Too much information…

Last Wednesday, a record number of comments rolled in with some great questions for me to answer (as well as some…interesting personal confessions.)  Now I’ve got your answer bag here.  I mixed up all your questions by topic to make it more concise for everyone, so everyone’s got a shout-out to their questions somewhere in here.  I just want to say thank you for making blogging so fun for me by sharing with me and letting me share with you.  And we’re off…

First of all, I will soon be 27.  My blog photo is pretty current, though my hair is shorter than normal.  I am married.  I met my wife in a church I was visiting with college friends.

On Physical Coordination:
I cannot surf…or do any water sports, really…or for that matter, land sports.  I’m pretty uncoordinated.  I make up for this by being “outdoorsy.”  My wife and I love to camp.  We canoed through 40 miles of wilderness a couple of years ago.  I don’t care about my lack of athletic ability, as I doubt climbing a rope would enhance my life in any way.  If I could pick a skill which I cannot do, I’d like to play the piano.  Seems like a neat party trick.

I’ll be pulling for New Orleans in the Superbowl because I love underdogs, and hate the Colts, even though I like Peyton Manning.

On Likes and Dislikes:
Of all the vegetables in the world, why would my parents make me eat hominy?  We have a thousand different ways to eat corn.  I think we can retire this one.

Favorite college classes:  my elective class on short stories, and intro to philosophy, as most of it was the prof. telling weird personal stories.

I was portrayed by Fred Savage in The Wizard because they decided my hair was not quite poofy enough for the part.  Super Mario 3 is still the best game ever.  Playing this game is my super power, as I one time played the game until the score “reset” to zero, which is impossible.  If I could choose another super power, it would be being Ryan Seacrest.

I’ve got plenty of cringe-worthy music in my collection. But, you know, I got all those Mariah Carey mp3s on Napster back when it was free and unregulated, just to grab whatever I could, so stop judging me.  One or more of you watches pro-wrestling, so I don’t think we need to be judging one another.

I don’t go to Starbucks because I like money more than I like coffee-flavored cool whip.  I also use a Dell computer because I like money more than Apple computers.  $500 for the iPad?  Is that a joke?

What “Saved by the Bell” character would I be?  I would be Theo Huxtable, as in I would not be on “Saved by the Bell” because it was a stupid show.  Oh yes, I went there.  Let the flame war begin.

On Romance:
My favorite chick flick is any that I am not forced to watch.  The best among them is of course Pride and Prejudice, which proves that one need not experience something in order to make fun of it.

In our home, my wife rolling her eyes is her way of saying I am awesome all the time.  She does a lot of eye rolling.

My favorite pick up line is “Is it hot in here, or is it just me?”  Works every time.
My favorite break-up line is “It’s not me, it’s you.”

On Blogging:
It’s hard to say what one piece of advice improved my writing or ministry the most.  I mostly learned by observing others and what worked.  I’ve got lots of blogging heroes.  I sometimes have writer’s block.  There are days I don’t want to write.  But I try to plan for those times by keeping a notebook of ideas, so when I’m dry, I can pull one out and it will tide me over.  I also read a ton of books and blogs to keep the blogging and preaching fresh.  Once you start getting a blogging rhythm, it’s hard to not see potential posts in everything, though this can be as much of a curse as a blessing.

As for you bloggers wondering how to get new readers to your blog, the best advice I can give is comment on other blogs.  Blogging is a social activity!  I don’t really lurk on any blogs.  I try to comment a lot, but I always wish I had more time for commenting.

Six months ago, I could not see the point of Twitter, but I am a convert.  It’s a whole different platform to share life.

On Travel:
I don’t know what my dream vacation would be.  I’ve never been to Europe.  Right now, my wife and I are trying to decide if we’ll see Jefferson’s home this summer, or go to the North Carolina coast.  Ocean or culture.  For some, it’s a no-brainer.  Not for us.  The furthest I’ve been from home is Jamaica.

