Formerly Known, Take 2

The other day I mentioned a blog post that's making the rounds titled The People Formerly Known As The Congregation. Then I discovered that several other bloggers had written their own takes on being "formerly known" or "coming to be known as..." -

Emerging Grace wrote a post titled Underlying Issues (subtitled "The Penguins Formerly Known As the Waddle") about the underlying issues for people formerly known as the congregation. What made us leave, and what are we dreaming for the future? She makes the point that the issues can be dealt with inside - or outside - the institution...but dealt with they must be. It's a very graceful post, and thought provoking.

Then, Emergent Voyageurs wrote a post about The Community Coming To Be Known As Missional - a look at how some of those "outside the local church walls" are banding together as communities around Christ, and what they are hoping and dreaming the church can become.

Part four came along from a blog that goes by the title Jesus The Radical Pastor whose post is titled The People Formerly Known As The Pastor. My understanding is that the author was himself a pastor. His post rises out of the disillusionment that many church leaders face.

Finally, Living Spirituality wrote Part Five, titled The Exodus Church, subtitled "A Plea from the Battle Torn and Worn who are longing for New Beginnings". It's a beautiful, graceful, and loving "statement of faith" from one who is torn and worn yet longing for new beginnings.

Update: My husband Mike wrote a contribution at our joint blog, titled A Former Footsoldier of the Christian Right. I have to say, I think it's brilliant. ;)

The author of part four makes the point in an introduction to his post that his post - indeed, all the posts in this series - are in the form of a polemic. A polemic is meant to provoke - to provoke thought, conversation, even disagreement and controversy. The point being, I think, to raise issues that have long been buried, to throw out the notion of "sacred cows", and to talk. Really talk. To talk about what the church was really meant to be. To talk about how perhaps our traditions have gotten in the way - or perhaps they haven't, perhaps they've been the conduit to the life of Christ and we just didn't know about it. Only by dialoguing and conversing about these issues and issues like these can we all really have a faith that is more than one inch deep.

With all that in mind, I humbly offer my contribution.

-------------------------

I am the girl formerly known as as a "normal Christian."

You may know me as a violinist, as a teacher, as a sister, daughter, wife, and friend. You may have noticed that I don't attend a church building anymore and worried about me, maybe thinking that I have really fallen off the deep end theologically. Maybe you haven't talked to me in a long time because you are convinced of this. Maybe you've thought I'm turning away from God, or away from the Bible, or at least away from the Body of Christ. The truth is...

I'm a girl who deeply desires God. I believe I'm his image-bearer, though I'm still learning what that means. There are many like me, many who for years fit inside status quo Christianity. Many who, like me, find that the old boxes no longer contain the expansive life that Christ has filled us with. Many who have quietly and sometimes not-so-quietly found new ways to live out our lives as Christ followers.

I am the girl who, as a child, would wake up her parents late at night to confess some little act or thought that I perceived to be sinful - because I couldn't sleep, my conscience was keeping me awake. I am the girl who couldn't lie because it made me sick to my stomach. Don't get me wrong, I don't think these things reflect my "godliness from a young age", but rather my tender conscience combined with the overwhelming fear that I had, even as a child, of being "wrong."

I am the girl who read her first theology book when she was 13. I ate it up. By the time I was 18, I felt like I knew it all. I had systematic theology "down." I began to study philosophy in high school. I could use words like "pelagian" and "gnostic heresy" and "synchronistic" and "dialectic" intelligently in conversation. I read everything that existed by Piper, Packer, and Bridges. Then, being that it wasn't enough to read "about" the works of people like John Owen, I went back and read the originals, like "Mortification of Sin."

I am the girl formerly known as a normal Christian. I read my Bible daily and highlighted, underlined, and wrote notes in the margin. I led my first Bible study when I was 16. I am the girl who attended not one church during my high school years, but two. I was the faithful church attendee every Sunday, and then a faithful youth group member at a different church - always showing up early to Bible studies and Sunday evening events.

I am the girl who was promised the world by church leaders and famous authors, if only I would read my Bible and pray every day and submit myself to Christ. If I listened closely to the voices of "authority" in Christendom, I'd hear messages about how to secure God's blessing - how to avoid being hurt in romantic relationships - how to live a victorious or successful or wealthy life. When suffering was talked about, no one ever mentioned how dark it could be, how sometimes it felt as if God had left you all alone. Somehow even suffering was victorious, if you could be cheerful and stoic through it.

