My One Goal for the New Year

Found this pic today over at Backyard Missionary.

It's just a picture sure to offend some, make some angry, hurt some and make others laugh.

But as I was making pancakes for my boys this morning I thought how well it shows our fallen, human nature.

The past year has been an effort to change myself (and have Father change me) from the religious "Church Lady" that I had become. But something about this picture plagues me. Will I end up changing one thing to only to turn into something more ludicrous?

From Church Lady to anti-institutional jerk?

From Church Lady to emergent jack ass?

From Church Lady to I have all the answers now - just follow me?

From Church Lady who trusted too much to one that trusts no one.

From Church Lady who at times led people by manipulation to one who no longer leads people anywhere.

You can just see the t-shirts can't you?

Not that I have met any of those. Nor have I picked that flavor up from you, whom I read. I just know my own propensity to want to have THE answer and being so proud.

See, I hate this area of not knowing. I can float along here for a while but to never really know - to never have The Plan still drives me crazy.

But then maybe if I never have the plan, maybe if I never really know what Father will do in the next year or next week I will avoid growing into the man in the picture...looking more ridiculous and being more dangerous to myself in what I have become than even in what I was to begin with.

In my old life we were encouraged to come up with our goals for the new year. My goal for this year is to not become a religious caricature of the man in the picture.

Leaving and The Truman Show

8 months out of leaving our former church and I am still learning some things. I was talking to my daughter the past few days. It has been a hard few weeks for her. For one, she ran into a whole group of teens and youth that still attend our old church. The sight of them and their subsequent shunning of her was so hard to take. It brought up all the old hurts in a way that I was shocked at how much she was still angry and unhealed. As we talked I realized that my leaving and her leaving were two different things entirely.

My leaving was much like watching the movie, The Truman Show starring Jim Carrey. In fact I was fascinated to see how the plot of the movie detailed my life in our church Some highlights:
The director tried to appear benevolent but it was all for the money and his
prestige.
Those who dared go against the master plan of the director were quickly removed.
The whole plot depended on everyone playing their part.
Those who actually made the show happen had to pack away their conscience.
When Truman started to question his surroundings the usual tactic was used to
convince him that he was the crazy one.

And that was my church life. Like Truman, the first thing that I finally saw as unreal (for Truman it was the spotlight that landed in the street – for me the questioning of the use of titles) started me to question all the other things. It was because of my questions and the ensuing answers that did not match up to what Jesus taught, that I left.

But for my daughter it was not that at all. For her, she left because of the hurt and pain that she was made to feel from the people there. In fact she actually left a year before the rest of us did.

But because of this, I don’t know how to really help her. For me, I am just able to realize that I and everyone else were deceived and therefore I have changed my mind. This gets easier and easier the further away from May that I get. This does not work with her though. She has been wounded. She still bleeds. To see someone or think of times in the past will throw her back into the hurt of the day it happened. It is as fresh as if it were happening again, all over. The unhealed-ness is heartbreaking to watch and I feel helpless. Of course I know all the lines I would have told her last year at this time…”you just need to forgive, just trust God to work it all out, try to pray more, just have faith.” Fortunately, I know how wrong those would be to use on her right now.

Best Friend says it just takes more time and someone to talk to. I believe that and am more than willing to wait but do any of you have any more advice for us? Is there anything I can do with her or for her? She trusts me. Our relationship is really good which is amazing since I in so many ways encouraged her to just take the abuse and not say anything because these people were our leaders.

The best line by Truman’s best friend (one of the cast): “Nothing you see on this show is fake…it is merely….”controlled”.” For me, I realized that it was controlling and walked out. For my daughter, she was one of the ones who was controlled and thus hurt.
What do you think?

Wrapping up the Old Year and Blogging in the New Year

Christmas was a wonderful time with family and close friends. My, how I am grateful for the close friends. It was our first Christmas out of our old church. The first Christmas without having families over that had been here for desert for years and years, yet it was not as painful as I thought it might be.

Daughter #1 got married the very same week. Since we had left our old church and many of our friends had decided not to associate with us anymore the number was small and more intimate. We invited many of our old friends whom had also left our CLB after being with us for many years. They had been with us while my daughter was growing up and loved her. They were so wonderful to have. They also seemed grateful for us to all be together. One even wrote me a thank you note for being included. They had no idea how wonderful it was to us to greet each one as they came through the door that day. Each person, each friend, was a gift. Each hug was healing. Although we missed some dear, dear friends who have been blinded by the “truth” that they are living in, the day was somehow very full.

