Category Archives: Stories

What is the Bible?

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I delivered this on Sunday at Fusion, and I’m sharing it here, too.  The idea is to probe questioning and begin discussion.  Join in!

What is the Bible?

I think we can all basically agree that this is an important book

It’s certainly one of the most distributed books of all time

It’s definitely the most translated book of all time

Millions of people—probably billions of people are reading it today all around the world

We talk about it here every Sunday and throughout the week at B3 and one to another.

A lot of us read it a lot.  Maybe every day, maybe every once in awhile, maybe every now and then

Most people read it at two of the most significant days in our lives—our weddings and our funerals

So we both celebrate with it and mourn with it—and all kinds of places in between

We have Bible churches and Bible colleges and Bible studies

There are millions of other books that tell us how to read this book and tell us what it’s all about

There are hundreds of different translations just in English

There are high schools and universities and communities and denominations and religions

that are defined by the way they read this book

Some people call themselves “biblical Christians” or tout “Bible-based teaching” in their churches

Some people say they read the Bible “literally” and some people say they read it “metaphorically”

Some people want to “interpret the Bible”—others think they don’t need no interpretation and they just read the thing ‘cause they can read thank you very much

We talk about context and pretext and subtext

What is this text?

Really, what is the Bible?

We sometimes call it the Word of God, the Holy Bible, The Word, etc.

Most of us know “Bible” has something to do with the word “book”.  Is it the book?  Is it a book?

Let’s start with the most undisputable facts:

It’s books, not book.  Thinking of the Bible as a single book is actually a somewhat newer phenomenon in our tradition.  Obviously we know that there are many books inside, but the terminological difference here between the singular and plural is subtle and significant.  The word “Bible” comes from the plural noun “biblia” and was known shortly after as τὰ βιβλία τὰ ἅγια—“the holy books”

So talking about “the Bible” as one thing is saying something already.  I think we’re implying a kind of unity and singularity.  Do we want to do that?

It’s a collection of Hebrew, Aramaic, and Greek texts from all different times and all different places.  How could it be that people writing from so many different political regimes and schools of thought and accepted social customs, that people writing in so many different genres and different styles and different languages, how could it be that they are all making one thing, telling one story?

If the authors of all the books of the Bible were here right now, what do you think they would say about that?

But is that the point?  Does it matter what the people who wrote these books thought about them?  Can God lift a text out of its context?

The Protestant Bible has 66 books.  Other Bibles in the Catholic and Orthodox traditions add a few more.  Wisdom, Tobit, Maccabees, Baruch, Sirach and others.  How did that happen?

Along time ago, before Jesus even, scholars began to translate Hebrew into Greek, the language that was becoming more and more the go-to language of the times.  When these bilingual Jews translated the Hebrew texts, there were a few books that were sort of up for grabs.  Some Jews considered them significant, inspired works.  But ancient Jewish scholars rejected them as being equal with the Five books of the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms, etc. for a number of reasons, most notably that some of these other texts were newer—Only a hundred or so years old, as opposed to three or four hundred. They called this translation the Septuagint, which means 70, because supposedly 70 different translators worked together on it.

After that, Greek speakers and readers became familiar with these “apocryphal” books.  The New Testament got written in Greek a little ways after that.

More than a thousand years later, and after many years of usage and after some debate from the thinkers of the church about whether or not they were equal with the other writings,  more than 10 books got dropped from the canon.  The Reformation theologians thought only the books that the Jews were sure of should be in.  Period.  Some people weren’t even entirely sure about the New Testament—Luther specifically questioned whether the Book of James should be in scripture, at one point calling it “a letter of straw.”  Should we automatically follow the lead of these forefathers of the faith, though?  Has anyone hear even heard of, never mind read, Baruch or Sirach?

Part of what I’m getting at is this: what is the canon of scripture?

First off, what the heck is a canon?

It meant something like standard or measuring stick originally, and it’s come to mean a settled, official list of something.

This dispute over the apocryphal or deutero-canonical books, “the later canon” of the Old Testament was not officially decided on by the Catholic church until the 1500s.  That was a long time after the New Testament had been settled, a few minor questions aside.

So awhile back Christians decided that we had to make a tidy list of the books of scripture that were in the club.  In the 300s, there was something called the Council of Nicea (Nicea is a town near Istanbul) that brought all these priests and political officials together to decide what books belonged in the New Testament and what books didn’t.  There were fistfights.

But we ended up with the New Testament.  And we all seem to be pretty happy with what they came up with.  Sure, there a couple people who will go seek out the books they rejected and say this, that, and the other thing.  But for the most part, we really don’t think about it.  It’s rare enough that we find a few peaceful moments to open up the darn book and read something.  Are we really going to spend that time questioning whether or not they got every detail right about it thousands of years ago?

And really, we trust God, right?  Why would he have let his church make such a huge mistake?  If God can raise the dead and do miracles and save our souls, surely he can help us get the Bible right, right?  Shouldn’t we just have faith in the Council of Nicea?  That God was there, took care of things, and now we can move on to something more interesting?

But hasn’t God constantly let his church and his people make colossal mistakes?  Isn’t that what so much of the Old Testament, the Hebrew Scriptures are all about?  And can’t we see obvious signs in the history of the Christian church that God is letting us sort out our own issues: Inquisition, Crusades, Slavery, Racism, Sexism, Entitlement to trash the Earth?

But come on, wouldn’t God want to get this one thing right?  His Word?  How else could we even begin to understand who He is?  It just makes sense that God would guide the creation of the Bible and the Council of Nicea.

Maybe. But why are we so sure?  Why are we so less sure about the other church councils on the veneration of Mary, Christ literally being in eucharist, and infant baptism?

Well, all that aside, here we are with the Bible our Protestant heritage has given us.  66 books.  Genesis to Revelation.

But the last 200 hundred years have raised a lot of questions about this book.

Scholars and students and pastors all started asking the questions that a post-Enlightenment culture would want to ask:

Yeah, I’ve read it, but is it real?

Is Genesis mythology?

Can we really trust the histories of the Hebrew people in Exodus, Joshua, Samuel, Kings, etc.?  Are they even really works of history as we think of it today?

