Return to the Fold

It has been a very long time since I sat down to say anything here.

That's obvious I guess—I have a knack for saying obvious things.

My life these past years does not require a detailed account. Simply said, I have listened more than I have spoken to the people around me and I have let them determine my way.

My way: Where I am going. Who I am. How I think. What I believe.

I listened to their questions. Some of them genuine. Some of them mocking.

Their sneers at Christians, that those who have faith are somehow less educated, or stupid, or fools.

Uneducated stabs at the relevancy, reality, and the very validity and credibility of the Bible.

And these are my friends. These are people I love.

Their questions, the real ones, became my questions. I've picked up several books, sought out the answers. I might talk about those here at some point.

When I first moved to Austin I was angry. Turning and looking at those I once considered myself, I became a part of another tribe. "This is how They are!"—it is ignorance to lump any group of people into one heap and declare such things. My point is, I left long ago being mad at the church.

I am not interested in they's. I am not looking to draw a line and put so-and-so here or there. I am interested in one thing, and that is Christ. His life. My life in Him. And finding my way in Him again.

I was an active Christian from 13 to 30 and with almost a decade gone I find I am a stranger to was once close and dear to me.

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We sat on the subway. It swayed and clanked and she said, "Did you used to go to church?"
Not sure where she got this question, what look in my face prompted it, I responded, "I did once."
"You miss it?"
"I do," I said.

Envious of those who live a life of faith. Of those who have found a True Walk with God.

"I know too much," I thought.

Here's what I know. That there is nothing in this world that satisfies me. That there is nothing I can do or bring into my life that brings me that, life.

Aware of this, so aware, the last month, and finally I must do something about it.

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I would like to tell you the Bible is lighting up for me when I read it. I would like to tell you my prayer time is filled with revelation. I cannot tell you either.

I know one prayer, and I pray it, and I trust it. Wholly.

Our Father, which art in heaven,

hallowed be thy name;

thy kingdom come;

thy will be done,

in earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread.

And forgive us our trespasses,

as we forgive them that trespass against us.

And lead us not into temptation;

but deliver us from evil.

For thine is the kingdom,

the power, and the glory,

for ever and ever.

Amen.

Christ told me to pray that prayer and so I pray it. And you know what? It works. It brings me peace and settles my heart.

There is an inkling of love and a flicker of light as I encounter the scriptures I once loved the best. I am excited, somewhere in me, as I think about living life in Christ again.

I am cautious, because I know I have made false starts in the last couple of years.

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I have to tell you, I am leery of anything smacking of a marketing plan. I have no concern for the "relevancy" that is bandied about in Christian circles. I don't need (or want) cute sermons or skits. I don't need a coffee shop with a scripture on the paper cup.

I am aware of my prejudices. I am praying over them. I pray for an ear to hear what's really going on.

What I want—what I need—is the Word of God and room to worship Him. That's all I ask for. That's what I am looking for in a church. I know it is crucial for the Christian to be in a body. My prayer is to know where that body is. I know the Holy Spirit will guide me.

It won't be two years until I post again.

Where my heart should be.

The heart unfettered to Christ is pulled to and fro by this world.

Distracted, leaping from one thing to another. Reeling from outside forces. Never quiet. Never satisfied. Never pleased.

The economy. The culture. Relationships. Cares and worries. Upon all of these and a thousand more, these are the waves in which my heart is tossed.

It is Christ where my heart finds rest. It is in His holy cross that my solace lies. The hands pierced, the brow that bled, these are precious to me.

The heart steadied on Christ resides in an atmosphere of hope, surety, peace, and joy. Shining, yes, in the darkness of this shadow world. This is where my happiness comes from, my satisfaction.

Just a moment--no, my entire life--spent meditating on those last moments with the man on the Cross, before his crying out. Of my sins borne there. Of my life, now in His, lifted in his resurrection. This resurrection mine.

May my heart be ever mindful of all I've been given. The hands of my Savior offering me life. It is a practice, this remembering. One I am learning and relearning.

Thank you Jesus for the life you've given me.

Thank you.

Thank you.

More to come

I have become convinced that a man's greatest battle with himself is integrity.

That's a big word, and can mean a lot of things. I intend to explain.

Unencumbered

I have tired of being broken, of pointing out cracks either healed, or readily so by the Cross of Christ, the Word of God, and the unguent of the Holy Spirit. Entering back into fellowship comes with its tricks, standing, as I have, on this side of it for too long.

