Although some people in church groups claim to be getting what they need spiritually in there, it just doesn't work for or make sense to a lot of us. We meet up, we stay in close contact, but we don't find we can show up at a street address within driving distance of the area in which we live, and expect to be "fed" spiritually, or feel like God wants us there, that we can be who God is making us to be, help out how He wants us to, or that what is going on is much besides people enjoying a big fan club/sci fi convention kind of thing, only about church life instead of about Star Trek.
I have talked to anyone I can find who on the one hand, is clearly very into meeting Christians and trying to find out new things about God and life and living, but on the other, can't seem to get what they need from a church situation (alone, or at all.)
One thing that cropped up repeatedly recently in discussing this, is the difference between actually believing every bit of a doctrine package, and simply pledging allegiance to it. Agreeing not to question it, disagree with it, or seek other answers which might replace the ones packaged up in that box. It seemed that many "believers" hadn't really ever quite believed the things they eventually came to question, so much as they were supporting the system and the people who were presenting the set of theological positions.
When you asked "What are your beliefs?" they felt you were asking "What's your faith culture?" and they just pointed. "That." They hadn't built or found any of it, and they didn't really question any of it terribly much either. It was already there, and it was a completed construct that came as a boxed set. To point to.
They were very loyal to it, and were into it being shared with others, but wouldn't have necessarily on a deeper level actually believed every piece of it, on their own. They believed in the worth of the package itself, collectively, and not its parts, which many of them seldom considered. They believed in supporting it more than they were into actually looking to see which parts of it worked, or were helpful, and were some parts more dubious. They believed in it primarily as a way to find their identity. A place to hang their mantilla.
So, when growing up and hearing (for example) over and over that our church was the only right place to worship on Sundays, some of us crazy zealots deeply believed this to be actually completely true. Now, why we found the idea so appealing says unflattering things about us. Many people, though, just supported and tended the overall doctrine construct/storehouse/archive and were emotionally invested in the continuance of us its keepers, and the preaching and selling we did for its continuance. It didn't have to be impeccable. It didn't even really need to make sense. It was just the thing that brought us together and made us us. It could have been Star Trek. It didn't have to be all true, or anything, in all of its parts.
So we all showed up, and sat there. When there were church troubles, many of us didn't "vote with our feet" by leaving. We voted with another part of us, by staying sitting there as many of the chairs emptied. Some of those who stayed, deeply believed that we were absolutely right, and so they stayed for that reason, with that attitude. Most, however, it turns out, just decided to pick a side and support it, without really any beliefs as to exclusive correctness. Sat in front of whichever doctrine construct was handiest. But some of us were too much zealots/a-holes to just do that.
Because for me, it was at that exact point that I lost something. I wasn't used to sitting anywhere I didn't think was "right," and all those church troubles made me forever lose my faith in the reality of a "right place" with right people in it. Which was worse for me than a child finding out about Santa. Because I used to believe. If you asked, I'd open my heart and point inside there to what I believed deep inside it. It was easier for other people, who just pointed at what others were saying or writing, as what "we" believed. Suddenly I found myself seated, tacitly supporting a big, vague, human construct that I didn't believe all the parts of. And that was okay for people who were less zealous and obsessive than I. But not me. Drove me mental. I over-commit.
When you asked "What are your beliefs?" they felt you were asking "What's your faith culture?" and they just pointed. "That." They hadn't built or found any of it, and they didn't really question any of it terribly much either. It was already there, and it was a completed construct that came as a boxed set. To point to.
They were very loyal to it, and were into it being shared with others, but wouldn't have necessarily on a deeper level actually believed every piece of it, on their own. They believed in the worth of the package itself, collectively, and not its parts, which many of them seldom considered. They believed in supporting it more than they were into actually looking to see which parts of it worked, or were helpful, and were some parts more dubious. They believed in it primarily as a way to find their identity. A place to hang their mantilla.