Did Jesus really rise from the dead?

Was there even a real person named Jesus?  How can we even prove it?

Scholars in the 1800s and the 1900s put the Bible through the meat grinder of cross examination.  They challenged a lot of things that were held as gospel truth for a long time.

They challenged whether the Bible was really accurate at all

They challenged how “inspired” it really was and what it even means to be “inspired”

They challenged whether Paul really wrote Colossians, Ephesians, and I and II Timothy

They challenged whether the Gospel of John really recorded the words of Jesus

They challenged the miracles

They said some of the Old Testament was Hebrew propaganda

They challenged the way Christians had used prophetic passages to predict Christ

They said actually this was written much later than you thought

and this probably wasn’t written by the guy you thought it was

A lot of people in the church didn’t pay much attention.  Some people thought they were all just crazy liberals who were trying to undermine the true gospel.  Some people thought it should be us vs. them.  But others just wanted to come to a place on Sunday where they could hear the words of peace and truth they had grown up with.  To a place of encouragement and familiarity.

How should we think about writers and scholars that question the Bible?  Are they enemies, heretics, liars— friends, brother and sisters?

Some people say that the Bible is God’s perfect word.  Is it inspired or inerrant or infallible?

Did God verbally inspire every author in every time and place and only every author at every time and place?  Is every “and” or “but” just right?

Does it get every historical, scientific fact right?  Or maybe we can let some that stuff slide—maybe it just gets everything right about our salvation?

How can we know that?  What’s our evidence?

And what do we have to believe about the Bible to be good Christians?

Anything?

Interestingly, the Nicene Creed, the church’s classic early statement of faith, has almost nothing to say about the Bible. It says that the Holy Spirit spoke through the Prophets.

That’s it.

It really wasn’t until quite a bit later—after the Reformation— that the church started making pretty specific claims about how God “made” the Bible.

But enough of that.  How should we read this book, this Bible that we have?  One chapter at a time, a story at a time, a verse at time?  A book at a time?

With some historical context?  Or can we just pick it up and read?

And can all these verses and chapters and books and authors really be telling a single story?  Is it even reasonable to think that a letter from 60 AD and a book of depressing poetry from 500 years before that and a catalogue of visions and judgments and political commentary from even before that could make a single book with a single thesis?

These are questions to chew on.  Let’s talk about them.  Let’s listen carefully to each other.

I want to end with a personal reflection on this book.  It’s not a theological or historical or critical reflection.  It’s a reflection that comes out of reading this thing on and off and back on and back off and so on for probably 11 or so years.

This is a library

and a sanctuary

and a book of life.

I have sometimes found in it

a beautiful and amazing vision

that imagines human beings bound

together with God and together

together

in the kind of love that won’t hold it over you

when you act so selfish you forget everyone else exists

or when you had a huge blowout because you were stressed.

I have sometimes thought this book was wrong

or didn’t make any sense

or didn’t apply to me

and I have sometimes wondered if there’s much truth in here.

I’ve often found it filled with hope

and compassion.

This book tells a lot of stories

that only people who are

burnt out

and beat down

and screwed up could get.

This book is a treasure that is more

scandalous, more surprising, more mysterious,

more challenging, and more interesting

than I have often given it credit for.

It is a lamp unto my feet and a light

unto my path.

Christmas Rant

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For the past 3 years around Christmas I’ve had conversations with well meaning Christians who, frustrated with the commercialization of the holiday, believe the whole thing is pagan, never was about Jesus, “has its roots in everything but Christ” and isn’t worth celebrating at all. “We know” of course; “Jesus wasn’t born on Dec. 25th, so we’re just copying everyone else…”
On the Christmas was never about Jesus topic, I like what historian Jonathan Hill writes in, “What has Christianity Ever Done for Us?”
“Some Christian festivals did indeed have pagan forebears. Christmas, for example, is often associated with festivals such as Yule and Saturnalia… Christians chose to celebrate the birth of Christ not at the same time as Saturnalia (dec. 21), but half way between that festival and another, the Calends of January. The idea was that the Christians would have something of their own (to celebrate) while everyone else was recovering from Saturnalia…That, at least, was the explanation given by St. John Chrysostom, who lived at the end of the fourth century…when this date was fixed for good…
As Christianity spread…collapse of Roman empire…old festival began to be displaced by the new, it was inevitable that many of the old customs would remain but be Christianized. Much of what we know as part of Christmas comes from Yule and other celebrations of the solstice, but Christmas itself was not based on those older festivals…So the Christians may have taken over parts of the pagan past, but we know this, because they told us so themselves.”
This is such great incite, because in Christianity today, we tend to throw out everything with that hints of differing ideas, when we are actually called to redeem and restore everything to a place where it is all good, life giving, and honoring to God.
“This is our present festival. This is what we are celebrating today – the coming of God to man…so that we might return to God… So let us keep the feast, not like a heathen festival, but in a godly way – not in the way of the world, but in a way above the world – not as if it were ours, but as it belongs to him who is ours, our Master’s – not as of weakness, but as of healing – not as of creation, but of re-creation.” – Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 38, on the birthday of Christ, AD 380
This is the movement of Christ, continuity and discontinuity…not to abolish, but to fulfill. Christians believed they were called to enter the world as it is and to renew and restore it. Part of what that meant to them was to take whatever they could from the culture that was “upright, good, and true” and to celebrate it and wherever they could, to redefine it so that it pointed to the greatest truth that is Christ and his story.
One example is the evergreen plants. In the Scandinavian region the solstice celebration was called Yule. A large tree branch or even a whole tree was little by little feed into the fire over the coarse of the celebration as an offering to Thor, the Norse god of thunder. Holly, ivy and mistletoe were prized for their evergreen qualities, representing hope that all trees would regain their leaves in the spring. Christians directed the evergreen qualities to the hope we have in Christ, and pointed out how the red holly berries symbolize the blood of Christ. The modern Christmas tree is said to have begun when the reformer, Martin Luther, after delighting in the beauty of fallen snow sparkling on an evergreen tree cut one down and set it up in his home, decorating it with candles so he could share this story with his children. He decorated it with candles, which he lighted in honor of Christ’s birth.
So what about Santa & gifts? Things do get a bit mixed up here, but I think we have much to celebrate and redeem. St. Nicholas of Myra lived in the 4th century, around the time the date of Christmas was being established… Stories were told that he threw money through a window to help the poor. His Birthday was celebrated on 6 Dec. and often people gave gifts to one another in his honor.
It has been suggested that Dutch settlers living in now, NY city had to wait weeks for their St. Nicholas presents to reach them from Europe, mixing gift giving up with Christmas…
When the British took the city in 1664, they brought the Germanic Father Christmas who became confused with St. Nick or in Dutch, Sinter Klass…The German Father Christmas – goes back to the Wild Hunt of Yule. During Yule, the god Odin was said to lead the Wild host on a ride through the winter skys bringing the promise of fertility…Father Christmas rewards good children while a sinister figure named Ruprecht actually punishes bad children with a stick…
So, yes, there are some roots of our current Christmas traditions in America that were not part of the early Christian redemption of the celebrations. I think the question for us is, how are we going to honor the early Christian’s intent to both celebrate jesus birth, (which everyone knew was not on dec. 25.) and to redeem everything possible out of culture?

