself agreeing with with where the church is today and where the church is going and where the church needs to go. Worth a read, for sure.
1 Comment
April 14th, 2005 at 12:32 am
by sillyjoe (Church Whatnots, Life and Introspection, Religion)
And you love her
But you know you’ve got to leave her
She’s leaving you with no way out – Derek Webb
So my family’s time at Buffalo Baptist Church has come to an end. The politics of church have taken over the love and community that once was. People who I thought loved and supported us turned their back on us, then turned toward us again, only to spit in our faces. It’s been a rough couple of weeks. I may post a rundown, but it’s not something I feel I can relive now.
Tonight was the first time I attended a church other than Buffalo in five years. It was a strange feeling. To go somewhere, and not be the worship leader. To not be the preacher’s kid. To just be a visitor at this church. I don’t know if I liked it or not. It was so different from where I’ve been for so long now. I hope I can get back to where I can lead others in worship weekly….somewhere. I need that. It’s where I found my strength every week.
To all of those who may read this…please pray for me, my family, and what was once my church. The rebuilding process will be an interesting one for us all.
Comments
July 11th, 2004 at 8:09 pm
by sillyjoe (Religion)
Are we as a church in the twenty-first century too concerned with being relevant?
Oh dear sweet Jesus, yes we are.
Am I the only one who’s tired of hearing the “The Bible is a what-to, not a how-to book” argument made as an excuse for using unBiblical methods of churching?
Seeker-friendly churches scare me, b/c when it comes down to it, none of us are seekers.
GOD is the seeker.
In our preoccupation with being relevant, we’ve forgotten one thing. The Bible was never irrelevant.
For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths. 2 Timothy 4: 3-4
This is short in hopes it will spur discussion. Carry on.
Comments
April 10th, 2004 at 2:37 pm
by sillyjoe (Music, Religion)
I’m sitting alone in my bedroom, listening to David Crowder’s “You Alone”.
I listen to a lot of praise and worship music, and I’m always trying to find new songs that we can do in my youth group (seeing as how I’m the music guy and all). You Alone is by no means a new song. We’ve been doing it for years. But it never fails that every time I hear it, every time I sing it….I start crying. I don’t know why. Just the amazing profoundness of those statements. “You alone are Father, you alone are good, you alone are savior, you alone are God”. And the bridge, the “I’m Alive” part always gives me chills.
I’ve always heard complaints (and at times have supplied the complaints myself) that a lot of worship these days is too man-centered, focusing on us rather than God. This song always encourages me when I complain about that. It’s about HIM alone.
Comments
April 1st, 2004 at 10:05 pm
by sillyjoe (Life and Introspection, Religion)
The pastor stands before his congregation, passionately bringing the gospel before them. He’s not yelling. He’s not sweating. He’s not hacking with every breath. But he is passionate and compassionate in his delivery. He is God’s messenger.
The congregation sits in silence. A deacon sits in the front, arms crossed, checking his watch every few minutes. The football game starts at 12:30 and he wants to be home on time. A mother sits about midway through the congregation, pondering what she should cook for lunch for her family of four. Spaghetti? No. Sandwiches? No. Hot dogs…no. Ah heck, let’s just go to Shoney’s. A twenty-something college student sits in the back, nearly asleep. He only came because his mother expected him to. It pleases her for him to show up once a month. He can’t wait for it to be over so he can go party with his friends. A small group of teenagers sits together, whispering and passing notes, oblivious to the pastor’s words. They’re concerned with the latest gossip, who’s dating who, and how Mary Sue Watson got her hicky.
A child sits next to her mother, listening quietly to the words the pastor is saying. She doesn’t understand it all, but she knows one thing…what he’s talking about. She wants it. That love. It sounds good. Her father is gone. He left her mother before she was born. But the child hears the pastor call God a “father to the fatherless.” In the middle of the chaotic silence, the quiet noise that was the congregation, the child stood up and shouted, “Hey preacher! How can I get to know this God you’re talking about!”
The deacon is disgusted. How dare a child interrupt the service. The mother is embarrassed. She can’t believe her child has done such a thing to her, drawing attention to her family. The twenty-something is startled from his fragile slumber, and is trying to figure out what’s going on. The teenagers are broken from their chit-chat and notes, and turn to see who yelled at the pastor.
