RSS Feed

  1. In the spirit of authenticity (pt. 5). . .

    November 8, 2010 by Nate

    Read part 1 here.
    Read part 2 here.
    Read part 3 here.
    Read part 4 here.

    I’m not exactly proud of the attitude I developed in the years following my graduation from Bob Jones University. But I understand that my “rebellion” has helped me to understand grace much better.

    I acted out in a lot of the same ways that most people would act out in high school. Lots of drinking, smoking any substance that could be smoked (legally or otherwise), feeding my addiction to pornography, etc.

    But all of that came about because of a question I was asking myself: does God really even care?

    My biggest fear was that someone would find out about my brokenness. That someone would see what I was doing and call me out on it. So I hid it behind a polished exterior.

    The problem with this is that there’s no healing possible when you hide. Thankfully, God had placed someone in my life who introduced me to an environment where healing was possible. A place where I didn’t have to hide who I was because I knew I wouldn’t be judged for how I was living.

    I would be accepted, loved, and cared for. And with love comes the natural impetus to seek change.

    Slowly stuff started to change. Life started to look different for me.

    And my big question was answered. God really does care.

    Category Personal, Spirituality | Tags: | 2 Comments

  2. In the spirit of authenticity (pt. 4). . .

    October 13, 2010 by Nate

    Read part 1 here.
    Read part 2 here.
    Read part 3 here.

    Throughout high school I played the part of the good Christian. I had to. I’d made up some story about how I’d “gotten saved” when I was just five years old. I got baptized when I was in the fifth grade. I was one of the good kids.

    But no one really knew me. Because I knew that if anyone ever found out about my secret sins, I’d lose all my credibility. I knew that if anyone ever found out that I was questioning my own faith in Jesus, I’d be told to shut up.

    I had all kinds of questions. I wanted to ask my pastor, but I was afraid of the consequences. I couldn’t be real with him. I couldn’t be myself.

    But I wanted the church to like me. So I plugged away. I kept playing the part of the good Christian boy. And we all know that good Christian boys go to good Christian schools.

    So after high school I packed my suitcases and headed down to Bob Jones University. Little did I know what was in store for me there.

    I won’t go into all the details of my experience there, but suffice it to say that the institution found a way to push me far away from God. But I didn’t know any better because I had grown up being taught that God was judgmental, vengeful, and eternally angry with all of humanity.

    Who would want anything to do with that kind of God?

    Let me cite an example. This story is a microcosm of my entire career at the university.

    I was printing a paper for one of my literary criticism classes when I noticed I had a new email. I was about to let it by when I saw that it was from the Dean of Men’s office, and they were requesting that I appear before them.

    Now, here’s the thing about the Dean of Men’s office. You’re probably not going to come out of there alive. It’s not like the Discipline Committee line where you’re tried by one of your peers and/or some random person staring at a computer screen. No, you’re sitting in the fiery judgment of the man who, with one breath, can expel you from the university.

    So I sat through the entirety of En305 completely unable to focus on what my professor was talking about. All I could think about was my impending doom in the Dean of Men’s office.

    (Side note: does anyone else find it odd that there’s a Dean of Men at this school?)

    After class I made my way down the excessively long sidewalk to the inner sanctum of the Administration Building. I sat in the waiting room outside Mr. Daulton’s office, nervous, but not nearly as scared as the first time I’d been here. Still, my fate at college hung in the balance.

    He called me into his office and wasted no time getting to the point. “Do you know why you’re here, Nate?”

    That was a trick question. Last time he asked me that, I got in trouble for something else entirely. I decided to keep my mouth shut this time.

    “Someone from outside the university found some rather disturbing content on your MySpace page,” he said. “He forwarded your page to us because of his concern for you.”

    Riiight. Because someone from outside the university who happens to be stalking university students’ MySpace pages cares enough about the university’s standards to tell the school about this.

    “What kind of content?” I asked.

    “For starters, what you’ve listed as your ‘favorite music’ is anything but God-honoring.”

    I waited for him to continue. There was no way I was going to say anything now.

    “Additionally, I see that there are several R-rated films listed here as your ‘favorite movies,’ and one that is particularly disheartening is ‘The Matrix.’ Would you like to explain?”