Tell Me All Your Thoughts on God: Celebration of Discipline: An introduction

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Re-Posted with permission

CELEBRATION OF DISCIPLINE: AN INTRODUCTION
The following post is the first in a series of reflections as I read and work through the book “Celebration of Discipline” in an effort to dig deeply into the Spiritual Life. If you have any questions, comments, concerns, or links that you’d want to share, please comment and do so! And if you want to link and share these posts with someone, feel free! Follow along as I go through this, because as anyone who has lived deeply knows, there is no way we do this “life” thing without community.

Introduction To My Discipleship:
First, HELLO! and welcome to one of my many blogs. This one is one I occasionally use to thought-dump about God. If you’re interested in my others, let me know. But why this? What’s going on?

A few weeks ago, I sat down with Bryan Bessette, the pastor of Fusion Community Church in Durham (also part of Chi Alpha Campus Ministries) to figure out a course of spiritual discipleship over the next year. There are plenty of reasons for it… and everyone loves lists! So, why I am doing this “discipleship” thing:

  1. After interviewing with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, in effort to become a staff worker on UNH’s campus, there was a mutual sense that I wasn’t ready for this. I have been a self-proclaimed “Christian” for just over 2 years now, and while my mind is sharp and I know a lot of historical details, I am truly young in my spiritual life and understanding. Thus, IV wisely suggested that I dig deeper into my faith, learn more, and take steps away from the college campus.
  2. This summer, while it was amazing (another blog about thathere), was also really concerning for me. I have been saying one thing about my faith, and then doing other things that went against my understanding of sin and sinful behavior. If a bunch of red flags or question marks go up at the mention of “sin”, feel free to start that conversation! But I’ll leave it at that.
  3. The day after Hurricane Irene, when I realized that I was in a completely hypocritical spot (my professed faith did NOT match up with my behavior), I went for a long prayer walk. I found myself sitting in a local Catholic Church pew, praying off a hang-over, doing the Rosary about 10 times (having never prayed the Rosary fully in my life before), and going in and out ofconsciousness (napping, not anything else!).
  4. From that moment, that prayer walk and recognition of how I had much more to learn, I came away with one word: Discipline. God and I both agreed on that. If my life is anything, it is disorganized and undisciplined. I know that I have a lot of “potential” in my life that God blessed me with, but in order to unlock and that focus it, it will require a great sense of discipline.

After meeting with Bryan a number of times, and talking with Ben Sturgill, the IV staff worker at UNH, and having my plans of being at UNH fall thru, it was time to choose someone to be the man who could help guide me in this process, leading me deeper into understanding and experiencing my faith, and who could challenge me in my thoughts and hold me accountable. Bryan became the natural and actually “easy” choice. Easy because we had already fallen into a pattern of meeting for coffee. Natural because in Bryan I see a man whose curiosity and questions and over-analysis match or exceed mine.

Bryan’s posture is one I want to emulate: Every time I talk to him, I get the sincere feeling that this conversation could change his beliefs.

That’s not to say that he is fickle in his faith or beliefs, but rather that he is truly open to seeing the world from a different perspective, of evaluating that perspective, and of rationally discerning which perspective is the most “true”. Bryan is a Truth seeker. This is what I have always aimed and determined to be.

The Course of Study:
After determining that Bryan was going to be the main guy I go to for discipleship, we had to figure out a course of action. What was it that I needed to work on? We agreed to meet up the following week with a list of 3 things we both thought I needed focus on.

Thankfully, our lists were almost exactly the same:

  1. Breadth of Scripture
  2. Spiritual Discipline
  3. Service

Quick note on all of those.

Breadth of Scripture- Though I was raised Roman Catholic, and have professed belief in Christ and in the Bible as the Word of God, and though I am very skeptical etc., I have never actually read the Bible front to back. I’ve “tried”, but reading solo is not easy, especially when I don’t have that excited feeling that I see so many others get when it comes to reading the Bible. I’ll reflect on this more in another post. Regardless, I wanted someone to lay out for me a course of study, and to hold me to it. This was/is the perfect opportunity.

Spiritual Discipline- This is the most personal of all of the focuses, and going to be THE subject of my blog posts in this blog. I cannot stress how beautiful and important I believe the spiritual disciplines to be. I have met many Christians and non-Christians with varying degrees of self-discipline and ability to focus. The one thing I’ve noticed is that those who seem to be the most Holy, or God-loving, are those who practice these disciplines either consciously or unknowingly. Truly inspirational, and truly where I want to be. I’ll reflect on this in the next post when I talk about the introduction to the book.

Service- Anyone that knows me in my daily life understands that I am a big talker about Community Service and Volunteerism. I love the idea, I live to serve, and I… frankly don’t do nearly enough service. This one is straight forward: I need to stop talking and start doing. Thus, I’ve asked Bryan to help guide me in this, to discovering what service means, to figure out the different aspects of it, both large (think “mission trip to Africa”) and small (think “picking up a candy wrapper on the way to class”).

