Just Let it Play Out

For the past 27 years, the only thing that I have known is Christianity. I kid around when I say I feel as though I was born at the alter, but the truth be told, I sometimes that feel that way. Aside from school and sports practices, if the church doors were open, my family and I were there.

The older I became, the more I pushed myself away from church. Not because I didn't want it or because it was fed to me but I simply didn't understand half of it. When I first attended Bible college in 2006, I could have gave a rat's tail about being there. I went because I was fortunate to have been blessed with a scholarship and every door that I had open in Michigan at the time was beginning to close, so I knew I was supposed to go Ohio and attend Bible College. I took every class that you could imagine relating to eschatology, the life of Christ, the book of Revelation, a study of the Psalms, in depth discussions of Old and New Testament but if you ask me now what I remember, I can't really tell you because I honestly didn't really care to be there.

Looking back in hindsight though, I learned so much from what I experienced while I was there. I was apart of authentic relationships, I gained family that to this today I know I will never go without, I saw stuff I never want to see in church again, I experienced what some people might call or say is “church” and then there were times when I didn't want to experience what was in front of me or see what I saw. Situations that I wish I could have taken myself away from and out of but now, I am grateful for all of these moments.

A hunger for the study of Christ and the church began inside of me in 2010. I decided to uproot my life and move a thousands miles to be apart of a church plant and I found myself asking myself, what do you believe Jenn Marie? Do you only believe it or think the way that you do because you grew up in it or if you were to be put on the stake for your faith, would you die for it like people did only a few centuries ago? Would you become a martyr for your faith like the Columbine students did and if held at gun point, would you say that Jesus Christ is your Lord and Savior?

I enjoy reading something in Matthew and then seeing how Mark saw or it or what Luke interrupted. We all have different vantage points on our walk with Christ and this life that we call Christianity.

My eyes were opened when I became a church planter. I realized very quick that condemning someone or telling them that they were going to hell because they were living together wasn't going to make them want to attend my church. Now I am not saying turn the cheek to sin but what I am saying is that me gossiping or getting drunk on the weekend is a sin just like having sex before marriage. Sin is equal in God's eyes granted the consequences vary.

I realized that people want to be accepted and they want to be needed. They do not want to be told how to live their lives or what they should or shouldn't do. They want someone to do life with them. That's what Christ did. He hung out with the tax collectors, the hookers, the addicts, those people the majority of us walk away from and avoid, yet we say we want to be like Christ? Yet in all reality, we are acting more like the world and snooting our noses up so high because our sin is less than theirs.

This is not the Jesus that I want to be associated with. I want to be associated with the Jesus who helped people change and love them to repentance. I want to accept them as they are and not try to “clean them” before we “catch them.” Get them in church and let the Holy Spirit take care of the rest.

At the end of the day, I want my life and my relationships to play out almost like the Synoptic Gospels. Each of us will have a different vantage point of how Christ came to save, transform, and redeem the world. We each have our stories of how He changed our lives and to me, at the end of the day arguing over who is right and who is wrong is just a waste of time. Let's love people like Jesus and mirror who Christ was and still is today and the rest will work itself out.