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.
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.
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