Keep your eye on the prize!

So where does all of this leave us/me/you/God/them/insert-pronoun.

Well, you’re sitting (probably) at a computer somewhere and reading this. If you’ve gotten this far, it means that either you really don’t want to do what you “need” to get done, or that something in all of this intrigues and interests you. Good for both. I applaud and am a fan of procrastinating. Not unhealthily, but here’s my point: procrastination is sometimes our minds way of saying “woah, slow down, pump the breaks and figure outwhy you’re doing any of this in the first place… and then Go.”

If you’re the procastinater, figure out what you’re putting off, then figure out why you need to do that, then figure out why it is you’re not doing it. Sure it’s not the same advice as my dad would give “Just get it done!”. But in many ways I am not my father. Eventually, you have to “do it”, but only if you truly desire and believe the end-goal is most worth it.

Which is why I did so horribly in college, because for the most part I did not and do not desire to live the American Dream. I did not and do not desire to get a degree to earn a lot of money to take care of my family and myself and live comfortably and “happily”. That’s far too shallow and our world, our God, and our possibilities have so much more to say about living life!

And for me, I have to start on a very personal level in order to understand how to make God’s vision of Heaven a reality here on Earth. I am going to be involved in “Kingdom Work” in some way, but how can I do that if I haven’t begun to let God do His work within me?

Thus, I’ll be reading the books “The Drama of Scripture” and “The Story” for the next few months to get a deeper appreciation of the wider story of the Bible. Of course that will bring up questions and deeper closer scrutiny, but that’s the point.

I’ll be doing regular service, hopefully weekly, and reflecting up on that service on the blog at CatFroPrinting.comAnd lastly, what you’ll read here, I will be digging deeper into the Traditional Spiritual Disciplines in “Celebration of Discipline“.Hopefully you’ll join me on this journey, in some way. One of my prayers, when I am at my most connected to God (not every day, sadly) is that all of my actions will point to Him and glorify Him in some way. This is the same of my writings. If that you get anything out of these posts, please let me know, but more importantly, share. If you get riled up or have questions, feel free to ask and discuss. If you’re in the area, we can get coffee etc.

Anywho, enjoy life, get back to whatever you’re taking a break from, and God’s peace be on you and your soul.

Yours in Love,
~Sean Edward Seamus Matthews

Original blog posted at blogger Tell Me All Your Thoughts on God: Celebration of Discipline: An introduction.

The Slow Movement by Sara Scanlon

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 Listen to Sara as she tells her story live, or read on…


Sara's Water Baptism
Where do I start? Do I begin on March 20, 2011 when I went to church for the first time with the intention of understanding Christianity and the God that I came to believe in so heartily? Do I begin my sophomore year of college when I became good friends with 2 wonderful people who happen to be religious as well? What about in High School, where I decided that I did not want to follow a church that stole holidays from different religions and made them their own. No, that’s not where I should begin.So, with every good story, there first needs to be an exposition. I will start with my parents. My mother was baptized Catholic and went to a Catholic Church until she was 7 years old at which time, her parents separated and she stopped going to church. My father was also baptized Catholic and he went to church until he was 8 years old with his father and step mother, then he was told he didn’t have to go anymore. Both my sister and I were never raised within a religious household. The only time we prayed was during the holidays, my father would give thanks for the family, friends, and food that were before us. My father had 2 crosses that lived in the 5 gallon money jug and we had one Bible that collected dust on the bottom shelf of the book case. I have no recollection of either of my parents ever touching it.

My religious journey started when I was 2. My faith now is 20 years in the making. If that isn’t slow, I don’t know what is. I was baptized on October 28, 1990. I was always told that I was baptized Protestant. That was all I knew, I was a Protestant…I didn’t know what a Protestant was, or even a baptism, but that didn’t matter! I remember talking about it with my mother when I was 4ish and living in Alaska. I was playing with the money jug and I found one of my father’s old crosses and I didn’t know what it was. So, I asked my mom. I’m pretty sure she explained that it was my fathers and it was a symbol of faith. That was what I knew. At some point between then and 6 I learned that Hell was a bad word that we couldn’t say, and I was baptized Protestant. I was told that when you are baptized you get water splashed onto your forehead. I was under the impression that as a baby I was dunked under water and came back up. Boy was I happy that I couldn’t remember that particular experience!

Fast forward a few years, I am now in 3rd grade, living in Wisconsin. I still know that I am baptized Protestant, and that is a sub category of Christianity. I also knew that you were either Catholic or Protestant. I finally learn that Hell is not really a bad word if you refer to the place but it is in every other connotation, and I also know that Jesus Christ is a swear word. I am not allowed to say Jesus Christ, only my parents can when they are mad. It comes out as either Jesus Christ! Or Jesus Beeping Christ. Don’t repeat that! I also know that I have a friend named Emma who conveniently gets to skip school every time we have an assembly for Christmas, Easter, or any other religious festivity. Come to find out, Emma was a Jehovah’s Witness. I was so surprised that she didn’t even celebrate her birthday! She got no presents! I talked to my mom about it and all my mom could tell me was that they didn’t celebrate any holiday. Also, whenever we saw her and her mom come up our driveway, we would shut off all of the lights and hide in the kitchen. They were there to spread the word and we did not want to hear it!

We are now going to skip a few more years and go to July, 2002. My great grandfather died after a long battle with lung cancer. I was 13 years old. This was the first time that someone I was close to had died. This was also the first time that I stepped into a church. By this time, I believed in God and I believed in Heaven. I knew that my great grandfather was in Heaven with God. The church was absolutely beautiful and the service, while long, was beautiful as well. My grandfather had a Catholic funeral so there was a lot of kneeling and standing and sitting as well as a lot of singing.