On Sprituality and Life:
I am a preacher’s kid, and thus was saved and fully sanctified from birth. But really, I had a series of quiet meanderings to and away faith that lasted through college when I really embraced Christianity as a self-aware adult.

If I could undo one moment in my life, I can’t even begin to choose what it would be.  I am haunted by memories of my mistakes and am often insecure about that.  I try to make up for mistakes years later, when I am the only one who remembers them.  It’s not healthy, really. 

I’ve never faked a “spiritual experience” as I’ve never been in a church that emphasized such things.  I always went to “boring” churches.

I am officially “non-tribulation,” because questions about pre/post trib give me hernias, and I don’t care to discuss it.  But hey, pre-trib sounds all right to me.  Someone else asked about the Bible’s “inconsistencies,” but I’ll have to save that one for later.

I “officially” knew I wanted to be a pastor after months of wrestling in college.  I finished my bachelor’s and went right on to seminary.  Today, I’m a bi-vocational pastor who teaches during the week.  I’m in elementary special education, but I’m working towards high school to teach history.  Someone else asked, “What is it about my calling I just can’t believe?”  I’m a pastor, and my little house church is amazing, and we’re sending a missionary to Sudan next month to deliever the gospel to 100,000 people.  That’s pretty freaking incredible to me.  Not where I thought I’d be five years ago.

On Church:
Someone asked if it’s okay to ‘designate’ your tithe when you disagree with the way the church spends money?  I think if you’re going to a church, it should be one you can give money to in good conscience.  But yeah, go ahead and designate it, and call up the pastor with your concerns.

Someone asked who is most full of BS in the church, and I say we’re all full of it.  Not me of course.  By “we” I mean “everyone else.”  BS makes up a large part of my blogging inspiration.

I got a question about if I’ll go to the Catalyst Conference this year.  I may.  It was a great time seeing so many people, but I have to choose conventions carefully.

On Self Image:
I haven’t worn makeup at the request of a young girl playing “beauty shop,” but I had some college girl friends who liked to play “beauty shop” and got a bunch of us guys to do facial treatments. They also tried straightening my hair. That didn’t go so well.

On Never Doing Things:
I also had a great bunch of ‘Never Have I Ever’ submissions.  Most of them, I’ve never done, including:

I’ve never had a McFlurry of any kind.  I have also never enjoyed “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory,” despite watching it on twenty-seven seperate occasions throughout my public school education.  (I’ve also never passed by an opportunity to express my disdain for the movie.)  I have never sang along with Taylor Swift in the car, as I prefer Christina Aguilera.  I’ve also never walked into the living room naked, not knowing there were guests, because I always know when we have guests. 

As for the “Nevers” I have ever done:
I have partied like it’s 1999, and continue to do so.  I have been in one fistfight with a bully.  It was a draw, but I got rid of my bully, and it was totally worth it.  I have smoked cigarettes, I rode the bus to school, and eaten liver.  I did debate and competitve acting in high school, which seems to go against every natural shy part of me. 

Thanks for great questions, everyone!  So that’s me.  What Saved by the Bell character are you?  Whoever it is, I pity you for being trapped in a mediocre, unfunny teen sitcom.

Who are you?

I don’t mean that in some preachy, philosophical, profound blogger type of way.  I really just want to know who are you.

It’s been almost a year since I played this little game with the readers, and I think there may be a few more of you this time.  What makes blogging so fun is connecting with other people, and this is one of those little ways to do that.  If you’re a new reader, this is your chance to introduce yourself to everyone.  If you’re a longtime reader, maybe this is your day to un-lurk and make a comment (or email me if you’re a subscriber.)

Here’s what I want to know.  It’s really easy.

1.)  Your name, and what state (or country) you live in.
For example, I’m Matt, and I live in Missouri.  Your comment could be just two words.

2.)  If you want to go for bonus points, ask me any question you want to know of me.  I’ll spend Friday’s post on my answers to you.  But you have to answer the question yourself too!  I had some really creative questions come at me last time which revealed that I regularly serenade my wife with the Golden Girls theme song, and a movie was made about me being a Super Mario Bros. 3 champ.

