Is Church Like Santa – the sequel

Before I became born-again, I would have told you that I was a Christian simply because I believed in Jesus and God. Even though their existence was an accepted fact to me, the idea of having a relationship with either of them – of actually knowing and being known by them – was an alien concept. My brand of Christianity at that time was nominal at best. I tended to regard God as distant, arbitrary, detached, possibly disinterested and definitely a little bit scary; certainly not someone I would be keen to get close to!

It wasn’t until that moment of revelation when I simultaneously understood not only my own sinfulness and need for redemption, but also the depth of God’s love and forgiveness being extended towards me, that I was able to embrace Him as a person. I was grateful beyond words to accept and receive that forgiveness, and deeply humbled by His grace and the gift of new life He was offering me. The richness of that gift only deepened when the Spirit of God came to dwell within me. Not only did I receive the gift of speaking in tongues, but an overwhelming and inexplicable sense of joy and purpose. Only then did my understanding of Christianity begin to change. I truly was born again, and God had become a real person that both cared about, and was intimately interested in me.

The sense of joy and gratitude I felt towards God needed some form of expression, so I threw myself wholeheartedly into church life. There was a deep desire within me not only to serve, but to be around others that thought God was as warm and wonderful as I now did. Because I had become born again through a church, I tended to gravitate towards this new spiritual home and family I had found. I suppose I saw church as the logical place to learn more about God and how to live this new Christian life, so it’s only natural that I would look to those that had known him longer. And it’s not surprising that my life as a believer then began to revolve around that church.

Culturally, I’d grown up believing that going to church was basically the rule for Christians, so I’d had no idea that there could be any other way of worshipping, fellowshipping or serving God. I didn’t know any other way of being a Christian apart from church.

Like most people, I thought of church as the place that the community expects to find Christians. It’s the place that as Christians we might expect to gather together. It’s the place in which and through which most of us expect to live out our Christian walk; to find areas in which to serve both God and man, and to fellowship with like minded believers. It’s the place we might expect we can look to for strength and encouragement, and where we might feel we belong. Because of our nation’s Christian heritage, most of us are likely to have already had an innate, underlying expectation of a higher standard of behaviour for Christians. In my head, those were like the rules of being a Christian. So when things started to go wrong for me at church, I perceived an infraction of those rules. It was only then that I became aware that I actually had those rules at all. Once I recognised that, I then began to question the veracity of those rules and to examine their basis.

As any child develops, it will inherently take on the beliefs and culture of their own family, and of the predominant culture they live in. For example, every family will have rules about what’s acceptable at meal time. Some families are ok with eating their meals on the couch with their feet up on the coffee table and the television on, whilst others insist all family members eat together at the table, laid with a cloth and placemats, and absolutely no television. Whatever those rules might be, they form part of that family’s culture and understanding about how things work.

When we become born again, we spiritually parallel that development. It follows then, that if we have been born again through a church, we will inevitably absorb and reflect the specific beliefs and culture of that particular church. We will also take on the wider denominational culture as well as refining our understanding of the overarching Christian culture, simply by virtue of being born-again into it. Any preexisting perceptions about God and church that we’ve brought from our family culture become overlaid, reinforced or revised by the imprint of the new spiritual culture. The new culture will also become an integral part of how we identify ourselves as believers, because we so strongly associate those cultures with our faith and beliefs.

Once those rules and cultures are established within us, they become much like the foundations and framework of a house. We will live and function within that house from day to day without ever really thinking about what is holding the house up. It’s generally only when there is some infraction of our rules, that we might even become aware of the rules we have been living by. Similarly, we might only think about the foundations when we perceive some sort of threat to our internal security or safety. Only then might we be willing to examine the integrity or veracity of those foundations.

If we have been born again through a church, then we will have been imprinted by the culture of that church. It will subconsciously determine for us the way we perceive how to live as a Christian. It will define our ideas about what church is, about how we are meant to worship, to pray, to give and to minister. For most of us, that begins with the church instilling a belief within us that church is the only acceptable expression of Christianity. The church will also establish itself as the authority on Christianity, and therefore also that it has the authority and the right to make the rules.

Without necessarily meaning to, church can create a comfortable and protective bubble for us to live in that eventually causes us to become quite insular in our outlook as Christians. That can be problematic, because unless our faith is challenged, how can it be trusted? If all we do is go to church and fellowship with others that are saying the same things and doing the same things as we are, then how can we test our own faith? If we try to make every new believer be like us, then where is the challenge?

At some point in my childhood, I stopped believing in Santa. And in a similar way, eventually I stopped believing in the current model of church. I didn’t go to bed one night believing, and the next day wake up not believing. It was a process that took place over a couple of years, at least, during which time God had to expose and untangle within me the cultural beliefs from biblical beliefs. During that process of untangling, I had to consider not only what had been learned since becoming born-again, but to look beyond those things to regard the set of rules I had been functioning under beforehand.

I had to delve deep to examine the foundations and framework of what I believed. And even though it eventually produced an unequivocal and unequalled liberty within me, it was also scary. So I understand that examining what we believe about church can be uncomfortable or scary, because it has been foundational in our walk and identity as a believer. To even just consider it might feel sacrilegious, or leave us concerned that God might think us doubting or ungrateful. We may even feel perhaps as though we’re being disloyal to our church, or God, for even thinking about it.

But know this:

God gave each of us a sound mind, and I believe He expects us to use it and not be afraid to consider the foundations and framework of our Christian beliefs. Because isn’t it possible that our faith may have been misplaced if we put our trust in the church as the vehicle for God to work through, rather than trusting God to work directly through each of us? If faith that is not tested is vulnerable and cannot be trusted, then being willing to examine our own beliefs is a step towards testing our own faith. And isn’t it beneficial for us to test our faith? How else can we be sure of what we hope for, and certain of what we cannot see?

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