Circle of Hope

I was really encouraged this Easter, by what my friend, Robin, said during the “talk back” time in our public meeting. She spoke about her journey from struggling to believe, into believing that Christ was resurrected. Her story was very easy for me to grasp on to and see very similar steps that I’ve taken, and am still taking in my life. Basically, she said that for a long time, it didn’t make total sense to her, intellectually, that Jesus was raised from the dead. She was a Christian for a good number of years before she came to a place where she didn’t see the point of arguing why or why not, it must, without a doubt, no bones about it, be absolutely true, because A2+B2=C2; therefore Jesus rose from the dead. She learned how to just believe that he did because he did and maybe Jesus is bigger than our intellectual minds anyway.

She had great courage to tell her story in that public meeting, and it was very encouraging to me and probably a lot of other people in the room. Yet, these stories are rarely shared, especially in large group settings, due to a weird fear inside of us that we would be called to the front of the congregation and asked to repent of our evil doubt. Maybe, since we don’t automatically take everything said from the pulpit in one solid bite, we would be asked not to bring our bangin’ goulash to the next potluck. Or, maybe, since we blog that we are on a journey and didn’t teleport to the destination, we’d get a stern talkin’ to from some guy who is going to force us to stop our backsliding.

But no, let me assure you, the blogee, that those scenarios are not meant for here. I’m not going to guarantee that some individuals in our community won’t do weird things or be mean, but our vision as a church is to be a SAFE PLACE to EXPLORE and EXPRESS God’s LOVE! That is why I love this church! We can struggle together, learn together, grow together, discover together, build together, play baseball together, laugh together, cry together. On top of that, if someone needs to work through something, we not only try to encourage them by being there to talk to, but we let that person work through the things that they need to work out in order to be a more complete person. While talking to Robin after the PM, she said that now she sees herself as a guide to offer hope to someone on there journey. That it’s ok to be skeptical, and shine light on things that just don’t seem to make sense. She sees a lot of younger adults trying to figure things out right away, and then get discouraged because they don’t have all of the answers. Robin offers encouraging words to us like “It’s ok to be where you are, you’re headed in the right direction.”, or “Jesus can handle it when you are working with tough questions… he’s fine with the process.” She’s been there, and she still works with this stuff, many years since she’s been a Christian. I’ve been there too.

When I moved to Philly in March 2005, I was at a point in my life where I’d seen some “flaws” with a lot of Christ “facts” that I was force fed since I was a kid. Even when I was a teenager I noticed things that I always knew to be truths, started looking more like not-quite-truths. I won’t blog about the specifics right now, but I really didn’t know what to believe, therefore, I was confused and had a lot of big questions. Was my whole life all a lie? Was Satan just trying to get me to backslide? Is everyone else on the planet secretly aliens here to study me? Is God real? Is the Devil real? Should I read the Bible like a text book? Is there a heaven? Would I still be a Christian if I knew there wasn’t a heaven? How should we treat other people? Is it ok to say swear words? Is the U.S. God’s chosen country? What country doesn’t God choose? Does our society treat people fairly? Can I do anything to help? What should I do during my stay on planet Earth? These, plus about 3 million other questions flooded my mind, but I felt scared, or ashamed of asking anyone, especially if I knew they were a Christian. I guess I’ve heard too many horror stories.

So, after the big move to Philly, I decided to join Circle and drop just about everything that I believed. I essentially wiped my brain clean, and tore down the foundations of what I felt I should believe. Then I asked a lot of questions, to myself and to the people around me. I was amazed at what happened. People had conversations with me and we tried to work it out. They didn’t give me some one-liner fact answer on a grey area question, nor did they try to solve the problem for me. This community let me work out stuff that I really needed to work out. My faith in Jesus became a lot stronger and I fell in love with this community. They even blogged about their own struggles! I’ve seen the areas that people struggle with, transform and become some of the greatest things about them! I felt loved by others, even though I probably said or did some weird things. I died to my old ways and resurrected with Jesus! And I’m still working with a lot of stuff. I’m still dying to old ways, and I’m still rising with Christ! Dag, that’s awesome!