I never realized till I left California (2 years ago) how different the traditional church there, is to my experience of church in other parts. A traditional church in California tends to have a group of people coming together in a strip mall shopping center where the church is renting some office space / store and has a number of chairs lined up side by side to look like pews. The people show up in anything from the really casual attire such as jeans and a t-shirt to slightly more dressy attire such as “business casual”. Or I think you call it “smart casual” if my memory serves. The traditional church in this part of the world tends to sing songs to a “rock band” in some form of contemporary worship and then the pastor will speak. This is such a contrast to “traditional” church in NY and England where there are pews and big gothic looking churches which remind you in their splendor how big God is in comparision with us. This form of traditional church has an actual priest in most cases who dresses in the traditional robes and communion is taken with real wine instead of grape juice. Having grown up in the first and not in the later, my concept of church tends to be more modern and contemporary in comparision with my later counterparts. In a church much like the second type that I speak of, I tend to get very uncomfortable and uneasy. It is hard for me to relate to and understand the ritual and liturgy of that style. I try to connect with it but I don’t know how. The thing for me here is that this style is not something I am accustomed to so I don’t understand why we need to go through each step of the liturgy to reach out and touch God because to me God is reachable whether or not we make those steps. If I want to speak to God right here and now I do not need to walk through each of those steps, I just simply call out. If I want to understand God’s thoughts and mind, I read the word. I don’t need an experience of God or have a ritual to tell me God is here with me, right here, right now.

Therefore, the reason I write this here and now is because I am a part of the emerging church movement here in NYC and having become a part of this I have started down a very different path of exploration in my walk with Christ than at any other time in my life. A time when I feel like I may be truly discovering for myself what it means to be a Christian. A time of vulnerability and openess which allows me to really take apart the teachings of the past and reconstruct them. I feel this time will teach me more about Christ than I have ever known before and through it more about myself.

The Emerging Church seems to stem out of that second type of church that I mentioned earlier but there are a lot of things about it that interest me and a lot of things about it that I question. You see my journey in this direction started more than 10 years ago when I met a few guys at an alternative christian concert. They were wearing a Tourniquet T-shirt. Some of you may have been around long enough in that scene to know of whom I speak of, others, may not. For those that weren’t Tourniquet was your average everyday metal band with a twist. They were Christians. The music was really good and certainly not that cheesy 80′s type stuff most of us know all too well (like Amy Grant and Michael W Smith). You could almost say this started my descent into my dark side but really as I look back on it now it was a spiritual journey I was led on. By this time I had only been a christian for about 3 years; I barely knew or understood all the tenements of being a Christian. But much like the Steve Taylor song, “I just want to be a clone”, the church was doing a fine job of making sure I understood “their” idea of Jesus. My idea of Jesus was being formed at that ripe young age of 17. That meeting eventually led me into the gothic scene and into the alternative church… Interestingly enough I had many a member of that conservative church (way back in high school) tell me that they were concerned for my soul… Me hanging out with these people in black… I would usually just smile and tell them they didn’t really understand and not to worry, God had my back. After all, I knew Jesus had hung out with prostitutes and “outsiders”, so why couldn’t I hang out with the goths? I bet Jesus would.

Years later, I discovered Sanctuary in San Diego, California. Sanctuary was about 10 members strong, all gothic, all the time. It was ran by a man infamously known as Pastor Dave. Many of the goths in the area knew him, they knew of his style and his leanings toward Christ. They knew that he would come out to the local goth clubs and hang out with them. They knew that he was real, he could be trusted, and that he loved them. He was well loved by the scene too and now has over 200+ goths on his myspace friends list from all over the world. His church, Sanctuary, may have been gothic on the outside, with gothic worship and gothic leaning themes in messages but it was always strong in the word and in encouraging the people to really know Christ through his word and through spending time with him. The message was loud and clear that if you wanted and needed to know Christ the only way to do it was through his word.

Sanctuary later led me to Asylum in London. London was many things to me but the main thing London was to me was a turning point in my walk with God. For reasons I won’t get into my faith wavered during my time in London. For the first time in my life I doubted God. I wanted to believe but I had lost my trust. It certainly wasn’t Asylum’s fault. Asylum was much like Sanctuary only more heavy metal leaning (at the time any way). No, the fault was all mine. The decisions I made and the direction in which I was going led me to believe the church (the body worldwide) was, simply put, a complete and utter wreck. I had up to that point for years been watching people get hurt by the church. I watched hypocrites hurt one after another and I swore up and down I would not be one of them. BUT it happened… I DID become one. I didn’t mean for it to happen of course. I meant for it to go another way but it did happen and I can’t go back to change it, I know that. The thing I did learn from that though is that I had come to a point of “toxic faith”. I acted like I didn’t believe in God and made many a stupid decision. Yet deep in my heart I really couldn’t turn my back on God completely. I really truly wanted to but it wasn’t happening. I had had a real divine experience. So while I acted like a non-believer (whatever that might mean), I continued to go to church. This was a downward spiral into darkness.