    “No, sir.”

    “Nate, do you think a film like ‘The Matrix,’ or any R-rated film for that matter, fits into the standards set by Philippians 4:8?” he asked.

    I wish I’d said yes. I wish I could’ve shown him how that narrow-minded view of Scripture is what’s causing Christians to be so out of touch with culture that they’ve become ineffective and even harmful to the mission God called them to.

    But I didn’t know that yet. I hadn’t discovered this perspective yet. All I knew was that I’d made his god angry. And I was going to pay for it.

    From that moment on I began to slowly give up on my faith in Christ. I remember thinking, After I get my diploma, I’m done with the whole “Jesus thing.” If this is what his followers are like, I want nothing to do with any of it.

    After that my life would begin to look radically different.

    Category Personal, Spirituality | Tags: | 1 Comment

  3. In the spirit of authenticity (pt. 3). . .

    September 29, 2010 by Nate

    Read part 1 here.
    Read part 2 here.

    I knew nothing. Growing up in traditional fundamentalism kept so much hidden from me. And as much as I love my parents, they were ill-equipped to handle the whirlwind of two teenage boys in the house.

    I mean, think about it. If you spurn everything in society, calling all of culture “taboo,” there are a lot of things that you and/or your children will come across that you’ll have no idea how to deal with.

    Including something as important as sex.

    If you look through the Bible, you’ll see just how important human sexuality is to God. Part of the Imago Dei is sex. I won’t go into all the correlations, but I alluded to them here. Unfortunately, the Church has shirked her responsibility to communicate it.

    And by not owning the concept of sex, the Church has offered it up to the world’s system of handling things. As you can see, it’s pretty distorted.

    Don’t get me wrong. I’m not blaming the Church for my struggle with porn. But the Church needs to talk about these issues instead of brushing them under the rug, or worse yet, calling these issues out and pouring judgment on those who struggle with them.

    It’s not easy for me to talk about this. It’s something I battle everyday.

    I wouldn’t be much of a man if I didn’t deal with with it. But it’s just that I hate this fight, and I often wish it would just go away.

    So there I was, a scared preteen boy trying to figure this world out on my own. What began as curiosity soon became fascination. And from fascination it grew into a full-blown addiction.

    And I was never really honest with myself either. I always heard that people who were addicted to something lost the ability to function normally, and since I was able to go to school, study, play basketball, sing in choirs, and do all the same things “normal” people were doing, I wasn’t really addicted.

    So I continued down this road. For years I fought this battle, never talking to anyone about it. I was too scared. I knew it was wrong; I knew something had to change. But I also knew that if I said anything, I’d be in trouble.

    So I walked this walk alone.

    Let me pause my story for a bit. If you’re battling porn like I, find a friend and talk through it. You already know that it’ll ruin you, but everything you’ve tried has failed. Trust me, you will continue to repeat your failure until you open up and talk to someone about it.

    It’s not easy. These battles never are. But doing it alone makes the fight far more difficult than it needs to be.

    I mentioned in part 1 of this story the author Anne Jackson. Her story has been a source of hope and encouragement to me over the last few years. If I thought I had reason to be afraid of the fallout from my admission of an addiction to porn, hers had the potential to be completely devastating.

    But it resonated with me because, even though she and I are nothing alike, we have similar stories.

    Check hers out below.

    Category Christianity, Personal, Spirituality | Tags: | No Comments

  4. In the spirit of authenticity (pt. 2). . .

    September 26, 2010 by Nate

    Read part 1 here

    I never realized that what I had been taught throughout most of my life was actually antithetical to what the Scripture teaches about our lives in Jesus.

    While people at the churches I grew up attending won’t admit it, they actually advocate a works-based system of following Christ. Doctrines like “rededication,” “letting go and letting God,” and “the victorious life” run rampant through these churches. There’s more of a focus on someone’s external condition than on his/her internal condition.

    I could go to camp every year and “rededicate” my life to Christ but never actually follow him. And that’s exactly what I did. I prayed a prayer when I was a child, and everyday between 1989 and 2007 I lied. I lied because I didn’t really have a clue who Jesus was. I lied because I’d never encountered him, and it seemed like everyone else did.

    I even lied to myself.