The pastor calmly stepped down from the pulpit, and walked down the aisle to the young child. “Hello,” he said. “Hi,” she faintly replied. The girl was obviously embarrassed at the attention she had brought on herself, and wished she could crawl into a hole.
The pastor explained to the little girl how she could come to know the God he had described. “Now, would you like to meet Him now?” The little girl replied, “I think I’d like that.” The pastor held out his hand, and the two walked up to the altar together. He sat her down on the steps, and they began to talk and then prayed. An hour later, the deacon was furious. He’d missed the first quarter of his game. The mother was now too late for the buffet at Shoney’s and was trying to figure out where she could take her family for a “celebration” dinner for her daughter’s decision. The twenty-something was asleep again, and the teenagers were back to their notes and chit-chat. But the pastor and the child were no longer the same. That encounter changed them both.
And all it took was a shout in the silence.
3 Comments
March 31st, 2004 at 11:00 pm
by sillyjoe (Life and Introspection, Religion)
GOD, your God, will cut away the thick callouses on your heart and your children’s hearts, freeing you to love GOD, your God, with your whole heart and soul and live, really live. — Deuteronomy 30:6 MSG
I’ve been reading Deuteronomy 30 over and over again.
I love how the Message translation puts the person of God as “GOD, your God.” First of all, he’s all caps GOD…the sovereign LORD, the almighty, the KING. But that’s not all…He’s YOUR God. He’s not just some impersonal deity, he’s THE personal God…YOUR personal God. He is in you, and you in Him.
This commandment that I’m commanding you today isn’t too much for you, it’s not out of your reach. It’s not on a high mountain–you don’t have to get mountaineers to climb the peak and bring it down to your level and explain it before you can live it. And it’s not across the ocean–you don’t have to send sailors out to get it, bring it back, and then explain it before you can live it. No. The word is right here and now–as near as the tongue in your mouth, as near as the heart in your chest. Just do it! — v. 11-14
I love these verses here. He’s telling us that what He’s giving us to do is doable. In fact, it’s right in reach. I love the way this is worded in the Message too.
Go here to read the whole chapter…I hope you are encouraged by it as I was.
4 Comments
March 18th, 2004 at 5:17 pm
by sillyjoe (Around the Interweb, Religion)
I point your attention to this great article at Relevant Magazine
Comments
March 12th, 2004 at 6:38 pm
by sillyjoe (Religion)
Sitting silent wearing Sunday best
A sermon echoes through the walls
A great salvation through it calls to the people
Who stare into nowhere
And can’t feel the chains on their souls
So I’ve been thinking a lot about church, and the present condition of the church.
Derek Webb’s album She Must and Shall Go Free and the second verse to Jars of Clay’s “Love Song For a Savior” (see above) have spawned a lot of this thinking.
I began singing “Love Song…” at church a couple of months ago. I had never really thought about the words to the second verse until I began singing it in church and watching the folks in the congregation as I sang. It made me wonder how many people in that building were actually there. How many people were really there for the right reasons. It also made me wonder how many people were there out of habit, or because their parents or husbands or wives dragged them there. It made me wonder how many people’s minds were wandering to that afternoon’s game, or NASCAR race, or what they’d be having for dinner.
It made me wonder how many people in that building were sleeping.
I don’t mean sleeping in a literal, physical sense.
I wondered how many people were spiritually asleep.
All my life in church as a preacher’s kid I’ve heard deacons and trustees talk about church business. But I wondered and tried to remember how many times I’d heard them discuss God’s business. I wondered and tried to remember how many times I’d seen those people break down in tears out of conviction, or out of pure worship of God.
I wondered how many of them have become totally desensitized and calloused that the Gospel doesn’t affect them anymore.
I was like that a few months ago.
Church was a social thing for me. An event I was involved in three times a week simply because I’d been doing it my whole life.
I wonder how many of those people are there for the same reasons?
Come back to your senses as you ought, and stop sinning; for there are some who are ignorant of God–I say this to your shame. (I Corinthians 15:34)
2 Comments