Who Am I And What Am I Worth?

American Christianity has gotten too superstitious. I'm not sure if prosperity gospel has seeped into our thinking somewhere or if it's just American culture in general. Either way, we've developed a skewed idea of what a spiritual walk and a blessed life is supposed to look like.

I spent three or four years of my life in full time ministry inside one of America's many performance based genres of Christianity. A works based system places higher importance on those who work more. Normal people with family commitments, financial struggles, and personal issues are left to feel inferior and worthless. There's actually a lot of dishonesty in this type of system because nobody is free from these problems no matter how perfect and holy they paint themselves. To make a long story short, God opened my eyes to it all and I left. While my mind was clear and fresh I made some very intentional decisions. I moved my wife and my children back to top priority where they belonged. This included reducing my travel schedule to about half of what it used to be and holding it there no matter how many invitations to do otherwise came to me. I chose to focus on the legitimate burdens God had placed on my heart instead of the vanity that had begun crowding it out. This means that the last year of my life has included a lot more off stage ministry work than the previous four. I recalibrated everything and started over. The year is almost over and, as I look back over it all, I see one of the greatest ministry years of my life. Why have I struggled so much, then?

I can remember thinking that the elitist sect I was a part of was the last leg of real Christianity. I felt like I was part of something extremely important and that very few people were doing as much as me. If I can be honest, I miss that feeling. Truth brought me down to a place of equality with every person who has faith in Christ. My selfish nature doesn't like feeling common. The ministry work I do that isn't on a stage gets very little attention. Just a few hours ago God allowed me to greatly impact a struggling Christian I met in town but the story will never get told and my reputation will not grow from it. There is a carnal part of me that has been starving these last few months from lack of attention. It's not dead yet but I'm anticipating the day. 

What am I worth? If God calls me to minister to strugglers in my hometown and equips me for the job, am I valuable if you don't know I'm doing it? If God calls me to skip a few singing opportunities so I can stay home and make sure I'm the husband my wife needs and the father my children need am I still important in the grand scheme of things? 

What I've discovered is an identity struggle. I've taken that crowd that is applauding me as my wife and I walk off the stage and defined myself by it. I've let the size of my fan base determine my value. When I meet men who are better at doing what I do it drives insecurity into my heart. When I meet men who are more well known for doing what I do I question my gifts and abilities. Who am I? What am I worth? What terrifying questions these become.

The answers are actually simple. Who am I? I'm a child of the King just like you. No matter how cranked up my ego gets and no matter how depressed and beat down from insecurity I become, I'm still the Kings child. I'm not a Private, a Lieutenant, or a Five a Star General; I'm a child of the King. I'm not a working class commoner, an unskilled average Joe, or a needy beggar; I'm a child of the King! What am I worth? What is my purpose? What is my calling and my cause? How important is it? Again, the same answer fits every single one of us. Christ is the true Vine and I am the branch. I am the medium that Jesus Christ literally lives through wherever He chooses to let me exist and with whatever hand He so chooses to deal to me. If he makes me a benevolent rich man, a world class song writer, a local youth pastor, or the owner and operator of a one man grass cutting business, I am the branch that provides fruit to that place. The only qualification to fulfill this calling is to have breath in my lungs. He may build me up, He may tear me down. He may enrich me with provision, He may make me suffer. No matter the climate, I am a branch!

What an identity! It's beautiful isn't it? We have to keep each other reminded of these things because they are so easy to miss. I'm sure I'll struggle with them all over again, maybe even next week, but the truth won't change. The world doesn't need another show stealing celebrity, they just need some sweet fruit that will draw them to the Vine. That's who I am, that's who you are, and it's important. 

Stop Chasing the Deserters

In my mind I'm a freedom fighter. I use the intellect God gave me to provoke the oppressors and defend those who haven't the mind to do it themselves. (Orchestra music begins) I stand on hilltops in front of villages full of simple slaves and I stir them to rise because I understand there is more of them than there are of the slave drivers so I lead them to freedom! (Orchestra music screeches to a halt.) Well, that's what it looks like in my mind at least.

