Rediscovering Jesus :: Part 1 – “Well, we love Jesus, we’re just sick of ‘christianity’.”

By the spring of 2011, Nathan and I had become completely disillusioned with “church.” We were tired of “ok-yeah-we-already-know” sermons and being a part of churches that looked nothing like Jesus or the movement of His early followers.

I stumbled upon ‘Understanding Jesus: Cultural Insights into the Words and Deeds of Jesus’ in a bookstore and showed Nate: wow, this seems to be really on par with what we’ve been talking about! The author, Amaral, introduced us to the idea that the American church we had grown up in looked very little like the Jewish Rabbi it claimed to seek after.

This was an extremely hard time in my life; before Nathan started voicing his concerns, I was happy with the way things were. Even after I came to see his points, I was frustrated – what could we do about them? I also didn’t tell a soul because I was terrified there’d be talk of how Nate and I were “falling away.”

So we delved into Scripture and tried to rediscover Jesus from those pages and helpful sources (like this and this) that weren’t reading scripture from a puritan/western mindset. We wanted to get back to the message of Jesus and learn to walk as He did: loving others; friends with the chronically poor, meeting their physical and spiritual needs as a lifestyle born out of relationship – not to “win them to Christ”; pondering Him, we wanted the way He talked and the things He cares about to reorient our entire lives; and we hoped to get to the point where we’d sell ourselves to buy the One we’ve found.

All of this stands in direct contrast to the “Don’t drink; don’t smoke; abortion is murder; gay marriage will destroy us; don’t forget to vote republican” message that American Christianity boils down to. (Quote from, Undiluted by Benjamin L. Corey)

~~~

A couple months later, a friend from college suggested I read ‘The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical‘ by Shane Claiborne and I’m so grateful she did! Not only did this guy want to get back to the Christianity of the Bible – Jesus’ red letters – but he was starting a community of people who wanted the same! Finally!! It was like something in my soul released: “we aren’t alone! (and yay! we’re not heretics!”)

While finding out about Shane and The Simple Way helped to affirm that God was directing us, we had years of doubt, struggle, and discouragement ahead of us.

After visiting 6 churches in the area and being sorely disappointed (“What are you doing in the community?” Answer:”Well, we have this food bank where people can come to get food.”  *Face*Palm* Yes, food banks a good thing . . . but that’s it?). We found out about house church and it really seemed like the way to go. But there were none listed online near us! (What do you even do to find one after that? Put up flyers? Knock on doors? “Hey, do you happen to be apart of this movement?”) 

We stopped attending church but continued to do periodic google searches. In January 2013 I found one! – and it was FOUR minutes from our house!! It was a step in the right direction, but functionally, it was more like a mini church. There was a greater influence on fellowship and living out Church, but still nothing done in the community. Argh!

I guess what we longed for the most was something along the ideas of what I had read about in the fictional work In His Steps. A phenomenal book, it centers on people in a town who were trying with such conviction to live as Jesus would that they *NEEDED* each other. They *HAD* to have weekly meetings to share the struggles (job and money loss over choosing to take Scripture seriously and not compromise; loss of family support and changes in life paths’ for the sake of the Gospel). They met after church and poured their hearts out to each other, they discussed the Word and prayed for one another. They didn’t meet because maybe it would further their walk: they had to meet because of the Way they were walking.

~~~

We didn’t want to settle for anything less and so we threw in the towel. We knew we were moving to Austin in the near future and had high hopes that there would be something stirring in this unconventional city.  

However, even after moving to Austin, we tried 3 typical churches but they seriously lacked the credentials we were hoping for. After that we tried a HouseChurch that totally fell through (the other couple kept canceling); we found a messianic jewish church which we both thought would help us really get back to 1st century Jesus – but they were more about studying the bible than going out for it (we can do both, people!); later we started attending a mennonite church which I really enjoyed: we loved the emphasis on simple living and environmental stewardship, but it too felt more about the people who showed up on Sunday than all the ones out there.

The common theme with all of these churches was the gathering: hear the word, talk to each other, pray, worship – all good things! But while we were admonished to “live it” out in the world, it was an all too common phrase that the people met with a head nod and not much more. What about the rest?!

So we surrendered:

“Ok fine. There’s nothing out there. With Autumn still nursing and us not wanting to put her in the nursery, this is more hassle than it’s worth right now anyway (why-o-why does church happen at nap time?!). We’ll just revisit this in the next season when we don’t have littles.”
“Maybe we should make our own house church – once we have a house to settle in!”

Throughout all this, we kept up with Shane Claiborne and were introduced to the Liturgy.

Though skeptical at first (“pre-written prayers? How unauthentic!”) we came to love it. I’ve always loved tradition, but even my unconventional, intellectual husband was into it! I was shocked.

After 4 years on this roller coaster, God used this century-old practice to guide us into our future.

But I’ll save that for Part 2 = )

Morgan (loves to) Reid