3.)  For bonus, bonus points, you can play “never have I ever.”  That’s where you name something you’ve never done, in hopes that I’ll have to admit my guilt on Friday’s post.  For example, you might say, “Never have I ever suddenly realized I know the lyrics to Miley Cyrus’ “Party in the USA” to my great chagrin and puzzlement.”  You know, stuff like that.  Except, don’t really ask that, because it was just an example.  Really, don’t.

Take your pick, one or all of them.  Who are you?

It’s no secret, a lot of people are lousy parents.

If it weren’t for bad parents, we wouldn’t have such great television shows as Supernanny.  We probably also wouldn’t have Jerry Springer.

That’s why I love Simon Cowell.

I’m sure Simon would love me too, if he got to know me.  Not that I think Simon would make a great nanny.  He probably has very little skill at poaching an egg or reading a bedtime story with funny voices.  But there’s one skill Simon excels at:

…crushing dreams.

Simon makes a career at making the dreams of a few young people come true on American Idol…and making sure the dreams of a bunch of other young people don’t come true.  It’s not really a skill that’s hard to develop.  It’s just that Simon has to do it because so many people don’t do it at all.

The way I see it, the people who win American Idol, deserve to win.  The people who show up for tryouts and make fools of themselves don’t deserve to win.  And Simon is there to tell these fresh young faces that, no, they don’t have what it takes, and they should continue to look for their calling in life.

If you ask me, Simon is doing what millions of parents and relatives and friends should’ve done for these people, before they tried to get on television.  Some singers get rejected, and reality hits them like a ton of bricks.  “How can this be?  Everyone has always told me I’m a good singer!  My mom says I’m the best singer at school!”  That’s bad parenting.

Others get on TV, apparently looking forward to being rejected by Simon so they can have the justification they need to follow other dreams.  “See, mother!  I am not a singer!  Stop making me wear these matching sailor suits and practicing these Andrew’s sisters songs with you!  I am a grown man!”

All because everyone was afraid to offer a little gentle criticism where it was needed.  I’m certainly glad my friends laughed their butts off when I tried to do kareoke for the first time.  I thought I could carry a tune.  I’m glad I was told differently, so I didn’t have to make a fool of myself again.  Sure, there was probably a more subtle way of delivering the bad news, but it was effective.  I didn’t want to be one of those kids in the school talent show that gave a hilarious performance…except they didn’t seem to know they were being funny.  The experience caused me irrevocable psychological damage, but I’m better for it.  And every time someone looks like an idiot on Idol, it vindicates me a little bit.

I’m also glad my P.E. coach forced me to prove to myself that I cannot climb a rope while wearing short pants, and thus, I should direct my efforts to less humiliating tasks.

Is it better to let someone think they know how to sing, or allow someone to go through with a terrible idea, or let some kid go unaware that his body odor is extremely offensive and he will never have any friends unless he takes a bath and uses deodorant on a daily basis?
I think I like Simon because I hate to criticize people, and I admire people who have skills I don’t.  I know, that may seem far-fetched, since I make a regular habit of criticizing people on this blog.  I should edit that to say, I hate to criticize people I like.  I hate to have to hurt someone’s feelings, almost as much as I hate having my own feelings get hurt.  Simon’s doing our dirty work that we don’t have the stomach for.

It’s just as hard to take criticism from others.  I have to fight the urge to take it personally.  I want you to like me, and if you don’t think highly of all of my skills, you must not like me!  As if the fact that I can’t sing means no one wants to be my friend.  If I have to be able to sing to be someone’s friend, he’s probably trying out for a part in Cats, and I hate that musical, and I don’t need his friendship.

Of course, we can’t all be like Simon.  We can’t all go around telling people how it is, can we?  How do you deal with criticism, being on the business end of it, or being the dealer?  Do you shoot people straight, or try to smile while you tell them they’re awesome when they clearly are not?  Do you have a proven strategy for being able to knock anyone down a peg without hurting their feelings?