    I came up with this elaborate story of how, when I was just five years old sometime in November of 1989, I was sitting in my grandmother’s living room, my aunt told me about Jesus, and I “accepted him into my heart” that day.

    I was too afraid of not having a story that I made one up.

    And somehow I believed it.

    I really wanted to be a Christian, but I think I got so caught up in looking like a Christian that I never had the opportunity to find out what it really meant to be one. I felt so much pressure on me to live up to a certain standard, but I could never measure up.

    The year I discovered rock music was devastating. I wrestled with it because I knew it was something that was sinful yet strangely enjoyable. While I couldn’t find anything inherently wrong with it, I knew it had to be sinful because my pastor said it was.

    And I couldn’t piecemeal my life. If I broke one Christian rule, according to James 2.10, I was guilty of breaking all of it. So the fact that I liked rock music meant that I had broken all of God’s commands. Since I wasn’t completely surrendered to Christ, I was a carnal Christian, and by conclusion, of no use to God’s Kingdom.

    But I tried to compartmentalize. If no one at church found out that I listened to rock music, I’d be fine. I looked like a good Christian, so therefore I must have been a good Christian.

    But all that pressure to live my life according to what they claimed were God’s standards was eating away at me more than I ever realized at the time. Now add to that pressure cooker puberty, curiosity, and a new toy called the Internet. . .

    Category Christianity, Personal, Spirituality | Tags: | No Comments

  5. In the spirit of authenticity (pt. 1). . .

    September 26, 2010 by Nate

    I want to share a story with all of you. I probably should have shared this a very long time ago, but I’ve been afraid to look at my past with this kind of detail.

    After two years of online correspondence with activist/author/fellow blogger Anne Jackson, I finally got to meet her face-to-face. And she’s exactly what I expected. Who she is over email is the same as who she is in person.

    But that came as a challenge to me. Because I know that’s not me. I’m still afraid to be real.

    And I’m really afraid to talk about this.

    So after a deep breath let’s start from the beginning.

    I grew up in a fundamentalist culture, more specifically the independent Baptist fundamentalist culture. The seventeen years I spent there shaped my view of God and gave me many gross misconceptions about who God is and how he works in our lives.

    Most of what I learned growing up stems from what’s called Keswick theology (chefarianism). (I’m indebted to Dr. Camille Lewis for her enlightening me on the pervasiveness of this view.)

    Keswick theology is, in my opinion, harmful to a healthy view of our Creator and is the primary reason non-Christians have such a negative perception of Christians. Sadly, however, this is what’s been taught in churches across America.

    Ideas like “the victorious life” or “dedicating your life to Christ” are the result of Keswick theology which essentially removes the human identity with the goal of being completely surrendered to God. Here’s how Lewis describes it.

    For the Keswickian there are two types of Christian: carnal and normal. For the normal Christian, the self is dethroned, yielded, absent. Any hint of self-identity, however, is carnal. Sin, in the Keswickian perspective, is overwhelmingly powerful. And while it can never be eradicated, it must be continually thwarted. Full surrender is the only solution; anything less is willful rebellion. What this comes down to is complete capitulation of anything human or anything personal. The self is useless. It has no rights, no personality, and no humanity.

    It’s in this setting that my journey begins. . .

    Read part 2 here.

    Category Christianity, Personal, Spirituality | Tags: | No Comments

  6. Belief. . .

    September 22, 2010 by Nate

    One of the awesome things about my new job is the opportunity to listen to men who are far smarter than I am dialogue about spirituality. I love sitting in on many casual conversations that take place in the kitchen/conference room. But there have been several occasions where I’ve been pulled into a conversation.

    Today was one of those occasions. One of our pastors looked at me and said, “Commit this to memory: Romans 4.3.” When this guy says something, I know I need to listen. He’s one of those men whose opinion is cherished throughout the office.

    So today I after work I decided to read through that passage.

    “For what does the Scripture say? ‘Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him as righteousness.’”

    The ramifications of this sentence floored me.

    For practically my entire life I’ve added so much to the Gospel. But when the question is asked—”How can I be made right with God?”—the answer strips all that away.

    Believe.