I've been bent this way for a long time. I'll never forget the huge fight I picked on the play ground when I was in fifth grade. It never actually happened but it should have. There was a group of about ten or twelve bullies in our fifth grade that made the lives of everyone at school miserable. It dawned on me one day that we outnumbered those rascals so I went to work. I passed notes, I met with guys in the hallway, I whispered across urinal dividers, and I got every able bodied guy I knew stirred up to end this thing once and for all. After I got fifteen or twenty of these oppressed "good kids" united I went to the ring leader of the bullies and set a date to fight this thing out. I told him we were sick of him and his buddies and it was stopping today. The time was tomorrow at recess. I could hardly sleep that night. I was excited in a good kind of way. I hate competition, I never played any sports, but I have always loved a good fight. Tomorrow came. Recess came. I walked out on the field that afternoon looking twelve of the toughest guys I knew in the eye. I looked around me and I had one friend show up. He was a mean fat kid that watched too many action movies. I had to stand down that day. I had the fight in me but I had a group of friends that were a bunch of deserters. I tell you what I wanted to do. I wanted to spend the rest of the week picking fights with all my friends that hung me out to dry that afternoon. 

I think in the Christian life that's exactly what a lot of us wind up doing. I've come to terms with the fact that the Christian life is chock full of kids that want a good grade but very few that are interested in the actual fight. The few of us that want to give our lives for what matters wind up getting so mad at all these egocentric babies that we start fighting them instead of that group of devils we are supposed to be waging war with. We have to take our eyes off of those people. We have to do what we can without them. There's that weird kid with no daddy that needs to know he matters. There's that short, chubby girl that needs to know she's pretty, too. Realistically, there is a whole world of people that need hope. The deserters are going to do there thing but if we are going to do ours we are going to have to forget about those guys. What's sad is that we are fighting for those deserters, too. They'll appreciate it one day.... Meanwhile, we gotta get our heads in the game and our swords in the fight. 

What is wrong with us? (An honest look at Fundamentalism)

             I have spent my entire life inside Baptist fundamentalism. I began as the unfocused teen simply interested in success for my life and Jesus as part of my culture. I went on to discover faith and surrender. It is there that I sought completion solely in  Christ. Unfortunately, instead of staying there, I went on to join the ranks of the Pharisees. I glamorized my works, belittled "lesser" Christians, placed all my faith in performance holiness, and did my part to help build the intimidating, authoritarian side of this movement by associating myself with the shunners and avoiding the injured. When one is a Pharisee, it's healthier for his pretensive reality to pretend like those who have been hurt have somehow brought it upon themselves. Mind you, I'm not throwing stones; I'm just speaking from personal experience.

More recently, though, I've stepped away from the political side of fundamentalism and begun to get to know the side of this movement that seems desperate to overcome the movement itself. What is wrong with us? I want to know because I want to see it fixed. I've done a considerable amount of homework on where fundamentalism came from. Honestly, I was afraid it was going to turn me off even more to what I have known my whole life.  In reality,  I found a sincere group of revolutionaries that lived a little over two hundred years ago -- imperfect people, mind you, that were weary of religious authority. I found a group of people with the desire to base their beliefs on a literal interpretation of Scripture. Nothing added, nothing taken away. They were our country's first non-denominationalists. Had they been able to look ahead in time and see the "denomination" we've made it into today, where churches strictly adhere to the oral traditions of camps and successful preachers are emulated more than the life of Christ, they would surely be sick at their stomachs. The Christian life has liberty because of the personal element of the relationship with God. I have my own copy of God's Word, my own access to my Father's throne, and my own ears to hear reproof and encouragement depending on what I need. The authority hierarchy that many fundamentalists have begun to subscribe to in recent decades has brought fear into this otherwise good movement. People must hide their past, camouflage their current struggles, dress the part of perfection, and leave the wounded behind. Those who comply to the system have pride struggles that can get bigger than life itself. The pride then goes on to form more false authority, more intimidating pressures, and more discipled hypocrisy. Play along or else, you know? The oral traditions become a sort of law that scripture can't attest to, but who is brave enough to question it? 

