Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Regaining my Religion

That's me in the corner.

That's me in the spotlight.

Regaining my religion.

I never really lost it ... it's just gone through lots of transformations.

Currently religion permeates our house.

Aside from Sarah leading us in prayer before supper ... to the sounds of ketchup squirting, glasses being filled and lips smacking ... the religion permeating our house is coming from the outside.

There's Bar Church ... church in a bar because most people don't go to God in a Box anymore ... somewhere around 43% of Americans actually attend church services.

Far more regularly frequent bars ... especially those serving food.

Samuel Adams ... who used to have really nice hair ... hit upon the idea of Bar Church  and you know what? ... people who normally wouldn't be caught dead in church .... CAME TO CHURCH IN A BAR!

It shouldn't be surprising.

Jesus hung around tax collectors, liars, prostitutes and midgets ... all of whom frequent bars.

His first miracle was turning water into wine at a wedding because ... God knows most go on forever and everybody's just waiting on the reception so they can toast the Bride and Groom and get on with the party!

Anyway, Samuel's on to other things and I'm kind of in charge of Bar Church at the moment.

I didn't see it coming.

Course ... nobody ever sees God coming.

For the past two Sundays, it's been all about Bar Church at our house ... me asking Sarah to pick out the songs ... sing the songs ... cover my countless mistakes playing the songs.

The girls are helpful wanting to sing with us on Sunday morning and introduce "twirking" in the name of Jesus as part of the service.

I keep telling them charismatics did that years ago.

If that's not enough, our friend Kyle Shiver asked me to help with Tybee SPIRIT ... an all inclusive, spiritual movement that needs to be at the beach.

I like Kyle a lot and spirituality a lot more so it seems like the right thing to do.

We're working hard to ... see what happens.

I haven't been a "Professional Christian" since ... I quit.

That means I haven't been paid for what I believe in a long time.

To be honest the Southern Baptist were throwing me out anyway so I resigned before they could.

I swore I'd never do it again yet ... here I am ... discerning the Spirit ...seeking wise council ... pondering how it's going to affect the way we live because we like the way things are!

It's taken Sarah and I half our lives already to get here so we're really trying to make up for lost time and enjoy however much we got left together.

And ... we both share feelings we can't quite knock.

Something special may be starting and we find ourselves in the middle of it.

The timing is terrible!

Sarah just started a new job so she's busy.

So I told God I'll call back.

But it's dawning on me that God is the initiator of calls.

Not the receiver.