I remember writing on Grace’s comments once when she had hosted a party of old friends, that I could not wait for our turn someday. It was our turn and it was wonderful.

As I enter the new year with my leaving our church behind in the last year, I have pondered what form my blogging will take. I began this blog to have a voice out there to chronicle the leaving from an Apostolic form of church government that became hierarchal and abusive. I wanted others to find it and draw encouragement from my process. It is always a struggle to me though on whether to post the personal stuff or to engage in the many conversations about what the church should be, missional churches, post – charismatic churches, etc, etc, etc. I love those dialogues but somehow don’t think it is time or my place to primarily engage in those topics here. I will as they impact my journey, my every day life, but not as just a topic. I will continue to write ‘my story’ at least till the year in leaving is up in May.

When I am Weak - Parts 1 and 2

A good New Year to you All!!

I read somewhere on someone’s blog once that you can usually find what you want to say, only better, in someone else’s’ words if you look long enough.

The last two posts of Abmo on Windblown Hope have been brilliant, encouraging and comforting. This is what building up of the body looks like. Please read part 1 here and part 2 here and add him to your blog visits.

It is still hard to believe that I don't have to be the first lady (Church Lady) he describes anymore. Not that I could.

Updated: part 3 here

Worship- on an Icy Sunday Morning

For many, many Sunday mornings, as long and Husband and I have been married, we would wake up to our alarm clock ringing just a little later than our weekday wake up call, and he would roll over and say to me, “Let’s go worship!”

He loved to go and worship corporately. Where I was concerned with all that it took to “put it on,”( – making sure everyone was in their place and doing what our leader and his wife would have wanted – making sure that my kids were in their places and looking appropriately – making sure no “goofy” people were bothering the leaders – making sure the nursery and children’s departments were running smoothly – making sure that the few new people that wandered in were greeted appropriately – trying to be nice to all the people that I did not really have a relationship with – you get the idea) Husband would be up front far before the worship music actually started, meeting with God and loving on Him with all his heart. I did come in later usually to join him on the front row after all fires were put out and everyone was accounted for – but by then it was hard to center my mind and focus on Father when I was so concerned about what everyone else thought about me.

So this morning when I woke up the first thing that popped into my mind was the phrase, “Lets go worship God.”

As many of you who read my blog know, we are not attending any Sunday morning service. I have not been in corporate worship for over 6 months. I’m not even sure I could do it yet. So the question sets in my spirit today and I want to know what it means to be home today with my family and worship this wonderful Father whom I am just coming to really know for the first time.

So for a bit of "corporate cyber worship," here is what I am saying to Him in worship today.

Papa I am amazed by you. You are so good. You reveal yourself to me as you did to David when he said, “I will sing unto the Lord for he has dealt bountifully with me.”

I am so grateful that you are here with me and that you love me. I am so terribly grateful that you took ALL my shame and nailed it to the cross. In doing that, I no longer have to ‘DO” anything to please you or cause you to love me any more than you already do. All my works of service did nothing to alleviate the guilt and shame of my sin. All I had to do was realize that you did it completely, and it was done. I am whole. I am loved. I am totally accepted.

I am becoming to love even the broken parts in me that still remain because they show me how you love me completely. Your love is truly amazing. I worship you today. I bow my life before you. Even if I do no outwardly religious thing today, my heart will bow.

Today is yours. As we are together in this house I ask that you be among us and that you be honored in our laughter, our eating together, our play and our work.

Thanks Papa, I love you so much.

What are some of you saying or doing today in worship? Please leave it in the comments below or link it to your page. I would love to read what you are saying.

My Blog Roll - Helping Me to Become

Good post today from Kevin at A Watchman's View from the Wall entitled, "We have this many in..." He talks about how you describe a journey away from the traditional church and says this:

It’s easier to describe what I am doing than to tell you what I am becoming.

Isn't that true? Especially to those who are busily telling you what they are doing.

This is what I love about my blog roll. Every day there is something to feed me and draw me closer into a true relationship with Father - to 'become' and not just 'do'.

