Reflecting...

I began my oh-so-popular blogging lifestyle on another service called LiveJournal a few years ago. Just recently, I was thinking back to those posts and decided to go back and read through what I had to say. Here's my first posting back from February of 2005:

I'll take this first post as an opportunity to introduce myself and where I'm coming from as well as where I'm at for those that might come across this and do not know me personally.

My name is Andrew. I'm a father of one, a husband of one, and a "minister in training". I grew up in the church, a "fundamental, Bible-believing, King James Version only, dunk 'em baptism, hellfire and brimstone, Armageddon anticipating, rapture awaiting, there'll be others in heaven but it's the baptist's who're goin' first class" independent Baptist church. It really wasn't as bad as it sounds. It was there that I received a foundation of at least looking to the Bible for answers, as well as where I met Jesus and began my journey with him. It's also the place where I received "the call" to ministry.

Now, I don't particuarly like the term "the call" for that but it's really hard to put into words what it is. So that's going to have to do. So, from there, I graduated high school and began community college, had an affair with an older engaged woman (obviously I strayed off the path a bit), got right and dropped out of community college, enrolled in a Bible college my church recommeded, finished one semester and came home with 50 demerits from aforementioned Bible college, began dating my wife-to-be, broke up with my wife-to-be, begged my wife-to-be to take me back, got married, enrolled in another Bible college (this one of much better thinking than the previous), had a child, and became a youth pastor. And this is the point at which our story gets more interesting.

I began work in the church thinking that I knew everything I needed to learn. I quickly learned that I in fact knew, nothing. But that was a good starting point because I had a clean slate to work with. So learn I did. And learning to love was probably the best part. I fell in love with the young people in my youth group, as well as the adult volunteers who gave tirelessly of their time and resources. In addtion to loving, I learned all the unsavory aspects of church politics, business meetings, and all the other crap that goes with it. But all in all, we had what would really be deemed a "successful" ministry. But my heart was changing and desiring a path for the ministry that the church did not have. And that change was largely due to reading, thinking, and a lot of praying I'd been doing. And in all of this, a question came to the forefront of my mind: "Is this all there is?" What I mean to say is is this all there is to salvation? Is salvation some sort of divine get out of jail free card that does only that? Now, friends and foes alike, please rest assured that I knew and know deep down that there is more but I had to really start searching out what "more" is. So we left the church.

It's been seven months now. In that time we've wrestled with a lot of things. And God has been sufficient to let more questions build than answers. And the questions have come hard and strong. Questions like: "What is the church's place in today's world?" "What is salvation really about?" "What does it really mean to be saved?" "How do we really show love to this world?" "Is there truth in other religions?" "Is the Bible more than an answer book? Have we damaged it by treating it thusly?" And more. To some, especially some from that more "fundamental" side of the fence, these questions definately carry a "liberal" slant, and some might even venture to use the word, "heretical". But these are the questions I've been given. They are mine to wrestle with and endure.

I apologize for that being so long but thanks for taking the time. What's most interesting to me is that some of those same questions are the ones I'm still wrestling with three years later. But, deep down inside, I know that I've come a lot further than I was at that point. It's just very interesting to see where God has brought us from...