By this time, my views on Christianity were more defined. I knew that Christians believed that a guy named Jesus Christ (which isn’t actually a swear word!) died on a cross and then was brought back to life and because of this we have Christianity. I also knew that there are many different religions out there and I could even name a few, although I was still under the impression that if you were Christian, you were either Catholic or Protestant. I also knew that by this time that Catholics were “Bible thumpers” who went to church quite a bit and if anyone who had a Bible in hand looked like they wanted to talk to you, run away! I wasn’t surrounded by anyone who outwardly showed their religion, but somewhere along the way, I gained the preconceived notion that Christians were just trying to shove their ideas down my throat. I still didn’t understand what the values of Christians were all about. Also, around this time my paternal grandmother, a devout Catholic, came to visit us for a few weeks and she insisted on going to church. So, I decided to go with her and my father to a Catholic church. I don’t remember much of the sermon, just that after almost everything the priest said it would be followed by something that the audience would say, and again, that there was a lot of kneeling and standing and sitting. The one thing that stands out in my memory though was near the end of the sermon, it was time to take part of the Eucharist. I didn’t really know what was going on but my grandmother looked at me and my father and said “you haven’t been consecrated so you can’t take part of the Communion.” What? Why does that make sense, God loves everyone, we are all his children, and yet we cannot partake in a worship practice because we haven’t been consecrated, whatever that is?” It didn’t make sense to me. In that moment, I felt as if I was an outsider. That I didn’t belong there, that I wasn’t wanted. As I watched everyone else get up and do whatever it was that their member’s only club was doing, it felt as though everyone else was judging us, saying, why are those non believers here, don’t they know that only Catholics are welcome here? It was quite a bad feeling!

Then, high school hits. And with high school comes all of the teenage drama and angst. My sister, who is 4 years older than me, graduated high school the same year that I graduated 8th grade. My sister was the epitome of teenage drama and angst and she let the world know that she wasn’t happy. But she left the summer that I was going into high school and with it, she left my mom and dad depressed. A year later, in the summer before my sophomore year in high school, my mom decided that she needed to not be depressed anymore and in order for that to happen, we should go to church. So we did. We got dressed up in our Sunday best and we went to church, we went to a Community Church as my father was not a fan of the Catholic Church. Again, there was a lot of sitting and standing and singing. Also, this was about the time that the Passion of the Christ was in theaters and we went to see it, so I finally understood more about who Jesus was. But even if I understood who he was, I still could not accept his role in religion. How could someone die and come back to life? Why would God sacrifice his Son for everyone else? And aren’t we all God’s children, so what made Jesus so special? We go to church for 4 or 5 weeks and my parents seem really into it. They started talking about being baptized again and being initiated into the church and all. Then we go on a cruise and miss a week, and well, we never went back to church.

Also, in high school we learned about the origins of different holidays and what not and we learned that Easter, the supposed resurrection of Christ, actually got its start as a festival for a Pagan Goddess Esther, the Goddess of Grain. I guess they used to pray to this Goddess at this time before they planted their crops. Then, I learned about the role that the Catholic Church played within history and that they used to sell tickets to get into Heaven. Then, there were also the mass trials of child abusers and molesters within the church as well. All of these things just did not sit well with me. I felt like the church was made up of a bunch of power hungry child molesters and that the Bible was made up to get the Pagan people in line during the Roman Empire. My historical senses would not allow me to believe in something historically inaccurate. And if Easter was actually for the Goddess Esther and Jesus Christ wasn’t actually born on December 25th, then it must’ve been all made up.

Now, even though I had these reserves about religion and I had these stereotypes that it was like a member’s only club and I wasn’t a member, I still felt envious of people’s faith. To have absolute faith that everything was going to be OK because there was someone who was looking out for you was amazing to me. To know with absolute certainty that some being loved you completely, faults and all was such a foreign concept to me. I wished that I felt that connection to a God. Sure I figured that there was a God and I talked to that God, but why would that God be listening to me? Why would I be so special? Why were my thoughts, ideas, and beliefs worth anything to God when there was a war going on and tsunamis, and earthquakes? This period of my life was when I felt most alone.

Then, college happens. Freshmen year, I met a friend who was Episcopalian. What an Episcopalian was, I didn’t know. But this was the first time that I could remember where I had a friend who was religious and where I was old enough to actually understand what that meant. One day, my baptism came up. Now, all of my life I was told that I was baptized Protestant. So, when he asked what I was baptized in, I told him…Protestant! He said, yeah, go on. I told him that that was what I was baptized in, I was a Protestant. Well, after he was done laughing at me, he explained that you couldn’t be baptized Protestant because there were too many subcategories of Protestant. Ohhh. So I called my mother and asked her, “What religion was I baptized in?” and she said, Protestant! So I told her that I couldn’t possibly be Protestant, that there were too many sub categories. So she asked my father, who didn’t know, she asked her mother, who didn’t know, she asked my god parents, who didn’t know. Finally my grandmother got a hold of her cousin who was married by the same person who baptized me and she told my mother who told me that I was baptized Baptist!

I also had another friend whose religion was Messianic Judaism. She held a Seder meal in the dorm that year and invited me to join in. I had no clue what a Seder meal was but I knew that it was something religious and it sounded kind of interesting, so I went. I was becoming more open to religious ideas.

Now, by this time, I already had my own beliefs concerning spiritual faith. I wouldn’t consider myself religious by any stretch of the imagination and I definitely wasn’t Christian but I kind of created my own semi-religion that basically said there was a heaven and a hell and that as long as you lived morally, no cheating, stealing, raping, etc., you would be considered a good person and you would go to heaven. I believed that there was a God. I believed that God hears me and that I can talk to him no matter what. I believed that God loves everyone no matter who they were or what they did because we were all created by him. I still didn’t have that faith that I was so envious over but my views evolved with time to encompass the fact that I was worth something to God and that I wasn’t alone, that he was listening.

Then sophomore comes around and I meet two very lovely ladies, Erin and Sarah, who were the first people who I met who were my own age that I could say were devoted to God. Erin is a Catholic who takes God into account in every aspect of her life. And Sarah is a Christian Scientist, different than Scientology, who also takes God into account in everything she does. And although these two denominations are pretty different from each other, they are still both Christian. And they broke every stereotype that I had about Christianity. They didn’t force their religion onto me, they are open minded and caring, and even though I had no religion to speak of, they still liked me and were still my friend. And they have that faith that I was so envious of.

