A Different Approach

"Every rational activity aims at some end or good." - from Aristotle's Ethics

In response to my last blog entry about questioning the intentions of my complaining/criticism, I found this quote to be somewhat helpful. I have been reading Aristotle recently. The section that I started reading with was about "goodness", and that each person is in fact aiming "at some end or good". This means that the only thing different between an honorable person in society to someone like a murderer, rapist, terrorist, or bank robber is how they go about attaining their own personal "good". Another variable that Aristotle talks about is that "good" is relative to each person and that those views of what "good" is are far and wide in definition. This last year I have very actively tried to separate myself from what I saw as being "bad" in the church. I saw the shift as being a good thing for me to do, but not until recently have I begun to look back at how things could've been handled differently. The easiest way for us to significantly distance ourselves from God without even knowing it is to never question how we are doing things and see if they are really what we should be doing as followers of Christ.

The conversation that I had with my sister along with the follow-up conversation I had with my father has brought me to realize that although I may have a noble goal in mind, I may in fact be going about it improperly. Maybe all the "good" that I thought I was doing was in fact all undone by the way I went about it. Criticism is a great way to lose respect for something, and if you go about criticizing the same thing for too long you lose all desire to associate yourself with that something. That's the process that I've at least partially been a part of these past few months. My father is always the one in our conversations to look for the good, regardless of how small it is. I have always rolled my eyes at this "positive" comment, usually with me being the "negative" one in our conversations. But I realize now that without him counterbalancing every negative thing I had to say, I would have slipped much farther away from the church than I am even now.

In order to get back to where I wanted to be in the first place, I'm going to have to do a little bit of changing. The church-building should not be my example of what God had planned. That road leads to inevitable frustration. But I need to realize that I cannot leave it, especially in light of the fact that I want to be a pastor...which will certainly have me in the church for quite a while. A quote that I've held onto for a while now says that, "the church is like Noah's ark...sometimes it stinks and smells like *cow manure* but if you get out you'll drown."

Regardless of how noble a goal is, if it is not constantly being assessed and modified, you will lose track of where you're going. The worst thing that you cacn do is lose track of where you're going, because if you wait long enough, you won't even know where you ended up.

How much truth is there in what I have said?

I just got from being at the beach for a week. During that time I had a conversation with my sister that started one night (or should I say morning) at 1am, and didn't finish off until around 3:30am. Some of the topics we discussed were religion, the church, pastors, Christianity, and the church-building (not to be confused with God's vision of the church). What I have classified as "discuss" came closer to "argue" in some situations. It was probably one of the first discussions, though, that I've had with her where we both stated our opinions and I realized that there wasn't a "right" opinion and a "wrong" opinion. But through this "discussion", I started to realize something. Something that I should think about more frequently, but either don't at all or disregard it fairly quickly after it enters my mind. The question of "Is what I say/think really right? Or are there some fallacies in it?" It's a question that even a cynic (like myself) needs to ask once in a while.

My upbringing has been fueled by incredibly high standards for the church as well as for pastors. I have an idea in my head of what both should be, but have in fact never seen expectations fully met. Some would say this is in itself a problem, but I do not agree with that statement very willingly. Along with these expectations, I have also seen more than my share of (trying to find a polite way of saying this) "bad" situations within the church. I have gradually become more and more turned-off to the whole church-building idea. Again, this statement alone brings up great controversy with even my close friends. To add salt to a wound something that drives me nuts is this "religious dialect" which I have more safely branded with the phrase "Christian jargon", due to the fact that me speaking of anything "religious" as being bad is beyond some people's comprehension.

Between two and three years ago I started thinking about the possibility of becoming a youth pastor when I get through with college. Since then the vision that I've painted in my head is a ministry focused more around "fixing the humanized Christianity" if you will, than what most pastors would say their vision is: "expanding the body of Christ" (ergo, creating "believers" out of "non-believers"). As I actually read my Bible now on a regular basis, I have been reading the Gospels for th epast two months. Intentionally or unintentionally I have picked up on verses to support my vision. Reading about Jesus calling out the "religious leaders" of the day is more in line what I have been doing recently. But just about anyone can find a few verses in the Bible to have it say whatever they want. I have seen verses both support and negate my argument, which has left me at somewhat of a stalemate on whether my philosophy on ministry is Biblically-based, or more just my own flavor of it.

