ONCE UPON A FLANNEL BOARD...

5 years ago, I stepped down as a worship pastor in the evangelical church. I walked out of the doors and decided then and there that I would never go back. I call myself a “recovering evangelical-holic” because I have spent these last 5 years detoxing from an addiction to the Evangelical church.
Like many of you, my interpretations of God (or a higher being) altered throughout my life and what I once knew to be God when I was a child is no longer the God who I have come to know now at the age of 34. So I want to share with you 3 specific glimpses of how this God came to be…
                        “The Flannel Board Jesus”

My first introduction to God began at the flannel board in Sunday school. Now if you don’t know what a flannel board is… it was this thing that was shaped like a chalkboard, but it was covered in felt- ours in thin green felt (I think it was supposed to represent the fresh cut grass of the many great Bible stories). Then there were these cut out Bible characters made of a different kind of thin felt that would be pressed against the board and organized to display the scene of the particular Bible story that was being taught that morning.  The cutout characters consisted of various Caucasian bearded men with walking sticks, robes, oversized sheep AAAAANND… that was about it.

The Sunday school lessons consisted of many wonderful Bible tales. Tales about a talking snake, splitting seas, end of the world floods, boats filled with terrified animals, a hungry whale devouring a human, and a motionless baby laying in an Easter basket who would grow up to die a horrific death but until then, he would resemble one of the lost members of The Doobie Brothers.

In Sunday school, we memorized the enticing lists of Old Testament lineages, sang songs about how “Jesus loves me, this I know” all while overdosing on stale animal crackers out of a Dixie cup.

Although we were taught that God existed, God was also a mythical character…. a sort of Zeus or Thor who loved children and livestock. God was above me and we sang the songs that “he had the whole world in his hands.” But God was untouchable, which made God un-relatable.
10 years later…
                        “Kim Jong Jesus”

During my junior year of high school, my family uprooted and moved to the tropical city of Cincinnati, OH. As a new student in a high school full of established clicks, I needed friends. It just so happened that a couple of classmates who were part of a Christian campus club invited me to come to their weekly gatherings where we’d play games with shaving cream, sing some songs, and listen to someone share their story of how they came to know God. It gave me a solid reason to not do homework one night of the week PLUS the club was full of hot girls and I had raging pubescent hormones.

As I got more involved in the group, I would begin to adopt the rules of how to be an effective and obedient Christian taught to us by our youth leader. I would learn that…
- Cursing is a sin.
- Dating a non-Christian is a sin.
- Sex before marriage is a sin
- You should kiss dating goodbye.
- Always leave six inches for Jesus.
- Lyrics to secular radio songs can be altered to sound Christian. That goes for most songs by Creed and a couple of songs by Hootie and the Blowfish.
- There is no worse sin than being gay.
- The world is lost, believers are found, and your most urgent calling is to get the lost saved.
- When in doubt, smile.

And most importantly…

- Your questions always have answers because Jesus IS the answer and that’s all you need.
As a teenager, I had very little confidence and certainly a lack of self-identity, so the Christian standards and rules helped me to find direction and a measure of self-worth.  I was prone to bouts of depression as I got older and so it was easy to know that not having a consistent happiness inside of me meant that I had fallen away from Christ for a bit. The evangelical life was clear-cut and I’m convinced to this day that this is why people are drawn to fundamentalist religions.

I didn’t realize it at the time, but the evangelical machine that advertised grace and forgiveness, was actually controlled by fear and power. Church was supposed be a safe place where you could be who you were, but we were constantly pushed to become something we were not. The focus was on becoming less sinful and so we were a bunch of kids who never felt good enough. God was like the parent who only pays attention to us if we get good grades and punishes us if we digress.

My words spoke of God being our friend, but my deepest belief said that God was angry, vengeful, conditional, and impatient. God was a dictator and I was his committed soldier.
Under the dictatorship, my mind was trained to believe that everything was black and white- it was either “this or that.”

This dualistic mentality created extreme views of the world, which created extreme actions. I prayed ferociously, I pursued ferociously, debated ferociously, and read my bible ferociously. This was referred to as “being on fire for Christ.”
I officially became a full time pastor in 2007 and I found out rather quickly that pastors have an incredible amount of pressure put onto them by their congregations to be perfect. We have to give all of the right answers, live righteously, love perfectly, and always have an open schedule. While many pastors get burnt out by these demands, many others like myself are seduced by the power of the pulpit.