On that note, please see that I have added my blog roll on the sidebar. As I was making it up I wanted to put the names of the people who are writing (or their blog names). I want to personally thank all those who I read. Each day it is amazing to read these people. Sometimes I skim their posts. The really good ones who talk about something that touches me, or the really funny ones I read aloud to Husband. Sometimes I laugh with them, sometimes I cry but I am always encouraged to think. (Is there anyone out there who is thinking, "Ok lady, step away from the computer for a while....")

Two that I have never seen on your pages are Dooce and Confessions of a Pioneer Woman. Heather (Dooce) has left the Mormon church and some of her past posts about this were what drew me but her sense of humor has had me crying with laughter. Ree/Pioneer Woman is a lady that lives out on a ranch and also has a wonderful sense of humor and takes the most amazing pictures. She is on Part 13 of her meeting and marrying a Rancher when she was a City girl and it is really funny - go back and start with the first post in her series. These two are not about the church and so that is a fun break.

Mostly, I have found that these pages that I read have become persons. When Brant Hansen wrote about his taking medication for depression and how he struggled with that and being a Christian, I was not reading a newspaper account, I was reading Brant. Or when Heidi at Redemption Junkie wrote about her son and his hospital stay and their exhaustion with the nightly testings, I was reading Heidi and not some person in a medical journal. When I see that RobbyMac has posted I don't think that I am going to read something from a webpage but I think, "Hey, Robby has written something."

Therefore the blogs on my sidebar all contain the first names of the people who write because they have become people to me. I find myself moved by their lives and journeys. I don't always agree with what they write but I love the discussion.

So thank you all. And if I left anyone out - please comment. Sometime I keep up with you by linking from other's pages. And new bloggers/lurkers, leave a comment so I can see what you are writing too.

Good Questions for the Journey

I have added another blog to my reader - Windblown Hope. (In fact in the next few days I'm going to expand my sidebar blog roll to list all (or almost all) that I keep up with.)

I appreciated reading someone who is farther out (6 years I think) on this journey away from the traditional church than I. I had left a comment on his post the other day (One for the Leavers) to ask him what lies in store for us. What does this path look like 6 or more years from now. In an email to me he wisely stated:

"It is unfortunate that I cannot "show" you how we live or what we do. On the other side it is fortunate that I cannot "show" you. This is a struggle that is meant for you alone. Like Jacob (Gen 32:24) it is a wrestle with God in the dark."

He goes on to say though that he can give me "hints" to begin to sort out the way. I may refer to these questions in other posts but the one that blew me away for the past week was his question #2:

If you were the only person on this planet, what would your relationship with Jesus look like? What would you "do" for Him? Could you do anything for Him? What does your relationship with Him look like?

I instantly thought about the only man who was the only person on the planet - Adam - and what his relationship with God would have looked like.

It would have involved spending time with God - as in their walks in the garden. Conversations, being with each other, talking about what Adam saw and was doing - all of these come to mind. Maybe in their talks, Adams loneliness was made evident and produced an Eve. Maybe my conversations with God will let him know what I need instead of the checklist I used to bring. I've been wondering how to "pray" now. Maybe this is what I am looking for.

What would I do? This one was exciting to answer in that it was so simple and yet profound. I would do what we talked about. Adam did not give God his 5 year plan. God did not ask for it. They just talked about whatever and Adam did the mundane of taking care of the garden - or just living in it. He did not need to build anything to impress God. Therefore, my doing needs to be born out of our being together - not the other way around.

And then, what does my relationship with God look like. I'm afraid in the past it was heavy on the 'doing' side and light on the 'being' side. Heavy on the action, light on the conversation. I was like those moms who are so busy doing for their kids that they never look at them in the eyes. And yes, I tend to be that kind of a mom too.

Anyway, how would you answer those questions, and do they stretch you at all?

Thanks Windblown Hope, I'll keep reading and thinking.

WWJDWTC – The Samaritan Story Retold

Sunday night Husband and I were asked to attend an Aids Benefit Dinner in our town. They are a group of people who have formed a way to help people who actively have the aids virus here. We jumped at the chance. It was so fun to be in a group of people, eating good food and laughing with some newly formed friends (thanks to Best Friend).

I never expected to encounter a story from Jesus lips though….