Through this blog, through the reading I do, through the conversations I have, through the churches I have attended - all of these together - make up my very different philosophy on ministry and God's vision for his people. I have done a good amount of complaining and criticizing with what I have seen. But does all the complaining have a greater point? Am I somehow defining my vision of ministry by first weeding out everything it's not? When do I find what I am really looking for? Or am I criticizing for criticism sake? Has the complaining helped me or hindered me? Are my off-the-wall statements shared a hint of a very different ministry? Or do they point to an inevitable schism between me and Christianity? As extreme as that may seem, maybe it's exactly what it comes down to. If the Christianity that I have been shown is in fact God's vision for his people, then maybe I don't want to be a part of it.

I am heading off to college in a little over a month. I have looked at college as finally being the time where I become what I've been holding back for a while now. Will that be a good thing? Or will it be more of the same pissing off the Christians while never finding the pure essence of church? I know that this blog is just a way for me to vent, and that by complaining and criticizing I am merely figuring things out, but this isn't the way it should be. Let me clarify: there has to be something I'm missing or something I haven't reached yet that will somehow make my vision of ministry trymp all the crap I see.

I'm not exactly sure how to end this, so I'll kind of just leave it hanging. Let me know what you think. Am I doing something wrong? I know I'm in the minority with my views, but are there others that have the same ideas? Or am I simply putting impossible expectations for what I think God's people should be doing?

Deliberate Living

I've been reading Into the Wild recently. Near the end of the book there's a small excerpt that I came across the other day in what is one of Chris McCandless' last journal entries. Here's the passage:

"Deliberate Living: Conscious attention to the basics of life, and a constant attention to the immediate environment and its concerns. Example: a job, a task, a book; anything requiring efficient concentration. Circumstance has no value. It is how one relates to a situation that has value. All true meaning resides in the personal relationship to a phenomenon, what it means to you."

My father has always said that he never wants to hear us use the f-word. Now most people say, "well obviously," but my father is actually referring to the word "fair." "Life is not fair" he has always told us. Maybe it's because I am the baby in the family, or maybe it's simply human nature, but I have aquired a good sense of rationalizing any any and all of my failures. I can always find blame for what happens. It is a rare and quite profound thing, when I mentally cut myself off from making excuses. In those instances I am left speechless. Anything I would have said would simply be another excuse. Back in March I spoke about a similar instance where my father very directly got in my way of makingany excuses in the discussion we were having. As there is not much more time before I head off to college, I am thinking about who I am and what I want to become.

When I saw the movie Into the Wild when it first came out, it is not an overstatement in saying that i did not like it at all. I took the approach that the guy was a nut who set impossible goals and was just completely out of touch with society. But as I have read the book now, I have begun to sympathize with him. I have even begun to admire him to some degree. This guy actually formulated a plan in his mind and did it, regardless of what got in his way. As I am a fiend of both books and movies, I like to quote both frequently. In preparation to the next Batman movie, The Dark Knight, coming out in two weeks I watched Batman Begins today. There's a scene where Bruce Wayne comes out of a hotel after having recently swam in the "pool" with two of his lady friends, only to run into long-time friend Rachel Dawes. She says something to him that hit home with me. She said, "It's not who you are underneath, it's what you do that defines you." I've read a lot of books, including numerous philosophers and theologians. I've encountered many shaping experiences within the church as well as the Christian community. Apart from all the knowledge that I could possibly gain from these instances, if I do not take that knowledge and do something with it, it is worthless. In order to become great, you must take knowledge and put it into practice. Gandhi said, "Action expresses priorities." The emphasis is on the action that is taken.

I strive to become intelligent, maybe even wise. But if I go to the ends of the earth in seeking knowledge and do nothing with it to help others, than all of that searching has been worthless. As some religious people are nervous about philosophy as a field to investigate, I am not. With that said, though, I will say that philosophy only takes you so far. The fulfillment of knowledge comes when you take what you have learned and positively benefit those around you with it.

Greatness comes when you accept the fact that life is not fair, and yet you go forward nonetheless. I am amazing at making excuses for why things happen. "Circumstance has no value." If I want to succeed in becoming great, I must abandon all attempts to excuse what happens, and instead live with a vision in mind. To bring spirituality into this discussion, we must accept that God is in control. I have a great vision of what I can become and what I think God wants me to be. Things are going to get in my way, but I must have faith that God's vision for me can still break through all the crap falling around me. There's a scene in George Clooney's Michael Clayton when he talks to his son about not being brought down by the circumstances around him, and not wondering where it comes from. Crap happens. We must accept that fact before we can begin to fulfill who we were meant to become.