I became invigorated by the power of what it was to wear the cloak. I loved the title, the status, and the respect I got. But I loved it because on the inside, I loathed who I was.  The power I consumed was an addiction that covered up my self-doubt.
I got up every Sunday morning on stage with my guitar, led the congregation in songs that talked about the love of Jesus being like an overflowing fountain, but in the deepest part of me… I didn’t actually believe the lyrics.

Was God REALLY an awesome God? Is there REALLY nothing but the blood of Jesus? Am I REALLY going to sing of your love forever? There was no room for the deep- rooted questions because every part of the evangelical machine had an answer.
As time went on, my soul began to slowly awake. I couldn’t ignore the questions anymore. My stonewall of Christian confidence began to show cracks and no theological reasoning seemed to mend it. I was afraid to be honest and honesty was now catching up to me. I was afraid that if I followed my deepest confusion I would stumble into a black hole of what I fought against (that being Hell) and lose the very thing I fought for (a destination of heaven).
See, my religious journey was always focused on the outside…
How to bring more people to Christ, how to sin less, how to serve more, etc.
But my spiritual journey was now calling me inward. It was asking me to move the furniture out of the house- the furniture of addictions, distractions, noise, and ego- in order to see what was inside.

In 2009, my wife and I stumbled upon Recovery Café in downtown Seattle. We were visiting there with another church from the east side to see what church is like with homeless people. I walked in very broken and damaged and even a bit hopeless. I felt very unlovable at the time. But the minute we walked in, the pastor grabbed me (unaware of who I was) and gave me the biggest hug and told me she loved me. I’m not kidding you… I melted. I came in so bruised and wounded that to have a pastor love me without knowing who I was changed me in that moment. Unconditional love met me face on that day.

                              “Blank Canvas”

This card represents me as much as it represents God.  Let me explain…
My journey of recovery has taken me to a place of allowing myself to become a blank canvas for the Spirit of God to paint her masterpiece on. My pain, doubt, joy, hopes, and questions are the colors of the reconciliation story that God has been revealing to the world from the beginning of time.

Although my canvas is torn, crumpled, and damaged… God’s using these wounds to show his unconditional and unwavering love to the world, the same way Jesus used his own wounds to do the same.

And God is doing the same with you, too. No matter where you are in life, how hopeful or hopeless you feel, how happy or unhappy you are, how fulfilled or unfulfilled you are… you are the living painting of the love of God.

The apostle Paul said that “For in God we live, we move, and we exist” (Acts 17:28) as he was referring to our inner being.  The beauty of it all is that this blank canvas is not made of us, but it is made of God as us… together as one. No religion, belief system, accomplishment, or race can divide us from being the masterpiece art of God.

For once God was above us and then God was beside us. But all along we have been made of God.

Into the grey...

Let's take a small look back into my awkward hormonal-driven teenage years, eh...

When I was 16, Ford Motor Company (my Dad’s employer at the time) transferred our family from South Lyon, Michigan to Loveland, Ohio. This was my junior year of high school and the eighth and final grade school I would attend before I graduated. If you don’t know this already, the automotive industry- much like the military- relocates their employees with every new promotion and inevitably the families have to endure the consequences. This happened to us every three years.

Of course, once you arrive at a new school, you are now an invader who is attempting to break into established clicks. But I got used to the transitions. It was sort of easy to adjust to the social circles of elementary and middle school, but uprooting in the middle of high school was a whole ‘nother challenge in itself. In the awkward teenage phase, insecurities are running rampant and the only survival is finding some kind of safe nook with a familiar environment and friends who accept you for who you are.  

When I arrived in Loveland- a suburb of Cincinnati- I used my old tactics and found ways to weasel myself into those established clicks. But I wasn't a pot smoker, I was mediocre in sports at best, school musicals involved memorizing too many lines, and my hand wasn't sleight enough to excel in the magic club. I was lonely to the core.

It wasn't until late in my junior year when some very welcoming classmates invited me into a religious club that was affiliated with the school. It was like a youth group, but it didn’t meet in a church and it’s accessibility on campus made it easier for kids to feel safe enough to check out the “Jesus thing” without feeling like they were drinking the Kool-Aid. At the meetings, there would be over-the-top games involving dairy products, loud music, a little bit of flirting, and a short God talk by the adult leaders at the end of the night. Shortly after I got involved, I was able to play guitar and lead people in singing songs with subliminal Jesus messages set to 90’s pop tunes. (“JE--SUS… is what I got. Now remember that…”)

Even though I was deeply involved, I wasn’t really serious about the commitment to faith. It wasn’t that I refused to believe… I just found myself more attracted to the cute girls rather than the attention starving Jesus that was presented. I didn’t see a need to be too serious about it and my church upbringing seemed to remind me that there was at least a one-bedroom apartment for me in the sky at the end.

