It's taken me a few months,
but I finally figured out more fully the answer to "can Evanston Vineyard
be my church, possibly for the rest of my life?" ["http://www.evanstonvineyard.org/"]
Thankfully, the answer is yes, due to multiple reasons: 1.) Scripture-centered,
2.) awareness/sensitivity to the world around it; 3.) emphasis on worship; and
most importantly, 4.) direct relationship to God.
I've spilled my story on
here multiple times, so I won't go into it yet again, but I will say that the
idea of having a personal and direct relationship with God is probably the
single biggest impact on my life. I didn't have it growing up, only knowing that
it was important to praise him every Sunday. But I guess maybe having a
Christian background at all helped me to understand, accept, and more fully
embrace it. It seems every other friend I've made at Vineyard apparently
"became a Christian" after growing up outside of the faith. It's a
foreign concept to me, and given my stubbornness in some areas I'm not sure how
receptive I would have been to this "Christianity" thing if I didn't
grow up with it in the first place.
A couple weeks ago I
finished a book written by a couple of pastors, David Johnson and Jeff
VanVonderen, called The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse. ["http://www.spiritualabuse.com/"] It
apparently had been purchased years ago, when St. Luke's, [“http://www.stlukesevanston.org/Home.html”] the
church I grew up in, was going through the peak of its collapse due to wild and
rampant abuse within the structure. The basic premise of the book is to empower
those who had been spiritually abused by pastors and priests and to open their
eyes to a faith, a view of God that wasn't shame- or performance-based.
Listening to the words of wisdom by God, Jesus, or even some of the apostles,
like Paul, is supposed to be refreshing, like a tall glass of cool water on a
hot summer's day. But time and time again, regardless of personal views or
biases, there have been far too many people who claim to be Christians who have
bent or perverted the Word to their will, leaving many folks with added
burdens, and further proving many non-Christians' reasons to not join the
faith.
Dictionary.com defines
religion [“http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/religion”]
as such:
–noun
1. a set
of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, esp. when
considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually
involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code
governing the conduct of human affairs.
2. a
specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a
number of persons or sects: the Christian religion; the Buddhist religion.
I didn't copy the entire
definition (there's maybe ten entries), but it's clear: religion is generally a
set of ideas or beliefs that its members believe about things in the world. If
you were to study the history of Christianity, you would get the impression
that it indeed is a religion. But it's not what Jesus intended it to be. The
reason he continued to argue with the Pharisees is that they put too much
emphasis into following laws and practices, into performing. As a result
of these misplaced emphases, their relationship with God (what should have been
the most important thing) was non-existent. Jesus explains this in further
detail to the crowd:
The
teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses' seat. So you must obey them
and do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not
practice what they preach. They tie up heavy loads and put them on men's
shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them.
—Matthew 23:2-4, NIV [“http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2023:2-4&version=NIV”]
Woe to
you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of
heaven in men's faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those
enter who are trying to. Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you
hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he
becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are.
—Matthew 23:13-15 [“http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2023:13-15&version=NIV”]
Woe to
you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of
your spices—mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important
matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced
the latter, without neglecting the former.
—Matthew 23:23 [“http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2023:23&version=NIV”]
So to review, the Pharisees
are hypocrites, they worship a false idol (the laws), they force people to
worship the same false idol while denying them God, and they refuse to help
people who are in need. Honestly, there are a lot of people who, while they
don't follow traditional Pharisaic teaching or ritual, they behave just as
hypocritically.
To prove my point further, a
couple months ago, while walking across the streets of downtown Chicago some
guy who was hanging out religious pamphlets stuffed one into my hand. I read
through it later that evening to see what it was all about and found it rather
disturbing. Why? It emphasized laws, sins, and the idea that one is screwed
unless they somehow fall and decide to follow Jesus. In other words, you have
to somehow magically accept doctrines in order to be "saved." My
friends, what I've just described here is not true Christianity; this is
distortion! While I believe strongly that it is a good thing to turn to God,
accept Jesus, whatever the terminology may be, this is not the way to do
it! Shaming the person's character, holding up one's sins against oneself as if
to say you are a bad person,
that is a major sin in itself!
If you know me, and I'm
thinking most of you who read this probably do... I've been to some interesting
philosophical places, to extreme faith, extreme skepticism, and everywhere in
between. But one thing that's always stuck with me is that in spite of all the
criticism, doubts, and corruption, there's something about the Christian
faith that's amazing. See, in any religion we have to be perfect, but what
Jesus allows us to do is recognize that we can't, and let him take over. Thing
is, God's already been taking care of us since we were born, and he will
continue to do that. He has already invited us to know him, to be in a
relationship with him, and basically all we really need to do is look into
ourselves, prepare our heart, and accept the cool, refreshing water that he's
offering us. No tricks.
I still have struggles in my
life (that'll never go away, no matter what you decide), but for the first time
I finally understand the concept of "giving one's life to Jesus."
I've been hearing it for five years, but I never really considered it to be
something I specifically needed to do, or something that I could do at a
particular instant. It kinda just happened for me, and these days I do feel
like I've done just that. I could do better at reading the Scriptures more
often, but at the same time I understand that God's got everything covered, and
all I ever need will come from him. The worshipping and praying to him is just
part of the two-way street that is a relationship, and being in a relationship
with God is clearly better than being in a religion with him.
Christianity is a
relationship.