Why am I saying all of this? I'm saying it because I want to remind everyone that faith and spirituality are between you and God. Holiness is sincerity of heart and purity of motive.  You can let God purify you to that place, even while not meeting someone else's spoken law or tradition. You can live without man-made systems. The names "fundamentalist" and even "Baptist" have the potential of souring. Don't pass out on me, now. These titles are just like my own home church's name. If my home church goes crooked, I don't have to go down with the ship because my relationship with God doesn't depend on anyone's system. The guidelines need to be simplified. Does your church pledge its allegiance to only Jesus? Does it preach faith as the basis for salvation AND spirituality? Does it love people -- even those inconvenient backslidden ones? Does it operate free of outside influences and fear of external politics? Does it promote honesty? You probably attend a good one if you can answer all those right. Does it constantly demean and insult those it disagrees with? Does it push you to throw away relationships with friends and family over preferences that it pretends are doctrines? Does it inspire you to be a tattler and a gossip? Does it leave you making excuses for  heart sins that nobody wants to admit or recognize? You may be in a church that could potentially ruin your marriage and turn your children off to Jesus. 

People only have the power over you that you give them. We need revival, and I'm not  afraid to admit it. Don't be afraid to detach from opinions and live as God gives you liberty to. Ask Him to purify you from sin. I'm talking about those nasty, murky waters of motive. Ask Him to strengthen your faith. You can't be His disciple and a slave to man's approval at the same time. Ask Him to relocate you spiritually to a place of dependency on only Him. I'm not saying it won't be painful. However, if our lives are to matter, then what is REAL must become top priority in our minds. Fundamentalism began when guys picked up their Bibles and said, "We can survive with ONLY this." We need that passion back. Revive us again, oh, Lord....

Dear Zach,

I had a phenomenal day today. The last few days have taken a lot of weight off of me as God began completing some huge life lessons in my heart. The last two years of my life have been filled with huge life lessons, really, and I see several more beginning as I enter into this new segment of my life. I've been saved by the grace of God for eleven years next month and that eleven years encompasses most of my mature life (if you consider age seventeen to be mature). I got to thinking about what it would be like if I could sit down and write a letter to myself to mail back in time to when I was seventeen years old and a brand new child of God. There are a thousand things I could say, I guess, but I've narrowed it down to the items I feel like could have steered me clear of some of the areas the monster named "experience" has had to teach me. I can't send this list back in time to myself but I'm going to write it anyway and let you read it right where you are today in hopes that it may change your tomorrow for the better. 

1.  Don't lose yourself in other people's expectations.

When I surrendered my life to God in my early twenties He developed some specific burdens in me and put some callings on my life to help make a difference in those places. A lot has changed about me since I gave God everything but every one of those burdens is still alive and kicking in my heart. The segments of my life where they went dormant or got propped up to collect dust in the corner was the segments where I allowed other sincere Christians to pull me in to what they thought I should be doing. People can pin all sorts of responsibilities onto us, some of which we may even be good at, that God just simply didn't ask us to do. Before you know it, good intentions and a lack of an ability to say no has got you stretched thin. Usually the things that really suffered most when I lost control in this area was my wife and my children. I really missed a lot. Way more than I'm comfortable admitting. All I can do at this point is learn from it and refuse to let it happen again. 

2.  Don't let passion for God turn into self glory.

Sometimes all the Devil has to do to ruin a good Christian is encourage him. When God began to open my eyes to spiritual things I came alive to the cause of Christ! Then the pastor said something like, "It's really encouraging to me how active you are in the church. You teach Sunday School, run youth meetings, sing, go on visitation with me every week..." and the battle began. Can you believe how amazing I am? If you AREN'T aware of how amazing I am I'd like to run all my stats by you! Seriously...when pride takes over a Christian's life of service it becomes a shiny life of sin. As much as I hate that you guys don't know every little thing that I am doing for Jesus right now it really is better this way. Motive can shift in an instance and we must guard it with our lives!

3.  Don't let your separation unto God make you a judge of your brother.

I canned my secular music, I got rid of my television, I became more faithful to church: I drew a lot of lines in my life, some that needed to be drawn and some that didn't, but almost instantly I became critical of the people around me that had not drawn those same lines in their life. Like a five year old boy making fun of his two year old brother for not being able to quote the alphabet. I really did get like that. Not only in the areas of growth but in areas of culture and education. What if these "inferior" people I looked down on so quickly just simply didn't have the light or the opportunities that I've had? What if these backslidden, angry Christians with horrible attitudes are where they are because of people like me that lack the good sense to see what drove them there? What if all the people around me that are wrong and burnt out and even God haters need me? What if I'm the problem? Let's work on me instead of them and see what that does for a change. 