But my entire paradigm shifted when our little God group packed our bags, jumped on a bus, and traveled east to beautiful sunny Myrtle Beach for a mega Christian youth conference. I had no idea what I was getting into, but it was a vacation to a beach on spring break. How can you resist that? And yes, the cute girls were aboard our caravan and I may or may not have tried to unintentionally graze one of their boobs with my elbow as I scooted to my seat.

The conference was a five-day high school pep rally on steroids and the energy emitting from thousands of kids packed in a theatre was consuming to say the least. It was nothing like the Amy Grant concert I went to at the age of 12. References to Jesus were everywhere… in the music, in the talks, and I even think I may have seen Jesus floating down the resort's lazy river next to me (although that could have just been a local beach bum with an unkempt beard). Either way, there was no escaping the robed man.

On about the fourth day, we all gathered in the theatre once more. After this dynamic and charismatic pastor captivated the room with a message about accepting Jesus into your life, he called upon anyone who wanted to pray the prayer and do just that. After four days into the Jesus freak fest, I finally got it. My entire existence was for the sole purpose of giving my life over to Jesus.

As is a common move among pastors who make alter calls, this pastor asked those who prayed the prayer to keep their heads bowed and raise their hands if you did the holy deed. At the time, this was portrayed as a way to publicly declare your new-found faith, but I realized later in life that giving alter calls is a very vulnerable thing for pastors to do and sometimes they need to see hands so that they can be affirmed they made a difference. Anyway, I bowed my head, said the magic words, and raised my hand like I was instructed. I was now a Christian! 

After we confessed our new beginnings in Jesus, we were immediately instructed to gather in groups and go outside to ask people laying out on the beach to accept Jesus, as well. They didn’t give us instructions on how to go about doing this; they just told us that God would show us the way if we obeyed. And so we gathered our little army together and headed out to the war zone of bikinis and poorly design sand castles.

I didn’t like approaching strangers as it was, but we were fired up for Jesus and now the world needed to be saved. One by one, we interrupted the relaxed sunbathers and gave our Jesus pitch to them about salvation. I don’t remember how many people actually listened to us, but I do remember that we had the lowest number of conversions- if any at all. Oh, and did I mention that we had to report our results of victories or the lack there of to the entire conference that evening? It was embarrassing. Yes, we were the Clippers of the 90’s.

I’ve had so many conversations with ex-evangelicals who have told me that their story is very similar to mine. They were caught in the flame of evangelical enthusiasm, submitted to the Jesus message in the vulnerability of the moment, and told that the sole purpose of the Christian mission is “to make disciples of Christ” and to do so by “sharing the gospel of the good news with the world.”

The problem with this interpretation is that it creates ruthless salesmen who will stop at nothing to fulfill an agenda… an agenda that balances on life or death. A lot of modern (and historical) Christianity models itself after this and it’s poisonous at its core. An agenda is dangerous when one is trying to make another mold into something that they want that person to be. It creates eventual resentment, if not immediate. I’m convinced that this is a big reason why many people like myself have chosen to leave the church in order to experience the world without an underlying motive to conform things.

For most of my faith journey up until a few years ago, I had eyes that saw the world as either saved or lost. People were either going to heaven or they were going to hell and it was up to me to make the difference. I viewed everything about God, Jesus, scripture, sin, and the world in a dualistic mindset. It was all black or white and even considering the grey was pure evil.

But now I call myself a mystic. It seems new-age I know, but it is actually rooted in the very essence of the divine. What it means to be a mystic is to abandon the black and white and breathe in the grey because the grey is where we are most vulnerable. Here’s what I’ve found out about the grey so far...

The grey is the space where broken things are refined and are not degraded by labels and judgment.

The grey is where deep questions are the breath of life while quick and shallow answers are a form of suffocation.

The grey is where our minds escape a motive or agenda and instead, find rest in allowing life to grow organically.

The grey is to let our pretenses go so as to be inspired in ways that we may naturally resist.

The grey is to dive headfirst into the darkness in order to reach the light.

The grey sounds like silence rather than chaos.

To view the Christian life as though everything is in opposition with each other (the devil vs. Jesus, sin vs. righteousness, Christian vs. non-Christian, secular vs. non-secular, etc.), we are creating a culture of control rather than being open to be moved by a spiritual rhythm that is inviting us into the song.