So, when growing up and hearing (for example) over and over that our church was the only right place to worship on Sundays, some of us crazy zealots deeply believed this to be actually completely true. Now, why we found the idea so appealing says unflattering things about us. Many people, though, just supported and tended the overall doctrine construct/storehouse/archive and were emotionally invested in the continuance of us its keepers, and the preaching and selling we did for its continuance. It didn't have to be impeccable. It didn't even really need to make sense. It was just the thing that brought us together and made us us. It could have been Star Trek. It didn't have to be all true, or anything, in all of its parts.
So we all showed up, and sat there. When there were church troubles, many of us didn't "vote with our feet" by leaving. We voted with another part of us, by staying sitting there as many of the chairs emptied. Some of those who stayed, deeply believed that we were absolutely right, and so they stayed for that reason, with that attitude. Most, however, it turns out, just decided to pick a side and support it, without really any beliefs as to exclusive correctness. Sat in front of whichever doctrine construct was handiest. But some of us were too much zealots/a-holes to just do that.
Because for me, it was at that exact point that I lost something. I wasn't used to sitting anywhere I didn't think was "right," and all those church troubles made me forever lose my faith in the reality of a "right place" with right people in it. Which was worse for me than a child finding out about Santa. Because I used to believe. If you asked, I'd open my heart and point inside there to what I believed deep inside it. It was easier for other people, who just pointed at what others were saying or writing, as what "we" believed. Suddenly I found myself seated, tacitly supporting a big, vague, human construct that I didn't believe all the parts of. And that was okay for people who were less zealous and obsessive than I. But not me. Drove me mental. I over-commit.
I have a friend who would no doubt speak up at this point and say something I think is very worthy of consideration:
Yes, many of the people in those chairs didn't exactly believe or even understand every part of that Doctrine Castle, that Tower of Bible/Babel built to reach up to Heaven, through what are now clearly seen by everyone as all too human efforts enacted by a motley crew of odd, musty men long dead, which worthies wrote inexcusably paragraph-long sentences strung together with interminable colons and semi-colons; they didn't even agree amongst themselves for more than about three minutes while creating the stuff we've since put in our Doctrine Archive; it gathers dust there and may not be questioned without this act making one a traitor/mutineer.
This "canned belief," this tower of Spam tins was created through efforts that are the very reason God has confused our language until we can't even agree what to call anything. Until we can't talk, if we leave Him this far out of the work, or make Him something we can "get at" by our own building houses of cards upon shifting sands, and calling them castles in the sky.
So yes, when you asked a lot of church people what they believed, they might mutely point to the idolatrous Tower of Bible Pamphlets. But really, deep down, were one to seek it out, in many of them, my friend believes, quite separate and apart from the Archive, is a seedling of actual, personal, genuine "baby belief." Something God put there Himself. Something quite separate from the tower of Spam.
Whether or not this little sapling ever gets to drink in the sun/Son is another question entirely, but I am far too quick to decide what I think is "real" and dismiss all the rest. Good thing I have a friend who points out that, just because someone's got a clearly fake shell or wall up is no evidence whatsoever that there's nothing real anywhere behind it. A girl who's wearing far too much makeup might well be quite beautiful without it, rather than merely overcompensating, as one is tempted to assume.
As to me, I guess I just fumed as a young man, that you really couldn't talk about (and to) the parts of Christians that were real enough for me to believe. So I couldn't believe a thing almost anyone ever said or did at Christian functions. All around me I saw personas rather than persons. It was far worse then than it is now. Far more people watching/to impress/not to disappoint. Not as natural or open or honest or sincere as, say, in a bar. I hated that everything I might have been able to believe was being carefully kept private, that reality was so frantically fled, but all this talking was going on and on and on all the time. Talking that made Christianity sound like it was all make-believe. Overcompensating. Apart from the in cases of the various ones who ended up being atheists in the years that followed, I never did find out what the reality behind all the Plymouth Brethren Bible Conference talk-talk was.