    My favorite story in the life of Jesus is the story of Lazarus’s death. The story is a microcosm of everything that Jesus came to earth for. He enters our world in the middle of our deepest suffering and pain. He looks at the pain and sympathizes empathizes with us. He even cries with us. He then does battle with the pain and breathes life into death.

    After Lazarus died, Martha, Lazarus’s sister, approaches Jesus in the middle of her pain and essentially asks, “Where were you?!” And instead of comforting her or reassuring her, Jesus reminds Martha of who He is.

    “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.”

    How reassuring is this statement when your brother just died?

    And then Jesus asks her point blank. “Do you believe this?”

    Her response is staggering. “Yes, Lord, I believe. . .”

    And in believing, she was given a front-row seat to Christ’s duel with death.

    Believe, and God takes you into His family.

    Believe, and God shows you how mightily He fights for you.

    Believe, and God makes you right with Him.

    Martha’s doubts didn’t go away before she believed. None of her questions were answered before she believed.

    She believed, and then she saw.

    It’s the same thing for us today. Seeing is not the catalyst for believing. Believing is the catalyst for seeing.

    When we believe, we see just how powerful God is.

    When we believe, we see just how much God loves.

    When we believe, we see that God wants us with Him.

    But all this is possible only when we believe.

    Category Christianity, Scripture Musings, Spirituality | Tags: | No Comments

  7. Defiant worship. . .

    August 30, 2010 by Nate

    Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.”
    (Daniel 3:16-18 ESV)

    Exactly one year ago I lost my job at Liquid Church. It’s not like I didn’t know it was coming; after all, my title started with the word interim. Regardless, it still hurt. It felt weird and wrong somehow. When I was told that I would be finishing up in two weeks, Pastor Tim was wrapping up a series on the book of Habakkuk. I wasn’t listening at the time, but after exactly one year, God has given me the opportunity to do what my heart yearns to do and to do it full-time.

    I honestly don’t know how I continued. I was angry. I was sad. I even fell into depression. I questioned God over and over again. Why had he placed this calling on my life, yet he had given me no avenue to act on my calling?

    But I kept serving him in the flawed ways I knew. I cried out to him in song every Sunday, begging him to give me a ministry to call my own.

    And then I looked around me and realized that he had given me an avenue to act on my calling. He had given me a ministry. There were so many opportunities he had given me, but in my grief and self-absorption, I was unable unwilling to see and grasp the opportunities he’d given me.

    In the middle of it all, I still remembered the cross. I was failing. I was destroying myself. But God was still there, reminding me that he bought me with his blood.

    And then it got worse. The opportunities that I’d missed—the ministry God had given me that I was blind to—they were all taken from me.

    “My God is able to deliver me. . . and he will.”

    These words were so difficult to say, let alone believe. But I tried.

    “But if he does not. . .”

    Even more difficult to swallow this thought. If God chose to keep me from my heart’s greatest desire, would I still worship him?

    Even now, as I type the words, they are slow and deliberate. I have to ask myself again, “Would I still worship him?”

    I pause for what feels like an hour.

    Yes. I will.

    Because when I trusted Jesus as my Savior I knew that I was not asking him to enter my life and empower my agenda or my motives. I knew that I was not asking him to come along for the journey of my life.

    I was asking him to lead me. I was asking him to go before me. I was asking him to pave the way in my life, and I know that whatever pain I may experience, he’s going through it before I am because he’s leading me.

    That is how I can defiantly say that even if my God does not deliver me, I will still worship him.

    How can we, when trials come our way, persevere if we’ve asked Christ to empower our agendas? We cannot. Instead, to truly defy our circumstances, we must understand that trusting Christ as our Saviour is following him through life and not requesting that he follow us.

    Category Personal, Scripture Musings, Spirituality | Tags: | No Comments

  8. Questions. . .

    August 26, 2010 by Nate

    One of the beauties of my job right now is that I’m not jumping onto a boat that’s already sailing (metaphorically speaking, of course). Instead, I’ve been given the unique opportunity to build the boat. It’s a pretty liberating feeling to be able to start a program from scratch, but at the same time it’s rather daunting as well. So as I go through the process of building this program from the ground up, I’ve been chewing on some questions in my mind.