The more I let go, the more I hear the song. It’s a beautiful melody and the rests are placed perfectly.  

I'll sign off for now with one of my favorite lyrics of all time...

So let go (so let go)
Jump in.
Oh well, watcha waiting for?
It's alright
'Cause there's beauty in the breakdown
So let go (let go)
Just get in
Oh it's so amazing here
It's alright
'Cause there's beauty in the breakdown

Once upon a time...

This is my story. A story of how a pastor without questions became a wandering mystic without answers.

5 years ago on my last Sunday morning as a pastor, I sat at a piano in front of a church congregation and said my final words before I made my exit."I'm struggling with porn."

My wife and I still chuckle about that final farewell to this day. But it's also significant and I'll tell you why. I've come to find out that those four words were the beginning lines to an adventure that I certainly never would have chosen. An adventure in trying to pull the veneer away and really see the wizard behind the curtain. "I'm struggling with porn" has become the "Once upon a time..." to my dust ridden fairytale story.

And so the story goes...

Once upon a time, I was a dedicated Christian out to save the world and nothing in the world could have stop me. I prayed ferociously, pursued ferociously, debated ferociously, and served ferociously. At the time, it was called "being on fire for Christ." When I wasn't strumming my praise chords (G, C, D, and E minor when shit got serious) and leading the hand-raising church faithful in singing about "The overflowing fountain" and "The God of Wonders," I was reading my bible and saying my prayers in order to properly place Jesus on the flannel board of my life.

Although church was sprinkled lightly throughout my early childhood, it wasn't until high school that I became serious and turned my life over to God. I prayed the four spiritual laws, got re-baptized (the light dab of water on my head at the age of 7 was apparently just the appetizer), and I dove headfirst into the salvation seas. I was heaven bound! As fast as I accepted Jesus as my lord and savior, I was just as quickly helping others to do the same. Yes, I was indeed on fire.

Here and there, my flame sputtered a bit but I really never lost focus on my dedication to Christ. Usually, it was some sort of "sin" that tripped me up. Like any teenage boy, it almost always had to either do with my dirty thoughts and/or the separate adventures of my penis. But the fuel pump of forgiveness was always available and with a little prayer and confession, my shame tank was filled with the free gift of grace. Premium, not unleaded, of course.

Fast forward to many years later. My Christian journey led to finally finishing college with a degree in ministry leadership. I worked my way through two pastoral internships, all while leading worship at one of the biggest churches in the northwest. Soon after, I became a pastor at a couple of local churches, the last one being the porn confession farewell tour.

But slowly through my last years in the church, I began to doubt. My stone wall of Christ centered confidence started to show cracks and no theological reasoning seemed to make it stronger. I began to hear questions louder than my gun slinging answers. I found myself going through the motions in my leadership and slowly resented myself and others for it. I couldn't understand why my Christianity was slowly crumbling away.

In reality, I was afraid to be honest and honesty was now catching up to me. I was afraid that if I followed my deepest confusion, I would most certainly fall into some kind of black hole of eternal damnation (hell) and lose everything (heaven). I was afraid to be vulnerable because my past suggests that vulnerability leads to rejection and abandonment. And if I hadn't recently been married, I'm not sure I would have had anything or anyone else to turn to. I was losing the love of my life.

It's easier to see today what was going on then. I grew up in an institution that thrives on providing answers and more often than not, fears to conclude with questions. There tends to be pressure as a pastor in particular to always be a congregational parent and to always have things figured out. I believe without a doubt that the unreasonable pressure put on a pastor leads many of them to have hidden addictions to soothe the anxiety. I was certainly one of them.

So here I am now... a wandering recovering mystic searching through the muck of my life for identity, purpose, love, liberation, and probably more than anything... the courage to be honest. I find myself more interested in spiritual mystery (the "mystic" part) than religious conclusions. I still have a feeling that I'm loved by an inner and outer being. Sometimes I think of that mystic source as Jesus or Mother Universe, but I like what the AA community calls it... the higher power. There's freedom in leaving things out of the box and thus the chapters to this fairytale are about unpacking.

I want to use this blog to get naked in my questions, to be real about my confusion, and read to you some of the most provocative chapters of my dust ridden fairytale adventure. There's liberation in showing one's nudity. I'm not here to shock anyone and I'm certainly not here to bash any institution or person. I'm here to skinny dip in the gray because I'm no longer convinced that life is black or white.

Once upon a time...