Yes, many of the people in those chairs didn't exactly believe or even understand every part of that Doctrine Castle, that Tower of Bible/Babel built to reach up to Heaven, through what are now clearly seen by everyone as all too human efforts enacted by a motley crew of odd, musty men long dead, which worthies wrote inexcusably paragraph-long sentences strung together with interminable colons and semi-colons; they didn't even agree amongst themselves for more than about three minutes while creating the stuff we've since put in our Doctrine Archive; it gathers dust there and may not be questioned without this act making one a traitor/mutineer.
This "canned belief," this tower of Spam tins was created through efforts that are the very reason God has confused our language until we can't even agree what to call anything. Until we can't talk, if we leave Him this far out of the work, or make Him something we can "get at" by our own building houses of cards upon shifting sands, and calling them castles in the sky.
So yes, when you asked a lot of church people what they believed, they might mutely point to the idolatrous Tower of Bible Pamphlets. But really, deep down, were one to seek it out, in many of them, my friend believes, quite separate and apart from the Archive, is a seedling of actual, personal, genuine "baby belief." Something God put there Himself. Something quite separate from the tower of Spam.
Whether or not this little sapling ever gets to drink in the sun/Son is another question entirely, but I am far too quick to decide what I think is "real" and dismiss all the rest. Good thing I have a friend who points out that, just because someone's got a clearly fake shell or wall up is no evidence whatsoever that there's nothing real anywhere behind it. A girl who's wearing far too much makeup might well be quite beautiful without it, rather than merely overcompensating, as one is tempted to assume.
As to me, I guess I just fumed as a young man, that you really couldn't talk about (and to) the parts of Christians that were real enough for me to believe. So I couldn't believe a thing almost anyone ever said or did at Christian functions. All around me I saw personas rather than persons. It was far worse then than it is now. Far more people watching/to impress/not to disappoint. Not as natural or open or honest or sincere as, say, in a bar. I hated that everything I might have been able to believe was being carefully kept private, that reality was so frantically fled, but all this talking was going on and on and on all the time. Talking that made Christianity sound like it was all make-believe. Overcompensating. Apart from the in cases of the various ones who ended up being atheists in the years that followed, I never did find out what the reality behind all the Plymouth Brethren Bible Conference talk-talk was.
(I'm actually trying not to be judgmental. I'm not terribly good at that, as you may have noticed. I'm sure you're tempted to blame my past. Don't. Blame me.)
Anyway, I put this survey up (you can certainly still go fill it out) to get some thoughts from people on what it was like to be someone for whom the whole "church thing" seems pointless and empty. To be someone who felt like God wanted to do something else with them. Here's some of what I saw (because you can click as many boxes as you like, including "yes" and "no," or "yes" and "maybe" or "no" and then also do a typed answer, the math doesn't add up in the usual way here):
Anyway, I put this survey up (you can certainly still go fill it out) to get some thoughts from people on what it was like to be someone for whom the whole "church thing" seems pointless and empty. To be someone who felt like God wanted to do something else with them. Here's some of what I saw (because you can click as many boxes as you like, including "yes" and "no," or "yes" and "maybe" or "no" and then also do a typed answer, the math doesn't add up in the usual way here):
75% of respondents clicked the box that said they grew dissatisfied with the answers and choices offered them in the various churches they experienced.
50% of respondents also clicked to say they definitely weren't pursuing the church thing at all anymore, but were looking to meet and relate to God in other ways.
0% clicked to indicate that they were still looking for satisfaction in a church.
Typed answers said things like:
- I'm hungry for more of Him and still hope He will communicate to me through people for whom He is real, no group will ever satisfy me or be "right"
- I read the bible and continue to have fellowship with other like-minded people
- I think I'm a seeker because my relationship with God isn't limited to a building or congregation. I suppose I just qualify it as being someone who is seeking experience with God in many areas of their life, not just a pre-set service structure once a week.
