Learning to Run

The following is not intended to be derogatory, nor should it be construed that I am pointing fingers at anyone besides myself.  I have spent my life in the IFB movement, and know it intimately.  In many ways, I could be the poster child for it, for both good and bad.  Yet in a great many ways we are broken, and not in a good way.  We live in illusions…

When I watch movies with our children, we often take some time after to dissect the illusions required to create various cinematic effects.  They want to know if that was a real club, or did the horse really die, or how did they DO that?  Movies are full of illusion because they want to tell a cohesive and immersive story.  Even in a boring item like “Sound of Music” there are dozens of stunts and weeks of footage that was edited to produce the finished product.

We also are guilty of showing heavily edited footage of our lives and of our churches to the world.  We live in a Facebook world, where people post picture perfect moments for their “friends” and our churches are often similar in their disconnect from reality.  We are guilty of producing heavily edited versions of Christianity that often bear little resemblance to what actually is going on.

One of the things that I have noticed is that we produce hollow Christians.  Hollow in that we are good on the outside, striving to be righteous, and yet are strangely empty inside.  We are missing strength inside, empty of empathy outside, and devoid of honesty regarding our own faults.

When is the last time you heard a REAL prayer request?  The kind that shakes you to the core with its raw honesty?  Or are your prayer requests like most, bland and almost pointless?  Yes, I know God cares about health and safety and salvation of the lost!  But often in our church I could give 50% of the requests by memory.  Where are the REAL requests from struggling souls?  When is the last time you heard prayer requests about an addiction to smut, or a vicious tongue, or a lukewarm spirit?  Imagine the shock if someone asked for a REAL problem, not those tiny housekeeping issues God must be bored to tears over.  Did He really die to keep the deer off the road, and your sniffles dried up?  Or did He come to break the chains of sin?  So then why is nobody REAL?

Nobody ever asks for prayer for anger, greed, lust, bitterness, or pride.  To do so is to become a pariah among us.  Our IFB culture encourages polite lies and discourages bold honesty – because the illusion of victory must be maintained.  THINK:  Is it not those who speak their mind that cause us the most distress?  Are not the distressed and broken encouraged to quietly seek help? How many openly broken people attend our services?

Does it not appear that we prefer an appearance of righteousness over truth and reality?

It might not mean as much to a visitor, but 35yrs in our circles have taught me something.

Nobody is perfect as they look.  I have lived with pastors, and the closer you get the worse they look.  The same is true of the members.  We know this and most will readily admit it.

So why do we lie to each other, our children, and our God by pretending we have it together?

The day after my confession to my wife I had to drive three hours home.  I was following a friend, and listening to Christian music to keep my suicidal thoughts away.  The tears began to flow so heavily I could not see the road.  I was a hazard to myself and others.  I flashed my friend with my lights, honked the horn, weaved around, and then finally pulled over.  I waited.

And waited.

About 10 minutes later I finally raised the truck hood, the universal sign of motorists that something was wrong.   You know what caused me to do that?

Desperation.  I was in serious trouble on so many points, and I needed ANYONE to stop and help me before I took my own life.

In a similar way, its about time we quit pretending we are ok in church, and as a church.  Nobody stops to help a fully functioning vehicle.  But we are not fully functioning are we?

 

Its time to put the hood up.

 

CPH

 

Revelation 3:17 Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: