Derelict Theology

In 1997, I was saved at a church camp in Chattanooga, TN.  It was my first ever church camp, and it was the first time that I ever met Jesus.  On Tuesday night, June 24, I gave asked Jesus to come into my life and save me.  Little did I know, that was just the beginning.  It wasn’t too long after camp that I really started to get my life straightened out.  I wanted to live out this salvation that I had, and so I started finding ways to draw closer and closer to God.  I started to read my Bible every morning when I woke up.  I prayed throughout the day.  I went to church every time I could.  And one night, I knelt beside my bed with the notion in my head that I should give my life completely, 100% to God.  Not just my past and present, but my future as well. 

 That tiny notion was a turning point in my life, and in some ways it has made decisions that I’ve made easier, and some that I’ve made are harder.  As I got up from my bedside that night, I realized that in order to give everything in my life to God, then He had to become my focus.  This only intensified my quest to be closer to God, and so anything that was not about Him, or for Him, I started to put by the wayside. One of the first things to go was my music. 

Anyone who knows me knows I’m a music freak.  I’m fanatical about music.  I love it.  I couldn’t spend a day of my life without it.  I love finding new band, and I apply a lot of music to my personal life.  When I was a new Christian, and I started to hang out with more church people, I began to notice this music they were listening to.  These bands were singing about their faith, and it was really refreshing to hear that.  Pretty soon, I had my own collection of “christian” music, and I would listen to it all the time, along with the music I already had.  A bit later, as I continued to mature in my walk with Christ, I came to the idea that to truly be focused on God, then everything I did had to be about Him.  Remember, I said that this notion that I’d had made some decisions harder than others.  I made a hard decision that day and I decided to give up ALL my secular music, and only listen to “christian” music.  I believe that only this day that my desire to be close to God shut the gates on truth in my life for many years.  I know that doesn’t sound quite right, so let me explain.

It was a warm fall day when Jeremy Street and I met in his driveway, both of us with large boxes full of CD’s.  We’d talked about this idea since I’d had it, and we both agreed that it was probably best, though we hated to do it.  So we cleaned out our CD cases, our rooms, and got every non “christian” CD and put it into these boxes.  We put them in the middle of his gravel driveway and proceeded to drive over them with my truck.  Probably 200 CD’s were broken that day, and granted, some needed to be, but with each one that broke, it further shut the door to truth coming into my life.  Sure, I was still getting truth from the Bible.  I was still getting truth from prayer.  I was still getting truth from church.  But driving over those CD’s that day was perhaps a moment I’d like to forget in my spiritual life.  After that, I only listend to “christian” music, and I demanded that everyone around me do the same.  I became quite fanatical not about music, but about the spiritual qualities of music: if it didn’t have any spiritual quality, in my eyes it was worthless.  While this was supposed to be good for me, it ended up being one of the worst decisions I’ve ever made.  Not only was it legalistic to the utmost degree, but it also turned me into an extremely close-minded person with a narrow view of what a Christian was.  It wasn’t until recently that God undid this terrible, harmful thought process of mine.

Until last year, I had continued on this “righteous diet” of only “christian” music.  Truth be told, I started to get bored.  The same songs, the same bands, all the time, and after awhile all the bands started to sound exactly the same, and nothing was making a dent.  I found myself a short time after making my decision to chunk all my old music wishing that I hadn’t, but I thought that it was for the Lord and so I gritted my teeth and bared it.  Soon, I was buying CDs just because they were “christian”, with the idea that because they were, they must be good.  I found out the opposite.  I regretted a lot of CD purchases, and while that was bad enough, I also heard songs that I really liked but didn’t allow myself to listen to because they were by “non-Christian” artists.  Just typing that out makes me feel so stupid.  I had very quickly become close-minded to anything that wasn’t inside the “Church Bubble”, and my passion for a lost and dying world was growing cold.

 But back to last year.  Last year, I began to slowly creep out of that line of thinking.  I don’t remember what it was that first caused me to start moving in a new direction, but I soon found myself being more open to things.  I started seeing the message of Christ in more things than just my church.  I started to see it in movies, in literature, in everyday life in town, on television, and eventually, that message started to bloom fuller and more beautiful in my life.  The gate began to rise again, and slowly, that closeness that I had desired with God started to come about.  For the first time in a long time, I relaxed when it came to my spiritual life.  I began to realize that it wasn’t about all the things that I could cut out of my walk with Jesus, but it was about the way that I let Him speak to me, and let Him love me.  Quite bluntly, Jesus told me that I wasn’t letting Him love me in every way that I could, and that my attitude toward things that I felt weren’t of God, well, it stunk.