- LIFE is felt and had. I feel alive, life, inside. Which added a seeker's pulse inside me. Hasn't gone away.
15% instead said it didn't pose much of a problem.
Typed answers said things like:
- "yes" as to [not fitting into] a group, "no" as to [not fitting in with] individuals who are also seeking, desiring more.
- yes. but I don't care. It gets lonely but it doesn't get like before. like old country living it. I wouldn't trade it. Wouldn't call it a total negative either. It's made me not fit but shown me not fitting doesn't matter here.
- "Christian" is just another word for bible clique member similar to any clique
- I find I have to cautiously test the waters with other Christians to see their level of desire to grow, be open and LISTEN instead of teach. Knowing these things gives me a clue as to how far a relationship with them can go. But on the positive side it has opened me up to hear their viewpoints and make changes in myself.
- It's made me enjoy Christ. Others. Life. It's taken the circular living, the daily grind, and wiped that off my life-map. It's made me take love-steps and wear its clothes. Made me travel inside my heart. Which has grown a story of deep intimacy with me and Jesus. I refer to that heart-story as I go through life. It's shaped and sawed and formed what I do in life and what I need and go after. It's made me testy, sweaty, nervous, uncertain, grounded. A whole swirl of things. It's also painted beauty marks on my canvas. Ones sometimes only I see.
- Nothing I wouldn't have done anyways, I suppose.
- keep it internal/reach out to others, depending on how "safe" and real they are; learn to accept that my thirst and quest for more of my Father will be with me every day; ask others questions to prompt them to also seek, even unbelievers
- Question everything and weigh the answers. Re-read the bible passages that used to give me the heebijeebees. Learn more about myself and how much more selfish and self-centered I am than I thought. Find the true meaning of being justified and living under grace.
- It's made me recognize how little I really know and how dangerous certainty of any kind can be. The more I look the more I find grey, and finding peace within that grey requires the Holy Spirit I find.
- When I realized my church was preaching against things they had not personally experienced, I made a point to explore what the pros and cons of those things were. I became a bartender to get to the heart of the "den of iniquity" they preached against. I discovered the folks at the bar were more honest and less pretentious than the folks at my church. So I branched out into other taboo areas and discovered it is the human factor that makes it "good" or "evil". If you bring God into each decision, and consult the Holy Spirit the power of evil is made plain.
- Take apart the cliches and pat answers.
- leave my birth church. try other churches. become dissatisfied with all, not being forced to "make it work" anywhere. makes me feel edgy, drifty, and also happy
About half of respondents simply clicked a box indicating they felt it was always or sometimes helpful for seekers to meet up and chat. Nobody much said it wasn't helpful. Most chose typed answers also or instead, saying things like:
- yes It usually goes well. I've learned that any conversation can go well. Can form new ways in me. I feel more fulfilled with seekers but even if I get a bone-hard, stationary religious person I can still walk and move and all that with them. enjoy them. Just not as far or as deep or long.
- Too little experience with it to draw a general conclusion. Where are all these seekers anyways?
- happens rarely as few are honest to admit they are hungry for more
- It should be a mental workout that leads to more thoughts and questions.
- in terms of just 'sharing their experiences' I think it normally goes quite well. I can't really say that all 'seekers' are going to be best buddies or something, but there is certainly an encouragement that I feel knowing that other people are on a quest for the same thing that I am, but they are experiencing and doing it in a very different looking way (and that that's okay). Sharing experiences with other seekers helps remind me that I can't ever put God's work on a streamlined or boxed in process, everyone's life has an incomprehensibly unique path and 'call' (if you will) to it.
- In my experience, when you meet with another seeker, if you can get past the initial phase of feeling each other out, it can be a wonderful "fellowshippingish" feeling. But most of the time it is really hard to get past feeling each other out, simply because it's hard to drop your guard
- I don't let them know, only close friends
- Yes, 'cause I'm on my own. Hardly getting a response to dive into things, have a relationship. No, because I don't need them to. My needs have changed. And so I focus more on them and loving them than going along together through Jesus things. It's made me very objective.
