Devoted to Fellowship

If you take away all of the activity that makes up your Christian life, who would you be?  I am a mom.  Like most, when I was a young mom trying hard to believe and follow Jesus, I raised my kids "in church." They were in every class because I was in every class.  They were at every service because I was at every service.  They volunteered because I volunteered.  We were a Christian family.  We went to church.  We got there early, stayed late and showed up when nobody else did.  We invited people.  We lamented over lost chances to share Jesus with them when they didn't come.  Our friends were at church.  Our leaders were at church.  Our teachers were at church. It was who we were and what we did.  As my kids grew into their teenage years, I saw "fruit" that made me think all of my church effort had secured my kids' faiths and hearts.  They loved the church programs.  They loved the youth group. They volu...

Has anything changed me as much as the Word of God has? A few years ago, family circumstances shifted dramatically, leaving me looking at my ability to know and understand things in a different way.  For the first time in my life, I had to come to terms with the fact that I am not promised forever to figure things out.  For most of my life, I had been willing to know things on the surface, especially when it came to my faith and theology.  Even when I didn't realize it, I had developed a really dangerous habit of knowing a WHOLE LOT of what good people said about the Lord and a GENERIC LITTLE of what the Bible said about the Lord.  For the better part of twenty years, I have put those two things together to come up with the " WHAT I BELIEVE " part of who I am. Don't get me wrong.  I read my Bible.  A lot.  Over and over.  But, subtly, I allowed what people taught me to direct what I thought about what I was reading.  I wasn't a Spirit-le...

A few years ago, I found myself questioning a lot of things.  Those questions- things I had been able to largely ignore for the bulk of my Christian life by choosing to focus on other things- had me clawing at the foundation of my faith looking for a foothold. After about a decade of turning a blind eye to things that I knew needed my attention and clarity, I had arrived at a time in my faith that required me to know everything and no longer assume a single detail of how to flesh out my walk with Christ Jesus. Questions that had been planted as seeds while my husband and I were on the pastoral staff of a local congregation ten years prior had begun to grow into pesky, strong plants that I could no longer see over while checking the boxes of my Christianity.  Those stubborn questions about "church," tithing, prayers, leadership, spiritual gifts and more all nagged at my spirit for years and years, but when I came to the realization that God had given me the ability to know...

As a self-described church addict, I think it's important for you to know that I get it.  It's hard to have deep, honest conversations about change, especially when what you're afraid needs changing is something you love very, very much.  There was a time in my life, the majority of it, actually, when my entire calendar revolved around "church."  As a pastor's wife, there were countless meetings to attend each week.  As a homeschooling mom, there were also countless events and classes to lead or enjoy.  Then there was Tuesday prayer, Wednesday service, Sunday morning worship, Sunday night discipleship, plus all of the retreat planning, meals to the homeless, evangelistic outreaches and, let's not forget, actual Bible studies. So, imagine my anxiety when I started finding things in the Scriptures that didn't jive with what I had been taught or even what I had been teaching? Suddenly, everything I had built my life around had a question mark where it ...