Progressive faith

I left my church this week. Well really I haven’t gone for the last month, but who is counting. I left because the experience was making my anxious, and unwelcome. I felt like i wasn’t aloud to ask, seek, and find God in my own way. If God is infinite then our understanding of him should always be in flux. what I mean that is that the basics should remain the same but the possess of output and understanding should always be re learned.

Every time you read the bible or hear a sermon you learn something more about God and the Bible. If I’m always learning something new then my interpretation has to be fed through a new filter. Now don’t get me wrong this has to be within reason if it is something heretical then you need to discard it. However, if something is biblical then your frame of reference should change to at least include it as information to consider whether you believe it. Asking questions about these things is the next step to learning.

I think that God wants us to ask questions, but when we ask question we always ask the same questions, hoping for new or better answers. However, we should be working toward asking better questions. So if our original question is “Did Jesus die for our sins?” then the next question should be “Why did Jesus die?” now this happens to an extent. When we reach questions like “How did Jesus’ death invoke the forgiveness of God for his people?” most people stop though. I don’t know what the next question should be, but I know there is one. I also know that most people have their opinion on this question, but some people when faced with a different answers just throw their hands up and just say “well it just is that way” or ” why does it matter how, as long as we are forgiven?” If this faith insecurity or they just want to be told what to believe, I have no clue. I do know this, the second we stop asking questions is the second we start to get radical.

This brings me back to why I left my church. I wasn’t allowed to move forward; I wasn’t allowed to ask questions. If I was allowed then I certainly was not allowed to teach any one what I was looking for. Now that I left I feel healthy again; I feel like I can love again. I certainly feel safer, but I don’t know what I’m going to do next. What I thought I was going to do isn’t going to happen anymore. I certainly believe that God is positioning me for something, but what, I don’t know.

If you are feeling stuck, confused, and uncomfortable. I want to encourage people who are in this situation to look to God and do what feels right; I don’t mean exit the church actually I would recommended you avoid that at all costs. I only left because it was the open door for me to be healthy again, for me to fix myself, and re position myself, I certainly will position myself under authority as soon as I can. However, I know that a large portion of people in America feel uncomfortable with where the church is at and it is because people are afraid to move forward in to the next phase of Biblical and Triunial understanding.

I’m not saying that the problem is that you’re not allowed to ask questions, but I know that if the Body of Christ is to move forward something needs to happen. If you’re at a church that is not missional and will not move to that and you are a missionary then you need to find a place that will help push you forward into that. If you’re a musician and you want to write your own worship music and your doing worship but they wont let you try out a song you wrote then you probably need to move somewhere else. the worst thing for a christian is to become complacent in a position because of X, Y, or Z. Because with complacency a stagnate faith grows, a stagnate faith hates change. If the church can’t change then Christ can’t grow, and if Christ can’t grow then Christ died for nothing.