There were moments where I wondered if it was a fairy tale. The facts presented are pretty fantastic.

At the end of the day, I have to respond to the jump of my heart within me when God's word is presented. When I see Christ in the things around me. The undeniable goodness of God's hand in my life. I have been forged this way, be it wrong, or be it right. It is who I am. It is what I must claim as truth. I have no choice but to do any other thing, to respond when it is spoken.

What cost the Cross? What desires do I have that trump the goodness of life in Christ? My own selfishness would draw lines in the sand, holding out its hand, "You can't do this! Or THAT! What about that? Won't you be robbed?"

For which one of these things, all temporary, all counterfeit, would I offer up the peace of my heart? They are weights, these things from which we've been given freedom. As Paul stated, "All things are legal for me, not all things are expedient." The Cross gives me the opportunity to be who I truly am, who I was created to be, unencumbered by the distractions, the pull and press of my flesh.

How can I be robbed when the hand that provides me is the manifest goodness of the Creator?

The sin I commit is largely perpetrated against my self, robbing me of the fullness of God. Why would I live a life in the darkness of shadow? Why should my life be a portion of what is possible? What reason is there to live in a piece when I can have the whole?

And to know--to KNOW--what is possible, to have eaten and tasted and known the Good of Life in Christ? What question is there for me? What keeps my feet from running, arms held wide, into the arms of the One I love the most?

Indeed, my hand burns from being smacked, but now I am the only one holding it back. The fear in my life--of trusting, primarily--is a thing I choose to hang on to, to call my own. There is freedom from this fear. I can set it down more readily than it gripped me.

I have also found the opinions of others to be the bricks of the prison I have constructed around myself. "What will they think? Will I lose my relationships?" Some may be lost, sadly. However, for most of my life I have walked as a Christian and had friends who didn't share the path with me. Real relationship with God draws others to Him. They know me, and that knowledge should make them okay. If not, I can't give up my joy for other's opinions. I hadn't before. Why should I now?

Walking in can be tricky. God's goodness though, I see it flashing around me, His hand at work.

What can my response be His goodness? To wallow in the backwater of my soul?

No. By His grace--no.

Part 1 : Chapter 3 : A Fighting Man

this blog is meant to be read in consecutive order, starting with the previous entries first.

I watch a lot of history and science television.

It is pretty much my entire diet of television watching. I have hours of details of tanks, and physics, and obscure battles shoved up into my brain. It's a wonder I remember anything else.

One night, a few months ago, there was a World War II documentary that dealt with a specific question: Why can some men go to war, do their duty, and when it's over, dust off their shoulders and move on, while others, even those in less intense combat situations, will be shaking wrecks for the rest of their lives?

I was cooking, or something, the TV is only on when I am eating or preparing dinner, so I wasn't paying close attention to the program's theories.

The question it posed, however, stuck with me.

I wondered what I would be like if I were in a war, what kind of man would I turn out to be?

Would I happily mow down my foes and then return home to kiss my wife and cut the lawn as if nothing had happened?

Would I raise a machine gun and close my eyes as I pulled the trigger, never to recover from the moment the weapon rattled in my hand?

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In warfare there are a myriad of reasons, I believe, a man could walk away from it--not unscathed--but not broken into small bits.

Faith in God, being what I think I would rely on most of all.

Belief that one is fighting ultimate evil or injustice, and is therefore just and right and doing "God's work"--so to speak--would be another.

Preparation is an important part. The bootcamp experience works to train a man to be a soldier and then sends him into the field.

What about the man, though, who has no training as a soldier? What about the innocent man who is walking on a beautiful beach, feeling the cool soil between his toes, and the next moment finds himself being strafed by an enemy aircraft? What about this man?

The question posed by the program, why do some men survive while others wither, applies to the "just a guy" walking on the beach.

...I wondered about myself.

I look back at the moment in my life when my surprise attack came. Looking at my shaking hands, I'm left with only one conclusion as to which man I am.

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The Bible makes it abundantly clear that we are in a battle.

I stood in the position of a pastor for a group of 200 tender-hearted, precious people.

In the church, the enemy's attack often aims at those in authority. A ministry is the only structure you can knock over by kicking off the top. Take a trip to Egypt and give the topmost block of a pyramid a shove. As it tumbles by, the blocks below stay steadily in place. (I am happy, and proud, to say the people working with me were solid and faithful and kept the work going, stepping in when I bowed out.)