Doubt Month is finally coming to a close.

Ironically, after a few weeks of unpacking all the things that make us uncomforable about faith, I can say this has been one of the best times I’ve had at blogging yet.  That’s thanks to you, readers.  Your comments and participation have blown away what I anticipated in variety, challenge and encouragement.  It makes me think blogging with a “theme” in mind might be something I want to do again.

So, I’ve shared with you my various and sundry doubts and difficulties with my faith.  I have a hard time believing healings, “miracles” and “prophets.”  I don’t know how to read my Bible a lot of the time.  I am bruised by friends “breaking up” with Jesus and I, and lost on what I am to do with them.  I think much of what we do as churches is phony and emotionally damaging.  As I have gotten to know God, He has refused to conform to my standards of…well, anything.

So where does that leave me?  How could I still be a Christian? 

Seems fitting to end Doubt Month on a note of faith.

I was asked by my wife rather randomly why I’m a Christian, while hiking on vacation in sweltering heat and humidity.  As a preacher’s kid, I had struggled and come to terms with my faith years ago, but I had never really talked about it until then.  I’ll tell you what I told her. 

First, is the personal evidence.  I’ve experienced God in my life.  He’s given me a great many things that I just don’t believe would exist if He were not real and interested in me.  I am not the same person I once was, and that’s not to say I didn’t try to stay the same.  I really liked me.

Second, is the physical evidence.  Despite all the difficulties someone might have with the Bible, there’s an awful lot of smart people who study it.  They go digging in sand for evidence of old cities and places in the Bible.  And you know what?  They’ve found a lot of stuff!  Bible people left behind a lot of junk for us to find.

Finally, is the fact that Christianity is an absolutely ridiculous, insane, what-on-earth-were-you-thinking religion.  I mean really, people used to sing a hymn about a “fountain filled with blood drawn from Immanuel’s veins.”  Gross. 

Is this the best religion we can come up with?  If I was to make up a religion, I would leave that out.

I would leave out…yes, just about everything Christianity says.  I’d leave out the virgin birth.  I’d leave out the blood of Christ and all that mess.  I’d leave out loving your neighbor as yourself…I would keep “wives submitting to husbands,” but not the verse after that.

The way I see it, humankind is not all that creative.  Sure, Michelangelo had a bit of a muse, but the rest of us are pretty much dolts.  That’s why Hollywood keeps churning out crap, and sequels to crap and we stare, slack-jawed in amazement.  I want to say this in the nicest way possible: you take practically all world’s religions and boil them down to their bare essence, and they look basically the same.  The main guts of most major religions are: you try to be a good person, (whatever that means), please the god(s) and work your way up the ladder to the afterlife, whether or not there is a god who cares or not.  Sounds good to me, because I know I’m a good person!

And then there is Christ.

There is Christ who says we can’t be good enough.  Give up, losers.  Talk about audacity. 

That really goes against what everyone else has ever thought about God.  I think even if all the people in the world were given indefinate time and infinite typewriters, they’d never think of God being born of a virgin woman and being executed to pay for the sins of mankind, just out of love.  It just wouldn’t occur to us.  It had to be told to us. 

Did it occur to us before Jesus?  No.  Are there a bunch of religions copying the Christian formula?  No, Christianity is still stupid and offensive to most people.  I call that the audacity of Christianity.  If there was ever a religion that should’ve died out, it was Judaism.  The Israelites seemed determined to not be God’s people!  Then there’s Christianity, which goes against every natural instinct any human acts on.  Why would anyone willingly fabricate and follow this religion?  There’s a lot of Christians who don’t even like Christianity!  They like promises of money and heaven.

As full of ourselves as we are, it never occurred to us that a deity would care that much for humans.  The one guy who did think that got nailed to a cross.  The monkeys would’ve written Shakespeare before we’d come up with Jesus.  Christianity is crazy…just crazy enough to work.