Life marched on and I returned to California, during which time as I continued to walk around blind and lost till I discovered Regeneration, whom helped to set it right. My time at Regen helped me to see what was meant by a healthy church. People were hungry to hear God’s word. They would all bring their bibles to church and get excited about passages such as Leviticus, which most Christians choose to cower in fear of. These people would pray without ceasing, seek every moment of every day after God, they were walking talking true blue to the core healthy Christians. (Now keep in mind I am not saying that any of the churches previously mentioned didn’t have that, but this is the first of all of them to have such a DIVERSE crowd of people whom were ALL like that.) This church had the homeless and the rich, the student and the professional, the accountant and the creative. It was probably the first time I had really seen the idea of the Christian church being one body of different functions. It was a place of protection and growth for many. A place we could share our hardships and know that people would build us up, pray for us, and get us back on the move again. To me this is what I would call the first century church. This is how the church should be and should act. However, I have noticed a trend towards experiencing God because people are “sick of the Word”. This presents a lot of problems for me. Having had a “toxic” faith that was built more on my experience of God rather than what God has to say in His Word, I know where that “experience” of God can lead and I am not just saying this for myself but for others.

There’s a movement called the faith movement (that may or may not still be around). If you have ever been to one of their gatherings you shouldn’t be surprised to hear that people run around dancing in the aisles (during the sermon) and fall over and start shaking and go up for healings that never really happen despite being told it has. People in these movements are often worked into a frenzy through the worship till they end up following suggestions of the pastor later. Walking because they have been said to be healed only to find that they can’t. Not taking medicine because they were told they were healed and ending up in the hospital because of it. This is a very dangerous pattern that begins to develop for people through these movements. Over time people begin to lose faith and eventually turn from God because of such actions. Over time they lose sight of the fact that God loves them just as they are, if they ever knew that in the first place. This is where the “experience” of God gets dangerous. It is when people are not taking it upon them to learn and to be as wise as serpants and yet as gentle as doves. Instead often times they end up just the opposite and forget to love their neighbor as themselves.

Now I have yet to see this in the emerging church so far so good but I do worry that it sets a dangerous precedent to head right down that sort of road. I do understand the need to meet a generation where it is at and to make the message fresh. I understand the desire to show that you do love us as a generation and that you are not like the forefathers before you whom may have rained a God of hate and judgment over us but we don’t want “buddy Jesus”. We want a real person. We want to know whom he is and was. Jesus was a rebel but the church has made him soft. Jesus was passionate but the church has made him dispassionate.

So then I ask of the emerging church who on the surface seems to seek experience over the Word, how then will you teach us of God? How will we know God if we do not learn what God has to say? How will we grow if you do not challenge us to? Will we become a generation who seeks one experience of God after another, never being secure in our faith? How are we to know after all that God loves us if we cannot feel it, time and time again? God says in the Word that we are to be secure in our faith and know that we are loved but where is that balance if we only know a God of our experiences rather than a God whom has transcended time and generations to meet us exactly where we are at?

I have been through both good and bad times and even in all those moments when I have questioned God’s role in my life, I can see God standing there, holding my hand, carrying me, guiding me slowly… step by step back.

I was discussing my experiences abroad and experiences of pure terror with a roommate tonight. Like my experience in Montreal, when I ended up homeless from poor planning on my part and ended up having my stuff thrown out (put in the basement) and a landlord after me for money I never owed (don’t know where he got the idea I owed him anything). The police ended up on the scene (I can’t remember how) and escorted me from the place to a “safe house” (read Salvation Army). I remember feeling so devastated from that experience. I remember crying for 2 hours straight because I was scared and alone. I had no one to run to, no one to trust, no where to go, but there…

It was in that moment that a transformation took place in my life and I realize now that God orchestrated that in my life. Why? Well, I needed that moment to prepare me for greatness. I needed that moment to shake me free of my fears of ending up homeless on the streets without a hope in the world. I needed that moment to strengthen my resolve and transform me. And that it did.