As just a Christian we are assured we are in a war. *

I was not an innocent man on the beach. I was a soldier already.

* A spiritual one, not a literal one. This journal does not support or encourage militant action in the name of any religion, much less Christianity.

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The assault, though, wasn't a surprise for me. I knew it was coming.

When I was offered the position of pastor I prayed over it. The lives of the people I was to minister to were too precious for a glib, "Sure, why not?"

For a few days I mulled it over in my heart. Getting ready to leave the church one afternoon, God showed me something.

In my spirit, (SEE 1.2) I saw a wasteland where the church stood. Ruins. I saw a landscape of complete and utter devastation.

"Is the church going to be destroyed?" I said, shocked by the severity of the destruction I saw.

"This is what it will look like when your time is done here," He said.

He told me how long I would be there. Two years.

"That's not a long time for this all to end," I said.

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Two years later, the church did not crumble to the ground. It did not shut its doors.

There was, however, a devastation of sorts. I was among the first of an entire staff of dedicated and passionate people to leave. Lots of people left the church as I did, bruised, some crushed by its leadership.

I cannot, however, judge another man's work. The church still exists today. It still has a good attendance. I wish its leaders no ill will, nor their labor.

I have talked to many who do look back at what stands now as one would at ruins. As one would standing in front of the amazing columns of the Parthenon, imagining the splendor that must have been.

We don't have to imagine, we know the splendor that was, and our hearts ache for it. We ache also for those scattered, those injured in the fall. Families suffered, their children in turn, suffered and suffering still. Children of God dressed in the rags of what the world has to offer, the pale, thin comfort of sin or momentary pleasures that become one thing and one thing only--a prison.

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Shaken and stirred, I find myself now, seven years on.

I know others who have lost far more than I who walk in God's restoration and the fullness of His faithfulness.

I look at my own situation and shake my head, How little it took to take me out.

It is, of course, subjective. Each man's tent poles are different from the next.

Some acknowledge they are in a war, take the hits, and then pursue God's healing and promises.

Others lay on the battlefield, and rising, walk on, ears ringing, covered with wounds they are too shell-shocked to take to the Medic to heal.

What I realize now, is that part of the vision I had that day, or maybe all of it, was not the church or the work of that ministry.

It was me.

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God was faithful, on that day, when I chose to step into the work.

I had, at that time, two directions to go, and I felt He told me I could go either way.

He told me what my life would be like at the end if I chose the church path.

I went in knowing there would be destruction.

I went in trusting Him that He would be there when it was completed, regardless of what I passed through.

I am sure His grace and presence sustained me during the time I took hit after hit in ways I do not know, of which I am not aware.

I did not reach to access his grace though, not any measure of it.

I stumbled off into the distance.

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Now, I find myself in a house of my own construction, timber and wood stacked pitifully together. Gaping holes are in the roof, wind rushes in through the breaks in the walls. Again and again, it falls. Again, and again, I stack it back up.

I huddle in this hovel, though, on the floor of a great and mighty mansion. Seeking to protect myself, when marble floors lay below the thin dirt I've spread, when soaring colonnades and a real, solid, roof rise above the sticks I've placed over my head.

I have been a fool in the house of God! I feebly struggle to my feet, when the grace of the Creator of the Universe, the compassion of the precious Cross, and restoring presence of the Spirit stand to lift me, to put me back in place.

Faced with this I shudder and shake again, but not from the shell-shock. I quake in the presence of the goodness and faithfulness of God.

What a fool I truly am!

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What of the third man?

What of the man who was injured and shaken in the battle, but heals?

Does the man who crawled on the blackened soil of the battlefield, stunned from the explosions and torn by shrapnel refuse the stretcher he is offered? Should he wave the medics on, throwing away the moments in the operating room where his wounds are closed? Does he pass on the sunny corridors of the hospital where shattered bones are wrapped and healed?

I have crawled for too long.

I have begged off the healing hand of my Savior.

I will let Him lift me and carry me.

I will be the third man, wounded in battle, but restored by His Lord.

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1.2 Church Speak - I didn't like using them as a pastor, my kids were always bringing their friends, many who'd never been to church, and I don't like--I especially don't like--using them now. Church speak is like any other specialized language. Whether it be computer technicians, or graphic designers, or crafters, there are terms used that mean bupkis to everyone else. However, for the expediency of writing and posting this entry, I will forego explanation. As far as I know, only three people are looking in on this journal, and they are all familiar with the phrases I use. I may go back, at a later date and expound on what these things mean.