At this point in time, I really started thinking about religion and analyzing it. I still didn’t believe it but I started to think about it. Like I said this was a very slow process. This thought process started when Erin would talk to me about her faith and her doubt in her faith. I would be there for her during these times and listen to her worries and fears and try to help in the best way that I could given that she was having issues with something that I could honestly say I didn’t believe in. But during these talks, I started to know God better, not the God that I would conjure in my head whenever I had a problem and needed to talk to but The God. The Christian God. While Erin was explaining to me her issues, she was also explaining to me the love of her God. While she was having difficulties understanding him, I was slowly coming to believe in him.

The way that Sarah has helped was a little different. Sarah wasn’t having issues with her religion. She has always had such a strong connection to her beliefs and this was amazing to me, not only that her faith was so strong but that she had such a strong connection and yet, still didn’t feel the need to try to sway me into her way of thinking. The first thing that I remember her saying about Christian Science was that God is love. And that really touched me. That wherever love is, God is also there, no matter what. All of this started the wheel turning.

Junior year came, and with it, came more thoughts and ideas about Christianity. By this time, I fully considered Erin and Sarah to be more than friends; they were and still are my sisters. I fully gave up all of my stereotypes about Christianity; Christians are actually really nice people. Of course there are those that are extremists but it’s the people who are extremists, and not the religion. I still had problems with Christianity though. I didn’t believe that the Bible could actually be factual and I didn’t believe that there could be a God out there who would sacrifice his only Son. Why would he do that? But, I was becoming more open to it. I’m not sure if they realize this or not, but every time Sarah and Erin brought up religion (which happened fairly often as they both take God into account of their daily lives), I was just soaking it in. I was turning it over and over in my head. Trying to understand what they were talking about and trying to piece the puzzle together. The wheel was going a little faster than in my sophomore year.

Finally, the climax of the story, my senior year of college. Erin and Sarah are still a big part of the story, but we add another huge character to the picture, Matt. Sarah studied abroad for the first semester and Erin left the dorm to go live in another one. Matt moved to the room across the hall from me and I knew that he was a nice guy and he was capable of having a conversation because Erin told me that she had conversations with him but even though this would be the third year of living in the same dorm as him, I still didn’t have a conversation with him. So, because he moved across the hall from me, and because I knew that he was a nice guy, I decided to talk to him. During these talks (and many cribbage games) it came out that he was also a very religious person. Matt is not one to wear his religion on his sleeve but his faith is still very strong and unshaken. So, every once in a while religion would come up between him and other people in the dorm and unbeknownst to them, I was soaking it up. Also, not only was I getting to know Matt, I was also getting to know Mitchell, Matt’s younger brother. And Mitchell had no problems telling me his views of religion and why Christianity is the only religion that I should put my faith into. Now, before, I said that I hated it when people shoved their religion down other people’s throats…well I didn’t feel like that was what Mitchell was doing. He was very secure in his faith and when I asked, would tell me what he thought. He wasn’t condescending about his faith.

What got the wheel to go from a crawl to actually rolling forward was a conversation between Erin and me. Although Erin talked to me about her religion quite a bit, and she knew that I wasn’t religious, we never actually discussed what my beliefs were. It was a very eye opening discussion. For the first real time, I was talking to someone religious who I knew would not judge me for my beliefs and reservations on religion, about my beliefs and reservations. And she addressed some of my concerns about the Bible and Jesus.

So now, the ball was really going. I had been acting like a sponge for the last three years and I was ready to really ask questions, to not just play a passive role to the conversations that were going on around me but to really be active in my spiritual maturation. Then, everything happened so fast. For the first time in my life, I decide to give up something for Lent. I decided to give up despair and because despair is an emotion and you cannot help but feel the way you do, I decided that how I would give up despair would be to stop listening, singing, and thinking, about sad songs. This might sound very easy to do, but when 95% of the music you listen to, is sad songs, it’s a little harder to do.

So, Lent 2011 started on March 9th and somewhere between March 9th and March 20, 2011, I had a conversation that completely flipped my spiritual journey upside down. Matt, Erin, and I were having dinner in the dining hall, and religion pops up again. I told them, “you know, I think I would be Christian if it wasn’t for that whole Jesus thing” Well, needless to say, they both started laughing and they told me that you can’t have Christianity without Jesus. He is what makes Christianity, he is the core. So then Erin said, why can you not get behind Jesus, what is your reasoning? So I told them that God created everyone so shouldn’t everyone be God’s child? Also, what kind of God would sacrifice his own Son? And why do I have to talk to Jesus, why can’t I just talk to God? Then Erin said something so profound to me but that everyone who was brought up in a religious household seemed to know. She said “you do realize that the holy trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, are all one thing, right?” And I didn’t realize that. I said so Jesus is God? And she said, well I don’t know much about it but yes. In that moment, the puzzle was coming together faster than I thought was possible. That one concept caused me to have even more questions, but I also felt like I was coming even closer to understanding the true God and coming closer to feeling that same faith that I was so envious of before.

So, I went to Sarah and got her view on the Holy Trinity. And she said something completely different than Erin. I guess Christian Science believes that Jesus was a man who was so in tune with God, that he could heal, but that he was not the son of God. That just confused me! So I went back to my room and I was trying to do homework but I kept on coming back to this notion that Jesus and God was the same thing. I finally decided that it was time to take my spiritual journey to someone who does church for a living, a Pastor, Priest, etc. So, my options of a church were limitless. If I asked, Erin would take me to her church, Sarah would have found a way to take me to her church, and Matt would take me to his church. I chose Matt’s church because from what he had said about it in the past, it was just a Christian church with no ties to any one denomination. It wasn’t limited. I still don’t know what the difference is between Catholic and the rest of them, just that Catholics are more strict, and Sarah’s church is all the way down in Massachusetts so that wouldn’t have worked too well.