    I’ve got a whiteboard in my office where I do most of my brainstorming and thought-wrestling. (Steve, our Pastor of Development here at Emergence, claims that getting an iPad will effectively eliminate my need to use a whiteboard, but I’m skeptical.) So on this whiteboard I’ve posted a few questions that I’ll be wrestling with over the next few months. Here are a couple of them.

    What makes a kids’ environment successful? Is it the “wow” or “cool” factor? How big of a role does the environment play in the effectiveness of the program? Is it the ability for kids to do something at this environment that they can’t do anywhere else?

    How do I actually get parents involved in what we’re teaching their kids? Should I rely on Sunday take-home materials? Should I fill the parents’ inboxes with review/wrap-up emails? What about a blog solely devoted to engaging parents in the mission of our program?

    These are just a few of the numerous questions I’ll be asking myself as we draw closer to the launch of this program. What about you? Are there any questions that you think I should be wrestling with?

    Category Church, Direction, Personal | Tags: | 1 Comment

  9. Fears. . .

    August 23, 2010 by Nate

    I’m about to get a little bit raw here.

    I’ve got a handful of pretty big fears (especially because of the kind of work that I do). Sometimes my fears are in response to questions that people have posed.

    I’ve been asked before (though thankfully not as often as one would expect) how I expect to be effective in family and children’s ministries if I have no family of my own. And to be honest, I don’t have a legitimate answer for that. And that scares me.

    I’ve found myself echoing that question in my own mind over and over again. And I truly am afraid that I’ll be ineffective until I gain that hands-on experience of leading a family of my own.

    So what then? Do I settle for a second-rate ministry until God sees fit to put me in the role of a husband and then father? Does my ministry have an “effectiveness ceiling” because my understanding of the family has a ceiling?

    Or how do I answer the angry parent who doesn’t fully understand my approach to teaching his/her child when he/she asks me what I know about raising children?

    Do I even have a clue?

    Category Personal | Tags: | No Comments

  10. Confession. . .

    August 22, 2010 by Nate

    They say confession is good for the soul, so here goes.

    I haven’t fully repented of my legalistic and judgmental mindset. Now, let me preface this by contextually defining the term repentance.

    The Greek word from which we get the English repentance is quite different from our common understanding of the term. Even Webster’s Dictionary definition of repentance differs from the biblical definition of the term.

    Metanoia (and its verb form metanoeo) is defined as a change of mind and carries with it the connotation of turning around and heading in the opposite direction you once were heading.

    So when I say that I haven’t repented, I say that I haven’t completely changed.

    This morning at church I saw a couple dressed extremely well. The man was dressed in a dark suit and wore a necktie, and his wife (I assume) was wearing what I would consider typical “Sunday best.”

    And the first thought in my mind was, They’re going to experience some culture shock today.

    A buzz-phrase often thrown around in churches is, “Come as you are, and leave different,” or some variation. (Sadly, most churches that carry that kind of phrase don’t actually live by their mantra, which is why my church avoids pithy sayings like that one.)

    Churches like Liquid Church and Emergence hold very closely to that kind of ideal. Our goal is to allow the grace of God to permeate everything we do so that people feel comfortable enough to be authentic and express their inner selves outwardly.

    And I didn’t allow for that. Instead, I assumed that this couple “missed the memo” and were showing up for church expecting what I perceived was “their kind of service” and that they would be shocked by the loud alterna-rock worship and the pastoral staff wearing ripped jeans and flip-flops (or, in Ryan’s case, some form of moccasins). I assumed they were going to look around the room and judge everyone for their overtly sinful lifestyles, and not once during my observation of this couple did I give them the benefit of the doubt.

    What if they’re completely on board with our mission at Emergence? What if they simply feel more comfortable dressed like that because that’s just how they’ve always done church?

    Or worse yet (for me), what if they were victims of the 1950s church “ideal” and had come to Emergence to check out the whole “Jesus thing,” but were fed the lie that you had to “dress up” for church?

    And I have to repent of this mindset. I thought I’d changed. I thought I’d begun to allow grace to identify me. Instead, I’ve found myself to be the same judgmental pharisee I was five years ago. I’m just pointing my Bible guns at different targets.

    Category Church, Personal, Spirituality | Tags: | No Comments

Older Entries
Newer Entries