Part 1 : Chapter 2 : Meanie Beanie Weenie

this blog is meant to be read in consecutive order, starting with the previous entries first.

I am, by nature, an exhorter.

I like people to feel good about themselves. It's part of why I loved being a pastor.

The world of a junior high person changes weekly, daily, hourly, but being able to be there for them, to give them hope and the stability the Word offers, well, it just felt right.

~

"You make everyone in the room feel good about themselves," is what an ex-girlfriend said. It was a dig of some kind, a shot at me.

"I know," I said, a little befuddled as to why this part of my character was a bad thing, "I'm a real jerk."

We didn't date for much longer.

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A painting professor in college pointed out how I was constantly exhorting and edifying my fellow students and their work. (I thought I was providing even-handed critiques.)

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Years ago, my sister and I were having a discussion about a friend of ours. I saw a man floundering, his liberal viewpoint on grace the only thing keeping his head above the water, keeping him in the church (where we could help him). She saw a guy who needed to get his act together. Pronto. (She wanted to get the process started.)

My stepmom, who is a pastor, piped up, "She's there to bring them to repentance. You're there to put them back together." We laughed.

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I might have a problem, it occured to me after posting my first entry, writing this blog.

My M.O.--everybody feeling good about themselves--might get in the way.

I may have some things to say that some folks will feel are not very complimentary.

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I was a full-on churchie. I didn't live in the church culture, I embraced it, was surrounding by it, immersed in it. It was my choice, not something my parents forced on me. From 13 to 29, it was my world.

I had the t-shirts.

I listened to only Christian music. (SEE 1.1)

I was one of the kids praying in the foyer before school.

I talked to other kids about Jesus and knowing God.

Christ was a living and breathing expression in my life, of my life.

Therefore, I understand what it feels like to be in the church looking out at the "unsaved." Sometimes they're scary. They dress weird. They do weird stuff... if nothing else, they're just different.

What I had never experienced is being outside of the church looking in.

It's where I find myself now.

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I don't proclaim to be the end-all-be-all voice on the state of the modern church or of Christianity in America, far from it.

I'm a guy with a story to share. It is a tale from my point of view.

In the end, it's my hope that this journal will be good for people who have had my experience, and provide some insight to those who haven't, on both sides of the fence.

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1.1 Christian Music - Back in high school, I had this crazy idea that I shouldn't lust after girls. In that effort, I was trying to figure out why I was thinking about sex all the time. (The first answer is, of course, I was a teenager.) Even with that "condition," however, I felt God told me listening to pop radio didn't help matters. "Music is a meditation," He said, "Songs stick with you, the words stick with you, the words and sentiments stirring around and around in your heart." (Psalm 104:33-34, for one.)

A sample lyric from one of my favorite bands at the time, INXS, shows there is validity to this:

I need you tonight
'Cause I'm not sleeping
There's something about you girl
That makes me sweat

Yeah, I don't know why that sort of song would be a problem.*

* Humor. I'll use it from time to time.

Part 1 : Chapter 1 : The Beginning

My name is Sean Causewell.

I am a broken Christian.

I should, I guess, go back to the beginning to give you an idea of who I am.

My history.

My family was a church going bunch. My ancestry is filled with generations of devout Church of Christ and Baptist folks. My grandparents met each other in church. One great-grandfather wanted to be a minister, but as the treasurer for a small town in Oklahoma, he felt called by God to stick to the job. He saved the town from the Great Depression.

For the first few years of my life, my parents were not pursuing a walk with God. They were young, 21 and 25, respectively, and still working to get their heads on their shoulders. (Also, newly married, both having been in failed marriages before.) My grandparents were the ones who took us to church and talked to us about the Bible. My parents didn't have much to say on the matter.

In second grade I stood on the end of the sidewalk on my street. The lights in my house were bright and warm, the night air chill and crisp. I looked to the night sky, picked out the brightest star I could see (probably really a planet) and told God that if He wanted to send Jesus again, I'd be His brother. I meant it. It wasn't a conversion experience, but it was a sign of a heart calling out for its Creator.

When I was eleven, my family moved back to the place my stepmom had grown up. We started going to the Baptist church she'd attended when she was a girl. Soon after, my younger brother and sister went forward. Easter, one of them went, probably both of them. I wasn't willing to accept Christ until it was real in my heart. I certainly didn't feel enough to go with them.

