My church experience growing up was, primarily, not a bad one. I had good Sunday school teachers (thanks Paul, Steve, and others that I can see the faces of in my head but can’t pull the names). I had a dear youth pastor. I had some good pastors. However, at the end of the day, there was often a missing component to what they were trying to accomplish with my being at church. Yes, they would say that it was about developing my “Christian walk.” But it was all too often misguided from what I can see at this point. The focus was on my connection to the church more often than it was on the building of a relationship.
I don’t think it would be very difficult to understand, if you were to look across my lifespan, that I’m not exactly the guy that everyone likes and that has a thousand friends. I’m definitely an introvert. I don’t have but a few close friends. My closest friend passed away some years ago and he was about 15 years my senior. So, I’m not the life of the party in most cases. I can “put on” that personality when needed for my role with whatever group. I do enjoy getting people to laugh with some well-timed remarks and one-liners. But the older I get the more comfortable I am with quiet conversations off in a corner, not attracting attention.
So, when I say that church was a misguided experience and focused on connection to the church than on relationship building, I recognize that part of that is on me as I’m not always the best at relationship building. Even as I write this post, I struggle to tell you what it really means to develop a relationship with God…but I also KNOW that it is what I yearn for in my daily walk. When I think of people that I am in relationship with, I recognize that they are the people that I want to tell about the things going on in my life, experience new things, and receive feedback on ideas. The friend that I mentioned that passed away was someone that I would spend hours on the phone with discussing ideas and thoughts. I think he would have LOVED asymmetric faith. I have those types of conversations with a few people now but it has taken time to develop that relationship and we are not there yet.
When I say religion and the focus on connecting with the church, I’m not saying that everything about church is/was bad. I had some very powerful experiences connected with the church where I felt the Spirit move on me. I had some exceptional times of learning where I felt my heart burn within me. People across my life, within churches, invested in me through teaching me, etc. There have been some very sweet times of worshipping God. I was also encouraged to have my personal time with God and even told what those should look like. But as I reflect on all those times, there was often an underlying context of these things being at church. Particularly in my later experiences in church, there was not the focus on the personal walk and being in relationship with God outside of church. Instead, I felt the pressure of the work of the church at the expense of my personal relationship. I felt the pressure of being at church for everything and looked down upon when I was not. . .and it got to the point that going to church felt like it was in the way of having a relationship with God.
That’s religion. When you do all the things for church and somehow miss getting to know your Creator more intimately, you’ve stepped into being “religious.” When you forget the reason you’re doing all this and just get about the customs and practices that turn into rules and regulations, you’re religious. When it is pressure from individuals to do it their way do instead of connecting with God personally, it’s religion. As a 70’s and 80’s kid, I am quite familiar with Steve Taylor’s “I Want to be a Clone” which hits pretty close to what I’m talking about here. If you’re not familiar with Steve Taylor, he was known for his satire and criticism of aspects of Christianity. This song definitely hits home about the religion of churches.
But back to the point, relationship should be the focus of your faith walk. Inasmuch as church (or anything) is in the way of relationship, re-evaluate your connection with it.
You might be asking yourself, “what does a relationship with God even look like?” Here’s the thing: there is not one right answer. God created us for relationship with Him. If you think about the relationships that you have with others, none of them are exactly the same. Certainly, my relationship with my wife is not the same as my relationship with my children. My relationship with my granddaughter (my “grandgirl”) will not be the same as my relationship with my children. My relationship with friends will not be the same as my relationship with family (though some friends are like family. . .in the good sense). Every relationship has different aspects and features. So, while I can tell you a little about my relationship with God, it likely won’t look exactly like yours.
I used to have “devotions” (read my Bible and pray) every day, in the morning, before I started my day. There is nothing wrong with that and I still have times like that. I often read my Bible these days on my phone in the Bible app. A number of years ago, the Bible app people developed “streaks” on the Bible app that showed you how many days in a row you’ve read. Unfortunately for me, my focus drifted from reading the Bible to know my Savior and build relationship to the game of the streak. For a while I had a VERY high streak number. I remember taking an international trip and was so very worried that my streak would be affected by when I read my Bible on travel days. But then I began to feel God telling me to specifically break my streak and not make that the focus because it was in the way of a relationship with Him. Reading my Bible in the app and adding to the streak had become a religious practice for me.
Connected with daily devotions is one of the projects for this website: the Principle Approach summary and commentary. The project started out with a young friend of mine in India that was wanting to study the Bible together and have me help him understand better what it was saying. That started the habit of my reading a chapter in the Bible, summarizing it, and then pulling principles that could be applied to daily life. That sounds okay, right? However, what I found was that if I missed the day, I was feeling guilty. It was another streak. More religion. I had to get to the point of “forgiving” myself and not making it a requirement of my relationship to do that.
At the risk of making these features religion, here are some of the characteristics of my relationship with God:
- Greeting Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as I wake up each day.
- Talking to God during the day at various times in a conversational way.
- Yes, reading my Bible and pulling principles.
- Stopping to settle myself to be able to hear from God when I need direction.
- Reading books and watching videos on aspects of the Bible, God, faith, and personal walk.
- Writing about these aspects (Bible, God, faith, personal walk).
- Meditating on these things.
- Spending time with others discussing these things and learning from them.
- Specifically asking God to help me draw closer to Him.
- Continually working to put things in perspective and trust God through the trials of daily life.
- Doing my best not to be a dwarf (see The Peril of Dwarves).
Right now, I’m not attending a church. I’ve been invited to go by several people and genuinely stop and seek God’s perspective on my going. However, I have not felt the release to go back. . .at least not yet (perhaps that will change). I’m doing my best to find connections with God that are personal and recognizing times when my inability for good relational practices gets in the way. As an introvert, I could spend weeks on end in my home without leaving (I work from home), never seeing another person (though my family lives here too so I do see them), and be quite fine. If it’s winter (as it is right now as I’m writing this), I’m even more inclined to not go anywhere. I recognize these aspects of my nature and work to make sure my comfort with being alone does not get in the way with my relationship with God. However, I also recognize that He knows that I’m this way as He created me with these tendencies.
God meets us where we are but wants to draw us closer to Him. He wants more for us. He wants a vibrant relationship with us where we know Him and talk to Him, sharing our lives with Him. He wants the best for us: a relationship with a perfect Creator.
Comments are closed