I am the girl whose world was shattered when a tale of unrequited love broke my heart, shattered my reputation, and for a while convinced me that God was holding out on me. Then I discovered that what I'd been taught was wrong. God wasn't a vending machine...I couldn't do the right thing and guarantee his response. God was wild, but good. He didn't always do what you'd expect, but he always did what was best.

I am the girl formerly known as a normal Christian...who came to see that much of Christendom in the modern era was about control. We couldn't control God, but we tried, by writing up our ideas about him and then freeze-drying them, shrink-wrapping them, and having them nailed down forever. "Sola Scriptura" became, instead of the liberating mantra of the Reformation, a way to climb into a box where we could close the lid and say that everyone on the outside "just didn't get it."

I am the girl who sat in a pastor's office with two pastors and a very hurting girl and watched as they "shoulded" on her, loading her down with burdens too heavy to carry. What was it that Jesus said about not breaking a bruised reed? It began to seem to me that the opposite was true of church leaders dealing with women who had been victimized by domestic violence and emotional assault.

I am the girl who slowly but surely moved away from being an attendee at a church and being to realize that the passion God had given me for his church wasn't about buildings, or programs, or budgets, or attendance. It was about his people - his body - his bride, the people he died to save.

I am the girl formerly known as a normal Christian who sacrificed her reputation as "one of the mature ones" - one of the ones you'd WANT in leadership, leading Bible studies, "ministering" - to instead become a person solely dependent on Christ....not pastors, not elders, not authors, not caregroup leaders. It's not that I think pastors, elders, authors, or caregroup leaders  are bad people...many of them truly love God and are serving him as best they know how. It's just that I no longer accept that any of them are in a position to mediate my relationship with God, or are given any authority by him in my life. There are those that I respect and look to for an example, for guidance, for advice - like my parents, or Paul Morgan, or others who have walked with God longer than I and have much to offer me. But these people are not my authority, nor are they a mediator between God and me. They are friends, they are the community of Christ with me on the journey...but I do not bow to them.

Indeed, I do not bow to anyone except my Lord. I do not bow to church history, though there are many people that have come before, and I am grateful for their writings, their example, their bravery. I do not bow to any organized expression of church, though they have done much good, I have come to see that there are other ways and sometimes better ways of being a living expression of the Body of Christ.

I am the girl formerly known as a normal Christian. I'm not normal anymore, I certainly don't stick with the status quo, I don't have much reverence for sacred cows, and I'm not afraid to disagree with the majority. But I haven't stopped loving the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and I'm passionate about loving his body - the church. I might not agree with you about how best to do that, but I haven't forsaken fellowship. I meet with the body of Christ in my home and the homes of others, in coffee shops, across fried rice at Thai restuarants, participating in redemptive conversations and living, loving, crying, and praying together. This, I believe, is Church - and it is something I will love and serve until my dying day.

You may disagree with me and you may think that what I'm saying is wrong...but all I ask is this...

Did Christ call us to be normal Christians? Or normal anything, for that matter? Or did he open up the possibility for so much more than getting along with Pharisees and not upsetting the status quo? As I recall, he wasn't afraid to cause a ruckus in the temple of his day. Wherever you are and wherever you serve - whether inside traditional church or outside - don't settle for normal. He has given us so much more than that.

Note: This is cross-posted at my joint blog with my husband, The Unedited Life.

Comments

[Joe]

So I'm not sure you were ever known as normal. I was a teacher and I don't know how many kids actually read Owen. Two things:
Great Post
Is that picture taken from Pa.? I grew up in Pa. and that looks like Rickets Glenn.
Peace

[Bill Kinnon]

Wow! Thanks for writing this, Heidi. Part Six in "The People formerly known as" series.

[Heidi]

Joe - Ok, so I was never completely normal, but I was a lot more normal than I am now! ;) The picture was taken in Scotland actually, I can't remember the name of the place off the top of my head - something like Rogue Falls. I was there in fall 2003 and actually took the pic myself.

Bill - part six, really? Cool! (I guess I need to go track down part five now, I hadn't seen that one yet.)

[Ben Boles]

All I can say is wow! It amazes me how bad of a job the church has done to model Christ. Not to say there aren't times where we have gotten atleast partly right but those times are dismissed by all of our failures.

[Mak]

awesome. I resonate with so much of what you have said. shine on!

[John W Frye]

Heidi,
I count you a good sister who has that intrinsic skill to be sharply truthful, yet warmly gentle at the time. Thanks for this expression of your story. As you know, I copied it (and linked it) over at JESUS THE RADICAL PASTOR.