I no longer fear ending up homeless on the streets. I know what I can do. I know that I can make it out alive and that God will be there, walking with me. Little did I understand that would lead to 4 years of pain and anguish and hard times. Hard times where I would see the dark side of my soul and feel like I was walking through the bleak lands of darkness without God. I would feel that God wasn’t there. God’s wasn’t in my life or a part of my life. In fact I questioned if God even existed at all! And then out of pure desperation for change from 4 years of constant change and constant movement and knowing only slightly more than a hand to mouth existence (i.e. providing a roof, transport, and food for myself), would God deliver me into a period of more transformation!

However the difference between this transformation in my life and the times past is I am now empowered. Because God has placed in my life a path for forward movement, a path I so desperately sought and desired. Slowly but surely, I will find success. Here I am… on the road to greatness but not greatness sought by man… but rather greatness sought by the One who calls me to this life.

Today I saw God in my life so clearly because of two little things:

My friend and I were looking at our horoscopes. I don’t put stock in horoscopes usually as I find they are usually way off base for my life. However, this time it was like God was saying… “Here I am” as I was told blatantly through this means things I already felt I knew. Things I had been thinking or struggling with were there in the horoscope and it left me a bit astounded. Most people would think it’s the horoscope but I think it was God speaking to me and showing me God’s with me, reminding me, God loves me and reminding me of the call on my life.

Then I came home and a roommate was rather upset for reason I won’t go into but as she began to talk once again I felt God in the room with us as if orchestrating this moment, right here and now. I walked away thinking, “Ok God, I’m listening…”

Different than Isaac’s definition of the Emerging Church, this type of church may have had an authority figure at the top, but from where it stood it was changing the notions of convention. It wasn’t the dress-up-and-look-your-best-shop-talk type of church. Rather, to give an example, it was about 6-7 people dressed in all black, makeup covering their faces, looking edgy, some might say gothic, in a dark basement lit by candlelight, singing gothic worship songs (to this day I am not even sure I can describe that!), and talking about a particular passage in the bible. It was a place where people like this could feel safe and could meet God where they were in their lives without the criticisms of those whom were more “conservative” in style. This church and it’s corresponding music reached out to a generation of young people whom weren’t being touch by “conventional wisdom”.

The musicians – bands like Delieverance, Vengence Rising, Tourniquet, the Violet Burning, Echoing Green, and others – were ridiculed and called demon worshipers dressed in sheeps’ clothing. Yet I couldn’t tell you the number of people they reached. It has always stuck out in my mind. They stood out because they were different and in some form were an image of Christ on this earth. They were the outcasts who were reaching out to other outcasts and providing a spiritual form of healing through music.

One song in particular, which had a great influence on my life, was Steve Taylor‘s “I Want to be a Clone”. Steve Taylor’s comments and criticism about the estabilished church reach out to the disillusioned and challenge those who “clothe themselves in righteousness” but forget the very foundations of Christ – His love. Thus, without further ado, the lyrics:

I’d gone through so much other stuff
that walking down the aisle was tough
but now I know it’s not enough
I want to be a clone

I asked the Lord into my heart
they said that was the way to start
but now you’ve got to play the part
I want to be a clone

chorus:
Be a clone and kiss conviction goodnight
cloneliness is next to Godliness, right?
I’m grateful that they show the way
’cause I could never know the way
to serve him on my own
I want to be a clone

They told me that I’d fall away
unless I followed what they say
who needs the Bible anyway?
I want to be a clone

Their language it was new to me
but Christianese got through to me
now I can speak it fluently
I want to be a clone

(chorus)

Send in the clones
Ah, I kind of wanted to tell my friends and people about it, you know
What?
You’re still a babe
you have to grow
give it twenty years or so
’cause if you want to be one of his
got to act like one of us

(chorus)

So now I see the whole design
my church is an assembly line
the parts are there
I’m feeling fine
I want to be a clone

I’ve learned enough to stay afloat
but not so much I rock the boat
I’m glad they shoved it down my throat
I want to be a clone

Everybody must get cloned

From “Now the Truth Can be Told” by Steve Taylor © 1994 Sparrow Records

11:5 – By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death…

11:7 – By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family.

11:8 – By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.

Great stuff!

“More love, more power
More of You in my life
More love, more power
More of You in my life.

I will worship You with all of my heart
And I will worship You with all of my mind
And I will worship You with all of my strength
For you are my Lord
You are my Lord.