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Baptist summer camp. Passionate evangelists and denim jeans in 100 degree weather. It was here I met Christ. Thirteen years old, I stumbled down an aisle. Tears poured from my eyes. Sobbing, I told the person at the altar I needed Jesus, wanted Him to be my savior. I don't remember the sermon that night. I just know that one of the things I took to Him--paralyzing guilt since my parent's divorce when I was four--was completely removed from me. My experience with Christ was real, solid, and it stuck.

A year later, my stepmom went to work for a local evangelist. He spoke about being filled with the Holy Spirit. He talked about a lot of stuff our Baptist preacher wasn't comfortable with. My family left the Baptist church to be involved in the charismatic movement of the early eighties.

My parents were excited. The Bible could be REAL. The things they read about in the New Testament were for today. They were radical, exciting days. My father raised from the dead a poodle that had been run over (really). Another one of their friends had cavities cleaned and filled while in a prayer service (also, really). The stories--especially the poodle one--seem silly to me now, and maybe to you too. This is the place where my parents were. I believe God meets us wherever we are. A pure heart goes a long way.

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I tried to live my life unto God in the most honest way I could. My best--as I grew in years, and in Christ--was not always The Best, but I pursued Him as deeply as I knew how. If there was any purity in me--purity being something my spirit has always cried out for--I hope it was in my motivation towards God in my pursuit of Him.

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My relationship with God was just that, a relationship. I took it at face value that the veil was truly torn in two and that I could know God. I loved the scriptures that were about being known by God and knowing Him. Christ's blood had saved me from Hell, sure, but more than that, it had opened the door to know the Creator. Nothing was sweeter to me than the thick presence of the Holy Spirit, or the manifest goodness of God, no matter how small the expression (once, my senior year of high school, it was a firefly that floated by my car as my girlfriend wrenched my heart from my body, breaking up with me--gooey, I know. It was high school and that's where I was at). I reveled in the New Creation. I pursued separation from sin. Sanctification. Separation TO God! A person OF God. My faith was one of devotion and seeking the Bible for the answers of life.

I served in the church. I worked with just about every age group. I loved junior high people. They are open soil, open to the planting of God's Word. Their energy and the chaos they live in was a place I could be. They were my people to minister to. I worked with them as a lay minister for several years, then I was asked to be a junior high pastor. I worked with a group of 200 kids every week. I had a great staff. I had amazing kids. What I did not have were good leaders. They were a small part of what happened to me, but a large part of my response to it.

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The wheels came off of my life. Every area where I looked for support, and more importantly safety, crumbled. Basic, fundamental truths, that I had built my identity upon--that we, as human beings, build our identities upon--were shown to be fabrications, or were greatly challenged. My parents divorced. The girl I was going to marry and I broke it off. The pastors of my church went from kind and compassionate to controlling and paranoid. All of this, in a few month's time.

I was crushed. Emotionally--devastated. Relationally--unable to trust. Spiritually--not only destroyed, but I sat at dinner with my parents and said, "I don't even know if I am a Christian anymore."

My identities--as a Christian, as a man, as just a person--were stripped from me.

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Seven years. It's been a journey as I struggle back to who I am. Though I made mistakes, and did things I am not proud of, the greater challenges of my character revealed that one thing remained true, constant, and unbroken. Beneath the hurt, the anger, the fear, the lust, the distrust, at the core of who I was, Christ remained. The reborn human spirit--buffered by my own desire, and slave to the ignominious bullying of my flesh and the whiny selfishness of my soul--was solid. Buried under layers of muck and gunk. Surrounded by sludge. The part of me that is the truest "me" remained. The part that God made.

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I am not the only one who's gone through this sort of thing. I count too many among my faithful and diligent Christian friends, those now broken and wandering.

I can hear the murmurs, "Their commitment must not have been strong enough."

With this, I cannot agree. These are people whose dedication was beyond casual. These are people who truly took up their cross. I count myself, humbly, among them.

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How do fervent Christians go cold? How do they get so broken?

More importantly, for me, how do they step back into a world they do not trust? How do you walk into a place that was once home, but now feels strange, even alien? How do you embrace what now sounds full of catch phrases and religious speak, is populated by stereotypes, and those blind to the outside world you've been living in?

I don't know.

Here's what I do know.

I am going to try. My walk with God, and the resounding truth that lives in my heart, demand I give it a shot.

That is what this blog is about.

My name is Sean Causewell.

I am a broken Christian.