4.  Don't live for approval. 

If you have two or more friends, you are bound to do something on a preferential level that one of them is not going to agree with. Pray about your preferences. Every preference you have is vital in your life to keep you guarded from slipping in principle areas. Which genres of Christian music do you think are right? Where are the lines for modesty? Is your taste in churches more country in culture or do you like city style? Make these decisions in your life for God and make them for your family and make them for nobody else. If you make one decision in your life to please an outside source you will become a slave to that outside source and it's likely that you will never get out or get hurt bad trying. 

5.  Be careful who your friends are.

Inevitably, when I failed in areas one through four I built a faulty system that caused me to fail here, too. Friendships should never ever never ever be built on what you can do for each other; that is a business relationship and not a friendship. Friendships should also never be built on sins that you have in common: "We are both jealous of this group, or bitter at these people, or better than those over there." If sin is the common ground then progressive sanctification is going to eventually wreck the relationship. When you manage to fill your friend list with relationships like these you set yourself up for a whole bunch of drama. Build on positive camaraderie, build on love, build on spiritual connection:  these are the sorts of relationships that won't let you down.

Confessions of a Recovering Pharisee (Part 2)

I've reached a point in my life where I feel it is time to step out. I'm done. I can't stay here any longer. A year and a half ago I wrote a blog post called Confessions of a Recovering Pharisee that was the initial steps of this journey. It's been a journey that I feel like is just getting good and started. For the last ten years of my life I've been part of a religious system that was based largely on fear of honesty. I have developed a desperate need for real! I'm not going to live in fear any more. I'm not going to make decisions based on what you think of me any longer. It seems that the very opinions I've valued most in recent years have come from people trapped in the same fears that I have been trapped in. Inevitably we have done little more than feed each other. I know good people in passionate ministries that are more conservative than I am and I know some that I highly appreciate that are more liberal than I am. Just within the borders of my Facebook friend list is a difference of opinions longer than I could list. Proof we are human. Where I came from people were afraid to even like a status if it was posted by someone that wasn't "like us." "They aren't like we are." What does that even mean? I refuse to live that way any longer. I have a burden for lost people that I pursue with God's help most every day and I have come to terms with the fact that I can do that with or without your help. The time in my Christian life when most of my friends thought I had it all together was when I was the most self conceited, self absorbed, and self righteous. Now that I've come to terms with who I am I've lost many of those friends. The facade was more popular but I'm not wearing it any longer. God made me for a purpose that I'll miss if I focus my life trying to fit in with you. God made me for a ministry that won't work if I let you define me. God gifted me with boldness that I'll lose if I continue to give ear to your opinions. 

Why am I telling you this? Because I love you and I want you to step out with me. The world doesn't need any more flawless, untouchable Christians because they know it's a farce. How many times have we saw the problems with our own eyes and made excuses for them? That's where I am. I'm done making excuses for you. I'm done making excuses for me. The Pharisees were polished but they got outpaced by some roughneck fishermen who didn't know the Bible near as well simply because those old fishermen didn't mind being honest with Jesus and letting Jesus be honest with them. That's where I'm going to build my house. Your life isn't perfect and neither is mine. No matter how much we try to get on social media and church platforms and paint it that way we all still have the same selfish, self promoting, deceitful heart beating in our chests that we must contend with every day. I've tried to make men happy and its a miserable life. I can't live there any more. The last few months have handed me plenty of discouragement but they have given me a taste of what I've been searching for and it tastes so wonderful that I'll never be satisfied with anything less: REAL. I'm catching my "second wind!" The Zach you've been reading behind for the past few months and, Lord willing, from now on is going to be raw and honest and likely outside of your box. You may like it, you may not like it but I'm not afraid of you any more. God has broken the chains in my life. I didn't say cut. I said broken. It's not going to be easy to step out of the politics your Christianity has been built in because that's where we have become comfortable. In fact, it may be the fight of your life. Revolutions and revivals alike have never been carried on the backs of men who were afraid to stand and say something nor have they ever been brought by men who desire to blend and be approved of. We can do this. We don't need the Christian political system as bad as we think we do. It's robbing the church of its children every day. The statistics aren't on our side. The Devil may get my children one day but it won't be because I handed them to him with a blindfold over my eyes that I tied on myself. I want light. I want real. I'm walking out of this place and I want you to come with me.