[Richard]

Heidi,

Thanks for sharing your heart in all of this. Loved it!
Maybe grace is a real ruckus-disturbing factor that shakes up big time the self-righteous, look at me and how well I'm doing.
I love the thought that it (grace) is the fly in the anointment one tries to rub into a bigger than life ego.

Richard

[Steve Sensenig]

Well-said. So much of this is true for some of us formerly known as normal Christian guys, too.

[Rebecca]

Thank you, I am inspired/encouraged!

[Greg Laughery]

Thanks Heidi. Finely balanced post of affirmation and critique.

False expectations run unchecked in so many churches. This results in leaving a trail of the wounded and dying, but thankfully as some begin to see this, their wounds don't leave them among the gravestones and they cry out for something real - something new that will enhance life and true expectations - deep community with God, and each other, being lived out into the world for the sake of Christ in the power of the Spirit. God is on a world mission. Graciously we have a role as performers in the theodrama.
Greg

[Jim]

Thank you, thank you, thank you! Great post. Although my background is quite different than yours I couldn't agree more, especially about not needing any mediators, since Christ Jesus is the only mediator we will EVER need.

Got here from blogs I track, I will be reading yours from now on, too.

[Heidi Renee]

As a co-Heidi I say GO GIRL!

Well written, well said!

One of my favorite musicians (Bruce Cockburn) penned "the trouble with normal is that it always gets worse"

Use those gifts and your passion to bring light and life wherever you go!

[Heidi]

Thanks for all the comments! It is very encouraging to me to hear all of your encouragement. It's easy to wonder sometimes about this journey I'm on, especially when it meets with misunderstanding or criticism. It's good to know that there are many on the same journey towards hope for the people of God. Rock on everyone!

[Dave Faulkner]

Heidi,

I just found your post courtesy of Bill McKinnon. As a pastor, the sentence that really struck me in your post was when you said of pastors, 'It's just that I no longer accept that any of them are in a position to mediate my relationship with God, or are given any authority by him in my life.' It struck me that what you have articulated is just how far we have fallen from the Reformation emphasis on the priesthood of all believers, which, if it were anything, was a rebellion against ordained people mediating other disciples' relationships with God. thank you - I'm going to recommend your post on my blog, where I wrote a post yesterday(http://davefaulkner.typepad.com/dave_faulkner_life_spirit/2007/04/digital_faith.html) which touches in part on this meme.

Grace and peace be with you.

[jeannie moburg]

I came here via Living Spirituality....new to blogs. As I read this I thought "my heart bleeds but that is when I am fully alive" I love those who can put words to the beats of my heart. Longing to live with desire too Jeannie

[Dana Robinson]

Hi Heidi... I don't have any deep comments to share but I've been an occasional fly-by visitor who is too ashamed of how long it's been since we talked to say anything except, finally... hi. Most of my contact info has changed and I think I lost yours but can we reconnect somehow, one of these days, if it isn't too much trouble? I know you're trying not to do too much but would love to talk to you again. We've both come a long way!

Dana Robinson Lampe

[Heidi]

Dave - wow, it's great to hear that from a pastor. Thank you for your example of graciousness and your belief in "the priesthood of all believers" instead of a special few.

Jeannie - I'm glad my words resonated with you. It is good when you find someone whose words express your heart...and it's also good when you find someone who resonates with your words! Blessings to you.

[Kirsty Lowe]

What a blessing coming across this post was thank you!

[Old Pete]

I've posted a response at http://oldpete66.blogspot.com
I'd appreciate any feedback

[Philip]

Wow, really good what you write. I totally relate to some of the feelings about what you write. I will nip over and read your husbands now :)

[Marie]

This is amazing- so well written, honest and awesome! Thankyou.

[Ceste]

I agree that we shouldn't bow down & worship pastors & elders, but why would Paul so clearly institute them to be in authority if God wanted/wished us to throw them out?

Accountability & real fellowship is sweet and pleasing to God. But we are also to submit....I know it's a terrible word, but God calls us to submit.

I don't think you've gone off the deep end, but the potential is there w/o accountability, don't you think? I mean why else would we have weirdo cults thriving?

[Heidi]

Why do weirdo cults thrive? Not because of a lack of accountability. No, I think it has more to do with people blindly following after a human leader who they believe has special spiritual authority in their life....

[michelle]

That's it! That's what I've been thinking and feeling for oh so very long and you articulated it perfectly. Thank you for sharing, for letting those of us who agree know we aren't alone.