During the presentation of the evening, there was an interview done of a woman in our town who had become infected with the aids virus (her identity had been shielded). They wanted her to tell her story because she was not gay and had not been an intravenous drug user. It was clear that her life had been hard and was probably not exemplarily but she also was not the norm in the spread of aids.

What was interesting though was as she talked, I kept thinking that I had heard her story somewhere else….

She had gotten very sick - so sick that she was almost dead. A friend had encouraged her to be checked for Aids and then her life really started falling apart. People started going around her. They ignored her pleas for help. They fired her from her job. They refused to let her live with them. She was desperate and left for dead. Then this organization stepped in. They got her medical attention. They paid for all her bills. They found her a place to stay. They stayed in relationship with her when everyone else left. She is alive today because of this band of people here in my town. This band of people does not go by a name that we Christians would recognize….they are gay or lesbian or politically to the left. Most of them have not been in a church for years if ever. But they had stopped and helped this woman.

I wonder if any Priests or Levites passed her by. I wonder if she even knew any of us. I wonder if I ever knew her.

Mostly I wonder if Jesus was talking about her and I didn’t understand or care or listen.

Wait a minute Jesus, what was the name of that Samaritan group?

WWJDWTC - Week 7 Threads of Grace

WWJDWTC – Week 7

Haven’t updated much about this. Fellow syncrobloggers have posted about what Jesus would do with the church- and then go out and do it. Glen Hagger on his blog Re-dreaming the Dream, asked today to share our reflections on this time we have spent. I started here on October 15th with my first post. Mostly about walking away from the wreck and walking out into the unknown of what my life is going to be now. You can link to my past posts if you want to read about this portion of my life. Just click on the WWJDWTC link at the bottom of this post.

So my reflections: I could say that it has been a wonderful, spinning, fast, miracle laden, signs and wonders kind of existence since then.

But I would be lying.

The truth is that it has been mind numbingly slow. We have had a few wonderful kingdom-kind-of-conversations with friends and our children. I got to feed a few of my daughters friends one evening. Some encouraging posts from the blogging world came in the past weeks. I got to sit by the ocean for a few days. But that is it. Looking back I can see bits of Father’s grace weaving their way in and out of our lives. Slow. Almost seemingly deliberate. No hurry. No immediacy.

See, in my old church (CLB) we were busy. We were always going to this or that. Most nights were full. Some with good things – I’m not discounting those. But some of it was sorely un-needed. But we were busy and I got used to feeling good about being busy. We were all about “Building the Kingdom of God”(you have to say it in your best impression of Sponge Bob Hall Monitor voice). There were prophecies about it each new year how this New Year would be AMAZING. But it never turned amazing. Just the weaving of God through our lives. But that never seemed enough. So the next year we just moved on to “Another Amazing Year Where God Would Do Amazing Things.” (come on – do it in the right voice). Trouble is that no one had the guts to ask what had happened to the previous year and why it mostly sucked with regard to the prophecies and except for the weaving of Father’s thread of grace that always prevailed we would be lost.

I grew tired of the “Another Amazing Year” prophecies even before we left. But I did not know what to believe in their place.

Until now.

Now with this mind numbingly slow season of life in the Kingdom of Father I find that the bits of threads of his grace being woven in and out of my life and the lives of those around me are precious. They are really what it is all about. They are the “What Would Jesus Do With the Church” and what He has always done with the Church - lived his life in and through us.

Maybe at the end we will see the tapestry of our lives….and the thing that will stand out – the thing that we will probably miss if we don’t pay attention to it now – is the brilliant hand of Father as he weaves.

And that is what I believe now.

Song about Leaving Boats

This was sent to me by Gloria after reading my last series on Grace and the Building of Boats, written by Fernando Ortega. Nothing sums up a idea or dream as well as poetry.

Thanks Gloria.

I heard the master calling across the stormy sea
there is life for anyone who'll take it
not a path of safety or false security
put your trust in me and you will make it

leave the boat behind
step into the angry tide
walking on... walking on the water
come and follow me down a road you cannot see
walking on... walking on the water

hear the call to freedom, you who are afraid
dance upon your fears out on the ocean
hear the call of glory, join the fool's parade
come to me you proud who would be broken

leave the boat behind
step into the angry tide
walking on... walking on the water
come and follow me down a road you cannot see
walking on... walking on the water