Numb to Church

It's Sunday morning and your conscience is telling you to go to church but reality is asking you a very legitimate question. "Why?" You scan through a list of churches in driving range of your house and the whole scene just looks like a busy blur of shallow activity. Numbness is the sensation that the idea of church brings to you. I'll never forget when I was sixteen years old and I busted my knee skateboarding. It wasn't one of those bloody mess sort of things. The blow took place just below the knee cap but the force raised a knot the size of a goose egg and to this day the feeling has never came back. Skateboarding was my passion but I quit that day. Those of you that know me know that I got another board in recent years but it was just to reach out to some young people in my life. I've never pursued skateboarding with the aggressiveness and vigor that I did through my early teens. Why? Because numbness is an incredible deterrent. 

When a person gets hurt by church it is rarely an injury that can be seen on the outside but the damage that takes place to the infrastructure of that person's spiritual peripheral nervous system can take all the feeling out of life. The network of Christians that we live around is where we wind up pulling most of our conception of God from because it's the easiest place to find His working hand. When a piece of "God" turns out to be an absolute fraud thats a blow that can set you up for a recovery so slow that you'll likely die before it happens. This morning you find yourself at a place where you need to be getting out of bed and getting ready for church but you really just need some answers, too.

Before I try to describe some kind of "fix all" for you to implement into your life I want you to take a deep breath and realize that what you feel is normal. God designed you. He knows what your weaknesses are. God knows where you've been and what you've been through. If you decided to make today another Sunday that NO church saw your face you didn't decrease on His "favorites" list. All those church people your life used to revolve around may completely forget about you. Maybe they think you deserve every struggle you face because of how disappointing you are to God. None of that matters. Fact is, if you are a born again child of God, He was sitting on the edge of your bed this morning like any good daddy would be smiling at you with that "lets give this another go" look on His face. Yep. Contrary to what you may believe He is still crazy about you. As a matter of fact, He'd really like to spend some time with you. That blow you took, that numbness you feel, it may make a whole lot of people in your life look complicated but God hasn't changed any. Don't let any person that has wronged you cheat you of fellowshipping with God. 

The second thing I want you to realize is that God is interested in healing you. Man would be happy if you would just suppress all the questions you have, jump back into performing, and pretend like everything is fine but God doesn't need another hypocrite contributing to this same problem in other people's lives. No, God wants to heal you. When I was in middle school there was a gang of bullies that made a lot of people's lives miserable. I remember going home in the evenings and walking around my neighborhood with my dad. I'd share I'll my frustrations with him and he'd encourage me. Most of those guys got kicked out of my school within a year or two but my dad sustained me while they were in my life. The problem is that most of the time Christians put "dad" in with all the things that hurt them and walk away from Him, too. Your Bible hasn't been inconsistent, though. God isn't responsible for all the two faced religion you've seen. When we cut Him off with all the church people we open ourselves to falling into some serious sins. Maybe thats where you are today. Maybe your life has slid into all sorts of shameful actions because of your numbness. The sin in your life may be "confirmation" to all the church people that they were right about you when they had those "bad feeling" about you they claim they had. Religious fakes usually think they are prophets, don't they. They're too blind to see that they created the situation that got this ball rolling in your life. God is a good daddy and He is hurting for you right now. If you stop and look you'll see that gentle hand of grace that has never stopped reaching into your life. Step one is to get back on talking terms with God. He hasn't cut you off. You've actually cut Him off. God breaks fellowship with cold hearted rebellion not injured desperation. No, friend, He's still got full focus on you and He wants to walk you through this. He can sustain you. He can HEAL you if you'll let Him.