I called out to Matt and asked him if his church was run by a priest. He said no. Which kind of disappointed me, so it was just student run? He said, no we have a Pastor, Priests are Catholic. This was when I started laughing, I told him oh, and I said I knew about Priests, Pastors, Bishops, and Popes, just not too much on the differences. I then asked him if his Pastor would mind questions. Matt said of course not. Are you sure? Yes, in fact he encourages questions. Then he asked me if I wanted to go to church with him. I still didn’t know if I was really ready to commit myself to going to a full church service but I felt that it was the right thing to do. So, I decided to go to church with him and his brother on March 20, 2011.

So, the day was there, I was a nervous wreck. I had asked Matt throughout the week if we had to get into our Sunday best and are you really sure jeans are OK, are you sure that I am allowed to be there, are you sure that your Pastor is going to want to talk to me, are you sure that this is OK. I’m pretty sure I drove him nuts, but he didn’t show it, he just answered all of my questions with a calm yes and maybe a chuckle.

We walk to the basement of the lighthouse and the room is crowded, I am thinking what have I got myself into! We go and sit on a couch right inside of the door. This wasn’t planned (I don’t think) but I was thinking oh good, I can run away if this gets too scary and if Bryan starts preaching Hell and brimstone to all of you non believers. I ask Matt one more question; does Bryan know that I am here? He said no, I will go tell him that I brought someone who wants to speak to him. Throughout the whole sermon I was a shaky mess, but I was listening intently, I was soaking everything up. Then came time for Communion. And I thought, oh here we go again, I am going to be told that I don’t belong again, that I shouldn’t be here (all you non believers are unwelcome in this sanctuary); I am going to feel like an outsider again! Matt said that I didn’t have to go if I didn’t want to, and I told him, well, I have never been consecrated so I don’t think that I am allowed to. Even though everyone else went up there, I didn’t feel like anyone was staring at me thinking, oh look at that non believer trying to get into our club! Pfft, she couldn’t possibly ever be as close to God as we are. That didn’t happen. (I guess I still had my doubts about Christians at large)

The sermon went off with a hitch and now it was time for Bryan to come talk to me. He came over and introduced himself, we sat on the couch and he answered all of my questions. My dire question, the one that would be the tipping point as to whether or not I could finally believe in Christianity, Jesus Christ and all, was my first question. Is the Holy Trinity really all just God? And he said yeah it is. This just blew my mind. So I said, “so God was walking around as Jesus, why do that?” And he said that the people were able to relate to Jesus more. He mentioned Mount Sinai and how the people refused to talk to God themselves because they were too afraid, but wanted Moses to be their spokesperson. So, I said, that God needed a different facet to talk to the people, and thus he created Jesus. And this means that God didn’t actually sacrifice his son, but he sacrificed himself for his people. I could understood that sacrifice, I finally could understand how great Christianity is, how great our God is. A light bulb switched on and I just felt so light and full of wonder. A God sacrificed himself for the people he created so that the people he created would believe this and would be able to take our sins away, how wonderful is that? Finally, after 20 years, I can understand God and I knew why people had such faith that they do! Because a God, willing to sacrifice himself for you, will be willing, and able to help you through anything! I I think I was glowing for the rest of the day.

Then, as I was asking questions, and understanding things, Bryan mentioned that the Fusion church has a discipleship training course and although they didn’t have plans to start one until next fall, when I told him that I was graduating and that I wouldn’t be at UNH next year, he said well, I’m sure Matt would go through this again and Mitchell seemed interested in it so why don’t we just start one? When he said that, I felt so special. I felt like I belonged already, that this wasn’t a member’s only club. I felt accepted. That, within minutes of meeting me, this person would give up his time to help me unwind this mystery that I was so caught up in. It was just unbelievable.

Now, just because I was now going to church, didn’t mean that the wheel had totally stopped. I knew that if I was seriously going to commit to this relationship between God and me, I was going to have to do a few things. First, I was going to have to talk to God more, instead of just talking to him when I was in trouble, I was going to have to talk to him and let him be involved in my life. Also, if I was going to subscribe to the Christian religion, I was going to have to read the Holy Text, so I made up my mind that I was going to read the Bible, front to back, asking questions when I had them. And I had a lot of questions! I felt that I couldn’t call myself a true Christian if I hadn’t actually read what the Christians believed. And even though I didn’t understand all of the underlying connotations, I definitely got a better understanding of what God is asking of us, as his people.

The reason why I am telling you this story is because of a thing called the Slow Movement. I am a huge fan of going slow, of taking your time through things. It took me 2 years of thinking and contemplating God and religion before I even thought about stepping into a church. This slow process, has allowed me to have a thirst for knowledge and to know in my heart that I believe in this, that since I took time out to think this through, I know that for me, this is right. Now, everyone has different speeds. Not everyone goes as slow or as fast, but if you take the time to just stop and wonder and contemplate and think about your life, the decisions that you are faced with, as well as God and Jesus, you just might find that you feel more confident about yourself, and your life..

I am going to leave you with these parting words. A few weeks ago, Bryan had us write our own Psalm of Lament. I could not do that. I am still feeling wonder and passion and feel like God is doing what is right in my life. I found I could not find a lament in me when all I want to do is to celebrate God and share my joy in him, not my sorrow. So I decided to write something a little different and I would like to share it with you.

My God, you were there when I didn’t see.
You were there when I didn’t listen.
You were there when I didn’t feel.
You were there when I didn’t understand.
Now I see
Now I listen
Now I feel
Now I understand
Even in my darkest moments of solitude, you will be there.

Rachel Sanborn – A Jesus is still ‘saving’ Christians story…

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On Easter Sunday, April 24, 2011, Rachel spoke of her journey as one learning to be a disciple of Jesus. Following our gathering, we went down to the Oyster River to participate in the sacrament of water baptism.

Nepal Trip Update

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Our trip to Nepal was a great success! I’m excited about the long term connection we have established with the church and teachers in Tikapur. The majority of our time was spent working with the teachers of Grace School and Premnuger School, mentoring, and co-teaching. Others we journeyed with worked on building bunk beds for an orphanage, engineering a zip line to cross a river during flood time, and repairing a clean water line.