 So, where does that leave me today?  Well, I don’t rush out and buy every secular CD that comes out.  Nor do I rush out and buy every “christian” CD that comes out.  I guess, as a result of getting older, that I’m more choosey when it comes to what I listen to nowadays.  Do I freak out when secular music comes on the radio anymore?  Not really.  What I don’t accept is music that glorifies evil and sin.  I found out when I loosened up my legalistic grip on my faith that I was missing out on a lot of movies, books, television, and songs that did a wonderful job explaining the mysteries of faith, sometimes without even knowing it.  A great example of this is the song I found this morning, a song that has really made an impact on me today, “Savin’ Me” by Nickelback.  Whether these guys realize that they’ve written the greatest song about lost people in the 20th century or not, it doesn’t stop it from being a song loaded with meaning.  I’ll post the lyrics below to close this post out, but first, the moral of the story: Legalism Kills Relationship.

“Savin’ Me” by Nickelback

Prison gates won’t open up for me
On these hands and knees I’m crawlin’
Oh, I reach for you
Well I’m terrified of these four walls
These iron bars can’t hold my soul in
All I need is you
Come please I’m callin’
And oh I scream for you
Hurry I’m fallin’, I’m fallin’

Show me what it’s like
To be the last one standing
And teach me wrong from right
And I’ll show you what I can be
Say it for me
Say it to me
And I’ll leave this life behind me
Say it if it’s worth saving me

Heaven’s gates won’t open up for me
With these broken wings I’m fallin’
And all I see is you
These city walls ain’t got no love for me
I’m on the ledge of the eighteenth story
And oh I scream for you
Come please I’m callin’
And all I need from you
Hurry I’m fallin’, I’m fallin’
Hurry I’m fallin’

All I need is you
Come please I’m callin’
And oh, I scream for you
Hurry I’m fallin’, I’m fallin’, I’m fallin’

So yeah, it’s been awhile since I’ve typed here.  No excuses.  Just laziness.

 It’s Wednesday, which means that today is the busiest day of the week for me.  Set up, tear down, speaking, singing, I’ll do it all today.  Yet, somehow, I’m not stressed out this morning.  I’m actually in a pretty good mood, and I think I’m going to be able to get some stuff done today.  That is always a good thing.

 I’ve been reading a great book lately, called Velvet Elvis, by Rob Bell.  I know I’m pretty much late to the party on this book, but I had to clear some others off my plate first before I could dive in.  This book is one of those that you have to read a chunk at a time, then sit back and mull it over in your mind.  Last night, I was reading a chapter called Tassels, in which he writes about the start of the church he’s currently pastor of.  God has done a really amazing thing there in Grand Rapids, and the scene finds Rob Bell sitting in a storage closet in the church right before a service wishing he could drive far, far away from there. 

The conclusion he comes to is that the thing driving him is a person he’s really not, and he wants to run away from that person, but realizes that running away from it only ends up bringing it with him, because he’s become that person.  He had become this person he called “Superpastor” who never missed a visit, never missed an opportunity, who always gave great sermons and who always had a kind word.  He was always at study, always ready to work, and always made time for his family.  Or at least, that’s who he was trying to be.

Reading that nudged me in the ribs, and as I continued to read, I became distracted by the thoughts bouncing around my head.  I am doing the same thing.  I want to be “Superyouthminister”.  I want to be the cool guy that is always around, always saying something cool, wearing something cool, always listening to the coolest music, and hanging out with the coolest people.  I want to drink the expensive coffee, and read the newest books.  I want to go to all the important conferences.  I want the best youth room, and the biggest church bus.  I want the most kids, the coolest youth ministry, the most events.  I want to be at every game, every band competition, I feel like I should always have people at my house.  Last night I realized I can’t be that person anymore.

 Being that person, I’m going to kill myself.  The real me.  I’m going to kill my family.  I’m going to kill my wife.  And I don’t want to die like that.  I don’t want to hurt my family like that.  Rob Bell didn’t either, and he writes that he killed “Superpastor”.  He drug him out back and shot him.  So today, consider this post a eulogy for “Superyouthminister”.  He was a great guy, and had the potential to be more, he always had the potential for more.  But, alas, he is dead and gone and he was killed by the person that he had tried to force to fit his image.  This person is trying to believe it’s ok to fail, it’s ok to fall.  It’s ok not to have all the answers.  It’s ok not to be at every game.  It’s ok not to have the coolest clothes, or the best music.  It’s ok to hang out with uncool people.  It’s ok to drink Walmart brand coffee with flavor add-ins.  It’s ok to not have the best youth room, or even the best youth ministry.  It’s ok to not go to the seminars, or the meetings, and to let the books I’ve bought pile up and gather dust.  It’s ok because I have Jesus.  He is meeting my needs, not my busy-ness.  Sure, I’ll go to games, wear cool clothes, listen to music, drink Starbucks, read books, and hang out with kids. 

 But I won’t feel guilty anymore about what I “could have done.”

 Bang bang, “superyouthminister”.  You’re dead.