Folks who are deconstructing their childhood faith have something in common with adult converts like me. We all want to live well in relationship with God and other people. And most of us feel short-changed by our church experiences.
Image by Alisa Dyson from Pixabay
Those of us not raised in church often find ourselves seeking God’s family because we want to live in a place where someone like God is in charge. We don’t have those words to describe our longing, but we know that the world that surrounds us is not the kind of world we want to live in. From our first encounter with God, we recognize the parent and vision that has been calling to us from far away.
I was assured, shortly after my baptism at age 26, that it would take a lifetime to read and understand God’s Word. And of course that’s true. None of us needs to ever stop growing in our understanding of God’s Word. None of us should ever stop growing in our skill at living out what God has shown us.
Constructing faith: Those of us not raised in church often seek God’s family because we want to live in a place where someone like God is in charge.
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It’s also true that no one gets into God’s family just by obeying God’s directions for living. That’s a good thing. Otherwise, none of us would get to be part! God invites us into the family as we are today, adopts us into His household of faith, and embraces us as would a perfect and loving parent—which He is!—despite our many failings. Also like a loving parent, God is prepared to constantly coach us toward the kinds of character and behavior that represent a family and a world where God is in charge.
Church is the place we go seeking to know and live with God, and that’s a good beginning. But spiritual growth takes much more than a sermon a week. At the same time, many will find, as I did, that spiritual growth doesn’t flourish in the midst of hectic church activity. In my first congregation, I was expected to attend Sunday church, Sunday school, a weeknight small group, and also maintain a personal devotional life, each of which ran along a different track of Scripture. Any Christian service came in addition to these. I was hard-pressed to get it all done while still working full-time and managing my household. And when I sought one-on-one guidance for Christian living—called “discipleship” in that context—my small group leader sighed. All the church’s leaders were barely beyond the intense years of campus Christian ministry they’d endured as undergrads. Wearily, he told me, “I think we’re all discipled out.”
Constructing faith: Hectic church activity doesn’t always foster spiritual growth.
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Still, I was thirsty for the Word, and I couldn’t wait even long enough for coffee to brew before sitting down with my Bible each morning. I would make up a thermos full each evening and set it on the nightstand. I would pour my first cup and reach for my Bible before I even got out of bed.
That was about 40 years ago. Over the last four decades, I’ve still been mostly unable to find one-on-one support for Christian formation. I’ve been surrounded at different times by various forms of legalism, sometimes by implied legalism (for example, that Christian women should wear our hair long and loose), and, on the flip side, a casual disregard for God’s law “because we’re saved by grace, not works.”
Constructing faith: I’ve found 3,027 commands from God in Scripture (so far). And being a geek, I’ve got them in a spreadsheet.
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Lacking access to the kind of intensive training I hoped to find, I started my own training academy, reading the Bible to find what God directs us to do and the character God directs us to nurture. Because I’m a geek, I collected them in a spreadsheet and worked out some systems to categorize them. I started to discover how frequently our New Testament guidance is a paraphrase of Old Testament direction. And that makes sense, of course, since God gave us both the Old Testament and the New.
So my attempt to construct a Christian way of life is based on collecting God’s commands from Scripture. As of yesterday, there were 3,027 commands in my spreadsheet. This chart is far too large for me to imagine even remembering them all, let alone getting them all right. And that’s part of God’s point, isn’t it? We will fail, and thanks to Jesus, we’re still family.
Grace releases us from the obligations of the Law, but it doesn’t release us from the need—and hopefully, the desire!—to live up to the expectations of the family into which we’re adopted. Some of the family rituals are just family quirks, like the difference between families that get their Christmas stockings in bed and those who run to the mantel. Others are foundational to the very nature of the family our God has chosen us to join.
How are you learning into God’s purpose for your life? What is most helpful for you? Let’s encourage one another as we build on the solid foundation of God’s Word!