- Not for me…..I cannot speak for them.
- No, we all seem to be seekers or supportive of each other. It has made it difficult to be in, around or accepted by our church.
- I don't know anyone who is satisfied, so no one asks.
- not sure they dare to. might start another tiring conversation.
- if I had the guts to let them know how dissatisfied I really am, then I'd have a mixed reaction from others
- They suggest it with actions but never verbally.
- No, folks don't seem to want to deal with my assertive teasing personality.
- Often, but usually those people are the opposite of seekers and I tend to be ok with the conversation ending, anyway.
- that broad negative judgment likely from others is what keeps my seeking internal
- I don't talk to folks about this stuff unless they specifically ask. They don't specifically ask unless the conversation has been focused on them long enough their curiosity is aroused as to my "condition". Then I feel free in sharing my dissatisfaction accompanied by a positive statement about the church at the end of my explanation. This shows a balance in my disposition and the words "bitter" and "negative" have never come up (that I'm aware of).
- I mostly know only people who think Christianity is useless. If anything they wonder why I haven't just ditched the whole thing yet.
- keep it up, find scraps of fellowship where you can, follow your heart and let God and Jesus in as much as you can. Keep being vulnerable and open.
- Just to not be pressured into something that wasn't for them. Others can't believe for you.
- to keep seeking, never give up, to ask God for the courage to go outside of family and church group
- keep seeking. It's not about needing or getting support. Tons of bible dudes and ladies didn't have support. support can be a huge stop sign for people. Seekers don't get support usually. If we need support, the bible is all the spiritual bra we need. I've met a lot of physically abused people that get this. They don't need people like society's hammer slams our psyche nails, over and over, saying we do. We need people but not like people say we do. It,s in a different way. We need people so we can love them. It's changed my life. So teenager, seek and find always.
- Question authority but listen to your gut (AKA conscience). If it feels wrong don't do it. If you really want it and it makes your blood hot think about it a little longer. If it draws you closer to Jesus it really does't matter what people say.
- I'd advise him or her to just slow down when things seem to be building up. Faith is a journey and there's a lot of times that I bet you'll doubt a lot. But don't just run the other way at first sight of a hiccup. Be patient and think about that hiccup. Be honest that you do doubt for a reason, and do some thinking, praying and researching about that reason. Patience is so incredibly important when you're young.
- I would advise him to branch out while he is young and explore everything, and I mean EVERYTHING, but take God with him in every experience. Find others who are seeking, form friendships with others of like mind. But ALWAYS remember that God loves the "settlers" just as much or more than He loves the teen, and for the teen to despise them or treat them dishonorably will severely retard his growth. Let the unsupport (hurt) of the past, shape him into maturity and while he cannot forget, he can use it for growth.
- Start to be honest about what you don't actually know. Harder still, get a clear, scary picture of what no one else seems to really know, either, even if they have pat answers.
- I don't expect to get to the end of seeking
- Its something that comes from Jesus and it feels like its inside of me. It might be a gift but all gifts have to be received...
- Jesus and Validity. The outside force has just recently become apparent to me - Jesus. The inside force is a fierce need for validity, that I matter.
- But I'm not sure "seeker" is the best word. I'm Christian and churchless, but I'm not missing anything I'm looking for anymore.
- if they can get deep down into what's going on inside, I think we are all hungry, but may not realize it
- Yes but don't mistake an outward appearance of having a relationship with Christ for an actual one.
- I haven't found ANYONE who has a real relationship with Christ. (myself included). This makes me a seeker. I hope that seeking for that relationship never stops, even when I get it.
1 comment:
good to read. "If we need support, the bible is all the spiritual bra we need" hah! love it.
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