Let's start this thing...

Howdy All,
Scott from Texas Here.

Without further ado, I shall declare this blog open!

I'm still not sure what all it will be about. Except for one thing. It will relate to my journey.
My journey? You ask? Well my life. But the term life lends me to think about a reflection on the past. A memoirs of sort. This is not that. It's on going. It is my life as it unfolds.

I would say the most significant part of my life at this particular moment is the fact that about 3 years ago I left the institutionalized church and started focusing on the relational aspects of the true Church. I'll have to dedicate another entry to the exit. So for now just know that along with my wife and children, we left.
So far in those 3 years I have personally undergone a myriad of changes. At first, I knew I had done the right thing. Even though a few people said it was not a good idea. "What about your children" was popular, and of course the infamous "Do not forsake the gathering together" said in their best King James English. Looking back I can laugh but at the time it hurt. Not one person from our former institutional gathering has EVER talked to me about it. We were heavily involved in church activities. I had a Sunday School class or college age singles and young married couples. My wife was a Sunday school teacher for children, and Children's Director, and Nursery Coordinator. I was also ordained as a deacon and served as such for about a year & a half. I was forced to leave my position o f teaching high school boys in the youth department because I "needed to be more visible to the older people of the church". I saw things behind the scenes that were touted as "works of God" but were nothing more than the man behind the curtain pulling all the cords throwing all the switches at just the right time. I was forced to "have a talk" with people in monetary troubles before the church would give them any money. Wow. I am getting into more than I wanted to. ANYWHAAAY.
We left. I got in touch with friend that had left the same church a few months before we did. I had not talked to this person since he left. But I found out that he was thinking of starting a church and had a few people to help with the direction of it. I did not want to get involved with another church that soon. But within a month or so I was in. We started an apartment ministry to children after school. It went over great. We changed a lot of lives. I never pushed the churchy aspects of anything. I was just there to play with the kids. Thy appreciated that. Well a few of the people that had been helping me were in between jobs... they got jobs. So one by one the helpers left. So it stopped. And so did I. I was doing things because I thought that was what you were supposed to do. If you were not doing something "for God" then you were not "right" with God. I was in the same place as before. The life I was looking for in Christ was not there. It was work but for works sake. Not God. So I stopped doing anything. It actually felt good. Still deep down I felt guilty for not doing something. But I felt free. Free from the pressure of others. And I did not feel like God had left, just because I stopped "doing". I started to feel closer to God. It was strange. So strange that I thought I was going down a VERY wrong path. "Why is there no one else that is going through what I am" I thought to myself. One of my paths ran me across a blog named "Stupid Church People". This blog, although rough sometimes, helped me. Because by then I had become very bitter towards anything "churchy". This fit in perfectly with a lot of what they were talking about over there. Then in one of the blogs someone mentioned a book by Wayne Jacobson called "So You Don't Want To Go To Church Anymore" and that book, along with most of Wayne's teachings has changed my life. I found out that there were a lot of people out there that were doing the same thing as me, but one difference. They were not bitter anymore. They were working through their bitterness with this new teaching "Freedom In Christ". WOW! Freedom? I had been aware of that passage for years but I never GOT it. I say "New Teaching" because it was just that to me. I had heard it but NEVER experienced it. All I can say is WOW. You would not believe just how freeing freedom is.

This is kind of where I am at now. I left out a few of the steps along the way but I shall visit some of them along the way. But for now I would like to share a few of the web sites I have found during this time. I no particular order...
http://www.stupidchurchpeople.com/
http://biggerrock.com/
http://www.jakecolsen.com/
http://www.lifestream.org/index.html
http://new.wittenburgdoor.com/
http://www.freebelievers.com/
http://boredagainchristian.com/
http://www.relevantmagazine.com/


If you do anything here please go to these two links...
http://freebelievers.com/blog-entry/into-the-wild
http://freebelievers.com/podcast-info/overcoming-institutional-mindsets



I hope to talk about friendships lost & gained next time...

See ya then.

Scott from Texas
scottfromtexas@gmail.com