More faith, more passion
More of You in my life
More faith, more passion
More of You in my life

I will worship You with all of my heart
And I will worship You with all of my mind
And I will worship You with all of my strength
For you are my Lord
You are my Lord.

More love, more power
More of You in my life
More love, more power
More of You in my life.

I will worship You with all of my heart
And I will worship You with all of my mind
And I will worship You with all of my strength
For you are my Lord
You are my Lord.”

Q:”What is it like to have God as a friend? Do you go
ice skating together and stuff?”

A:No way man, God prefers 10-pin bowling then,a drink in 12-Bar then to
wonkies for Chinese!

————————————

I think this illustrates the differences between Catholic/Anglican/Episcopalian traditions verses the Non-Denominational traditions… The vision of how we see God… Is¬†God “buddy jesus”? Or like Eddie Izzard, “Look, I went down there and told them to be groovy and then they split into different groups…!”, or as others have said of Jesus, as a “free love hippie” before his time?

We are all different and need to find our own personal vision of who¬†God is. Isn’t it interesting to see how different we can be from each other? Yet, through that how deep God truly is to be able to create and socialize with us each.

What do you think?

—————————————

Today we ask ourselves: what are the benefits of Scripture meditation? They are beyond telling. Here, however, are just some of the benefits the Bible offers those who will take the time to meditate: (1) success – Joshua 1:8; (2) understanding – Psalm 119:99; (3) an ability to discern between right and wrong – Psalm 119:11. But the one that is most appropriate to our present theme is the one we have already looked at in Psalm 1 – spiritual freshness.

The psalm makes it clear that one of the secrets of staying spiritually fresh is to send one’s roots down into the Word of God by meditation. In my teens I knew a man, a miner by trade, whose spiritual freshness and radiance was responsible for turning many people to Jesus Christ. Just before he died, and in the company of several other Christians, I asked him: “What is the secret of your spiritual freshness? You always seem to be on top of things, always radiant ? tell me how you maintain this inner poise and power.” He replied in one word – meditation.

I pressed him for some further thoughts on the subject. This is not a verbatim quotation, but as far as I can remember, this is what he said: “Meditation is letting your heart become the workshop of the unseen Sculptor who chisels in its secret chambers the living forms that contribute to character development and an increasing likeness to Jesus Christ.” That old man, now in heaven, was one of the greatest illustrations I have ever known of the spiritual freshness and fruitfulness that comes from meditating on God’s Word. His experience can be ours – if we meditate.

O Father, help me to master the art of meditation, so that through the written Word and by the meditated Word, those around me may see the Living Word. Amen.

Rom. 10:1-9; Deut. 11:18; Prov. 6:23; 2 Cor. 3:3
What happens when the word is in our hearts?
What was Paul’s testimony of the Corinthians?

As someone coming from the nondenominational side of things, I can understand where the author is coming from.

The last time I remember doing liturgy of any form was in a Presbytarian church when I was 6. That was before my mom was diagnosed with cancer and we moved to a nondenominational church with a passionate pastor who had a thing for money. It was remarked of him that he was more business man than pastor but that’s another story for another time.

Episcopalians like most in churchdome have their own language and it’s one I have been slowly getting to know. I still have so many questions and concerns! Thus seeing an article writen by one about her own experiences “crossing over” makes me feel far less alone in this adventure.

Oh and don’t worry, my mom is alive and well to talk about it (feisty one that she is). Thank God.

Dear all in my beloved fellowship,

Once again my life has taken another dramatic turn. This one the biggest yet. My sister Devonnie is dying. She is in the hospital
right now in a coma and the Doctors say there is no hope. She overdosed on heroin and was without oxygen to her brain for several
hours. My father found her gasping for air in the morning. I will know the outcome later today but she is most likely going to be a
vegetable and my parents will have to make the heart wrenching decision of pulling the plug. This will be especially hard for my
mother who lost her own brother to heroin when she was about my age. I am in shock. I will have to go back to America sometime in the
next few days probably for two months or so, I guess I will come back to the UK in January. Hopefully my visa will come through all
right. I desperately need your prayers. I hope everyone can come this Sunday for the prayer meeting because I will need it. Please
pray all day today for a miracle!!! Only God doing a miracle will save her. Medically speaking she has no hope. She is only 17!!!
Thanks for loving and caring for me all these years, you guys are my family… I love you more than words could ever express.

Please Pray:

For a miracle to save Devonnie’s life and that she won’t have brain damage. For the pain of my family, they are unstable and could turn suicidal themselves For strength for me going back home, this terrifies me. For my Visa to come through OK.