The third thing I want you to realize is that whether you are twenty years old or seventy years old it's ok to start over. Maybe you were deceived spiritually about a lot of things that lead to your numbness. Maybe you had your faith in people instead of God. Maybe you were part of a church that was just plain wrong about everything. Maybe your own family did this to you. Here you sit somewhere in the middle of life and you are tore all the way down back to your foundation. You can rebuild! You can set out on the frustrating journey of church hunting and find a group of people that love you and you can start over. There are places like that out there. It may take some effort to find and it may not look like anywhere you've been before but you can find it with God's help and you can shamelessly stand up, start over, and walk out of the ashes.

The last thing I want you to realize is that relapses are going to happen. You are going to run into those people that hurt you in public or on social media. You are going to be riding down the road one day and randomly remember the injustice you've seen and you're going to get angry again. We like to pretend that once we get a victory we never revisit our defeats but this is not a movie or a novel; this is real life and you are going to have frustrating relapses here and there. Buckle your seatbelt and stay honest with yourself. What you went through was bad but you don't need to live in it every day. Recognize self pity in your life and don't feed it. When Jesus healed the cripple man He told him to take up his bed and walk. That man was no longer sitting in that spot where he suffered for all those years but in all his victory he still had a reminder. He still had that bed in his hands. Let that bed be a reminder of Christ and His healing and not of the years that disease robbed you of. It's going to take some time and effort, friend, but you can get the feeling back. You don't have to live numb.

How to Love a Mean Christian

Christianity is the most peaceful, joyful, balanced, fair, love based walk that a human could ever encounter. In fact, the main reason the world is so critical of Christianity is that they recognize this fact and they see most of us living contrary to it. Real world Christians, however, recognize that the Christian life is a journey of learning and growth that never ceases. Those of us living here on the inside know how flawed we are and don't even feel the need to pretend that we are perfect. We understand who our Father is and in all of our childish, distracted, near sighted simplicity we trust that He is going to finish the work He has started in us. Then, in the midst of this quiet, personal journey of grace, we come across these arrogant, vocal, know-it-all Christians who seem to think they have it all together. These "perfect" Christians aren't joining us in our content walk behind Christ where we find rest in Him and satisfaction in our crosses. No, their life mission seems to be one of self deception where they are already a completed work and have been commissioned by God to help Him fix us so we can be as holy and right as they are. The worst part is that most of the time these mean Christians make us so mad that we wind up returning the attitude but what if these people aren't as simple as they appear? What if they need our help and our love? In order to help them we have to understand what has created their situation. There are a lot of factors but lets just take a look at the one area I believe may be the root issue.

Insecurity

Even the nicest house dog can turn mean when he is afraid. At the heart of every mean Christian you encounter is actually a person who is afraid. Maybe they haven't felt like they could compete with the talents and abilities of the people around them. Maybe something or someone in their past has made them feel as if they had very little self worth. Since this insecure Christian feels as though he would never be recognized or appreciated among the masses of "regular" Christians he is driven to create his own cult inside Christianity where he then can be recognized as extremely above average. After a while of living this way he starts believing that he really is better than most of those around him and his anger and resentment toward the people he feels intimidated by is then taken out on them through an attitude of condescension. They have made him feel meaningless, he believes, so in his new imaginary world where he is one of the elite he now attempts to return the favor. 

How Can We Help?

Most of the time we instinctively try to fight fire with fire but there is two problems with that tactic here. One, the mean Christian needs his imaginary form of Christianity in order to have any self worth and he is never going to allow you to take that away from him. If he has to label you "ungodly" and call you a "heretic" in order to discredit anything you say he will not hesitate to do that. Secondly, you attacking him only confirms his inner fears that the world around him doesn't appreciate or respect him. No matter how brilliant your thoughts are, how passionately you speak, or how knowledgable of scripture that you are he isn't going to hear your words because of your approach. The essential key to reaching a person with this sort of insecurity is by proving their suspicions wrong. The simple concept of forgiving, long-suffering, tenderhearted kindness combined with an intentional outstretched hand of love goes a long way. Find something good in them and focus on it. Be the friend they've been looking for whenever even a tiny opportunity presents itself and don't take anything hateful or spiteful that they may say personal. The key? Realize that they are a person just like you with a struggle that may simply be different than yours. See them as brothers and sisters and do what you can to encourage them. Ignoring them may be the easiest answer but it's not what Jesus would do.