Recent comments by presidential hopeful Michele Bachmann have stirred up the discussion about gay marriage once again. While speaking to a group of high school…
19
Jun
2012
Travis Mamone
The Author
Travis Mamone
Travis Mamone is the co-host of the Something Beautiful podcast. His writing has appeared in several publications, including Relevant Magazine, The Upper Room, and the book Not Alone (Civitas Press, 2011). He currently lives in Easton, MD, and blogs at The Boy with the Thorn in His Side.
Dear American Church, Hi, how are you? It’s been a while since we last talked. How’s Vacation Bible School coming along? This will be my first year volunteering, so I’m excited! Listen, uh, I hate to be a Debbie Downer, but we need to talk. It’s no secret that you’re not doing so well these days. It seems like everyday I read a new story about how more and more young people are leaving you. In fact, if I can be frank, I’ve come pretty close to doing the same. I feel like you just can’t keep up, and you don’t know what to do with yourself. That’s why I’m writing you this letter. I think you can do better. You just need some help figuring out how. Now this is just one person’s opinion, so don’t take my word as gospel (forgive the pun). But I figure since I am technically a part of you, my opinion’s just as valid as the next person’s. First, let me tell you what I don’t need from you: 1. I don’t need any more fancy-schmancy-mega-church-big-stage-full-scale-production worship services. I know you thought they made you look hip and cool for the young people, but honestly they make you look stupid. If I wanted to see a big production, I would go see a movie. 2. I don’t need any more rigid doctrine. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not anti-doctrine or anything like that. But too much doctrine takes all the mystery and discovery out of the Gospel. That stuff might work for the Calvinists, but to me it’s just putting God in a tiny box. Now here’s what I do need: God’s love. That’s the whole reason why I haven’t left you. I’ve seen God’s love shine in you and through you many times, so I know that you have the ability to show God’s love to the world. You just have trouble expressing that love. And unfortunately I can’t give you a list of things to do in order to let God’s love shine through you. To be honest, I’m still trying to figure out how to let God’s love shine through me! So maybe we can work on it together. What do you say? Your friend, Travis
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I’m not against high-production-value worship services. I’m just against making them the center of Christian life. I like good music and, while I don’t need lights and smoke, I appreciate worship leaders who are skilled, well rehearsed, and using their talents to the utmost. The problem comes when we put all our resources (money, time, and people) into on-campus worship services and don’t effectively take the gospel off campus into the world around us.
I don’t have a problem with doctrine, either. We need doctrine! Only, we need right doctrine, which is the doctrine of love (grace) you are getting at instead of the false doctrine of control that shows up in too many western churches. Good doctrine, like the gospel from which it comes, will set us free to love one another (Galatians 5). Let’s keep talking as a church about what this right doctrine is and learn how to operate out of grace and love as you discern.
The problem as I see it is that we are dealing with distinct paradigms. In the sanctification process, there appears to be a definite threshold point, a line we cross where our whole attitude and outlook changes: we get what I see as a deeper vision of truth, the growing ability to clearly discern soul from spirit, finite from eternal. Those who have yet to reach or cross that threshold, cannot possibly comprehend what lies on the other side.The changes in attitude and outlook of those who have crossed the line looks like apostasy or madness from the pre-threshold point of view, such as the attitude about mysticism from the conservative stance.
Egoic needs (Certainty, Control, Safety) still hold way in First-Halfers; letting go of those needs seems the same as leaving the faith, for they have become so intertwined as to be indsitinguishable.
It came to me one morning, in the middle of my daily To Do List, that ‘integrity has no intent.’ I did not comprehend this message immediately. For me, intention made me who I was and what I believed in. My motivations deeply mattered. Then over the months I began to observe, just glimpse, what those words meant. The Father does the works…if I completely open to His care. My only action is surrender out of love; it is not to do or achieve anything else. The one virtue is “kidding” myself, allowing for the grace “to become as a little child.” A child’s innocence is unintended. If I need to think about being patient or honest or caring and then act accordingly, believing this is how a Christian should act, I miss the mark. Such “acting” has to die to “becoming” as Christ, and for that, again, surrender is the only path. I am to live by inspiration, not motivation. I am to become simply a means without ends.
This way is still new to me and still occasional, but it is an entirely new outlook that I feel can only be gotten by grace. No merit.