One of the questions I often hear from Christians inquiring about the trip is, “How did you communicate the gospel?” I could tell about the conversation I had with a Muslim man and his son or the Hindu student Sam & I met in the market. In both situations we shared the story of Jesus and how it connected to our being in Nepal. I could tell about the daily devotional time we had with the teachers or how as an illustration of the gospel we gave away 10 goats to women who lost all they had in the floods 3 months ago. But the real answer is that there is such a visible difference in how the Christian community lives as compared to the majority of folks in the villages, that no one has imagined going out to do evangelism as an event in the way we often think of it in the States. Both the Muslim brothers and the Hindu student were well aware of the Church and had genuine interest and positive things to say about it. In Tikapur, the church is beginning to lead the larger community, meeting needs with integrity and establishing a more healthy living environment without disrespecting the beliefs of the people around them.

I could spend time explaining how the Christian community lived differently from the majority culture in Nepal, and some of it would carry over and would be challenging to us here. But I think it would be more fruitful to encourage each of us to spend some time evaluating the priorities of our lives and how they effect the way we treat people, schedules, and resources and ask God to show us where we’ve bought into American culture rather than the Kingdom of God. God is moving here, in Nepal, and all over the world establishing a people who are set apart to him. And though persecution for living the way of God is real and possible, like Peter writes in his first letter, there’s a good chance that if we live such good lives among non-believers they will praise God and that it will silence ignorant talk. I’ve heard it said that if the gospel is good new’s at all, someone becoming a follower of Jesus ought to be good new’s for everyone in the family, neighborhood, or work place. May our lives in Christ be good news for the people around us…

I want to thank everyone for their prayers and support while I was away. It was encouraging that family and friends really came around Hannah and helped hold our family together.

Cool story…When Erica got home she had another $100 in support in her mailbox. Considering the amount she invested personally, I would have been more than happy for that income to reimburse her previous expenses. Not Erica. She was out that day shopping. She found a Borders Bookstore that is going out of business in Newington and bought a bunch of books for the schools. She has already started making recordings of the books in English and is taping a CD case into each book with the recording. She also picked up some warm clothes at $2-$3/ea. at a JC Penny’s clearance sale. :-) We are excited about our ongoing partnership with our friends in Nepal and will be continuing to mentor some of the teachers and work on developing resources that will help them in their classes.

A Quick History of Chi Alpha

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Chi Alpha Campus Ministries started in 1951. Although there were exceptions, it was primarily an inward-looking ministry. In the 1960’s, national director Rick Howard began to speak prophetically about the direction of the ministry. He said that college ministry needed to look outward and consider the campus as a mission field.  Dave Gable, the next national director from 1971-1979, gave legs to the vision that Howard had set forth.

In 1977, Gable called together six representative campus leaders to define what campus outreach could become, and come up with a call to action. They met in a scorpion-infested camp outside of San Antonio, Texas, later being known as the “San Antonio Seven.” The names of the seven were: Dave Gable, Herschel Rosser, Dave Argue, Jim Hall, Dennis Gaylor, Brady Bobbink, and Harvey Herman. A varied group, they were made up of ex-hippies and people who had grown up in church, Bible college, and secular college backgrounds from every region of the country.

During their time, they asked one question: What were the central qualities that defined the first century church? The result of their search was a four-fold philosophy from the book of Acts that the church was defined by a ministry of worship, fellowship, discipleship, and witness. Later, prayer was added to the ministry philosophy. This understanding became the foundation for a renewed ministry outreach that has grown nationwide and around the world since 1977.

In 1977, Chi Alpha existed on about 40 campuses across the United States. As the new philosophy has been taught, modeled, and implemented, students (and staff) have caught the vision and given their lives to pioneering and developing ministry to students. In 2010, there were close to 280 Chi Alpha chapters across the country (with 23,000 students involved), and Chi Alpha has spread to most of the continents. Read 2 Corinthians 5:16-21.

Since 1977, thousands of students have started following the teachings of Jesus for the first time while being equipped and mobilized for campus outreach. Students have reached out to international students with friendship and hospitality. Students have given up their spring and summer breaks to serve on U.S. based and overseas mission trips, empowered by the Spirit.

Student chapters are the foundation of Chi Alpha’s ministry to college and university campuses. These ministries are student led; yet, behind each student leader is the guiding hand of a highly committed and skilled Chi Alpha missionary. They equip and enable students to be followers of Jesus, helping them to grow to maturity as leaders in the kingdom of God while in school and as they transition to the marketplace. They reach students, train leaders, and impact nations.

Knowing that most students will end up in the global marketplace, Chi Alpha staff teach students to develop a Biblical view of work as a divine calling and an opportunity for genuine ministry. They equip students with the tools they’ll need to serve in a local church and to reflect the character and ministry of Christ while on the job. Students graduate and are sent into the marketplace prepared to live out and pass on the vision of the Book of Acts.

We believe every college student should have the opportunity to study at the feet of the world’s greatest teacher. Will you join us in making that dream a reality? We hope all of our students will give a year or two after graduation to serving their local chapter. We also pray they will consider joining our missionary staff team and give their lives to serve globally with Chi Alpha.

Love is a verb,
Mike Olejarz

In Search of Community…

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In February 2007 a group of us began to get together on Sunday nights to share a meal and talk about what it means to be the church in our everyday lives. All of us were friends or at least acquaintances that would regularly say that we should get together. We were tired of superficial relationships and what felt like superficial Christianity. We knew it would take time and commitment to have authentic friendship and trust so we agreed to meet weekly for six months. At our six-month mark there was no question that we would remain committed together as a group. We had begun to tap into something that was exciting and energizing. I remember sitting around together at our Thanksgiving dinner and hearing over and over the gratitude we felt for our friendships and the many ways we had grown as followers of Jesus throughout the year.

Living out community is difficult in our busy culture. Sometimes we loose track of weeks and realize that no one has connected outside our planned meeting. We get off track with work, holidays, family events, and vacations, but the ache in our soul for an authentic connection with God and his church continues to draw us together. Community is worth fighting for.

We have found a place where we are growing, where we are slowly seeing the “new life” of Jesus overcome our deeply ingrained habits and attitudes. We are learning how to be the Church, a community often referred to in the Bible as the body of Christ.