So in a weird way, the highly improbable God whose presence is so doubted and questioned by all of us is somehow evidenced by his almost total improbability.  God is the only one who could make himself up.  We would never want to be that creative.

Well it works for me.  Maybe it’s the stupidest thing you ever heard.

I doubt it’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever heard.

Doubt month is over, but doubt will always cloud us.  Despite all your doubts, what makes you believe?  What are the lingering, pesky doubts and questions that still hang in your mind?  What “theme” do you think we should spend a few weeks on in the future?

Yes, that’s the book for me.

I bet you love your Bible, don’t you?  I know I do.  I love it so much, that I’ve even got a couple of my favorite sentences from it memorized! 

I love my Bible so much, that I like to exaggerate to other people how much I read it, even though it seems about as productive as bragging to my friends that I made out with my wife last night…for ten minutes.

Sometimes, when I’m alone with my Bible, I like to whisper sweet pet names in it’s ear.  My Bible loves it when I call it “inerrant.”

We’re almost done with Doubt Month, and I just had to talk about our sometimes strange relationships with our Bibles.  That’s a big issues that divides Christians – how we treat the Bible.  We get defensive about it, like a bunch of jilted lovers or something.  Lots of churches like to nickname the Bible ”inerrant” or “literal” or “double edged sword.”  Many churches who spend a lot of time praising the Bible like this warn about “liberals” who try to “destroy” the Bible, (or heretic bloggers who joke about whispering sweet nothings in its ear.)

Some churches I’ve visited checked me at the door and nearly made me discard my NIV Bible like it was a video camera at a concert.  That’s the other thing some Christians can’t stand – the letters on the spine of someone else’s Bible.  Some people look at your NIV like it’s a leather-bound hooker sitting in the pew next to you with your name tattooed in cursive across her exposed buttocks.

There are certainly a lot of lines drawn when it comes to what you believe about your Bible, or even which Bible you fancy. 

I’m just beginning to doubt that it matters so much…

I’m a guy who believes what my Bible says.  I believe Jesus performed literal miracles.  I believe He rose from the dead.  If He didn’t, I don’t see much point in the Bible.  I generally take a literal view of most of the Bible.  And you know what?  I went to seminary, which means I know how to study the Bible, and I know lots of big words, and God’s mind is no longer unsearchable to me, because I’m so learned…

Well, I thought so anyway.

Recently though, a close friend called me on something.  He loves his Bible too.  He loves Jesus and his miracles and his resurrection.  But one day he said to me, “Matt, I think this “inerrancy” thing is a stumbling block that Christians need to help soften for seekers.”

Woah!  No way.  If someone wants to get in my church, they’re going to have to buy into the Bible, all of it.  You can’t go picking and choosing which parts you like…

But he asked, “Say a non-believer is having trouble with the story of Jonah.  Are you going to draw a line in the sand over whether a man literally was swallowed by a fish?”

Well, no I guess not.

“You have to admit, if Jonah were not in the Bible, it would the most ridiculous story you ever heard.”

Well that’s true.

“But it’s in the Bible, so we’re quick to defend an otherwise indefensible story.  Say someone is having trouble with the entire Old Testament.”

Well, that is half the Bible.  I’m not sure they can be saved if…

“Wouldn’t it be more important to just ask them if they can believe that God loves them?  If they can consider that, doesn’t it make Jesus much more plausible?  Does it really matter if God created the world in six literal days?  Does the message of Jonah change if it happened literally or if God put a story in someone’s heart?  Does it really matter if we look as if we know exactly what the Bible is saying at all times? Or does it really matter that God loved us enough for Jesus to die?”

I guess you’re right.

I still love my Bible.  I still think Jonah got swallowed by a fish, for real, but I don’t think it’s that important that I believe that.  On the other hand, I think the virgin birth is important, and I’d be happy to tell you why if you asked.  Some things are important to believe, or it’s just a book.  I’ll admit, if someone says they have doubts about that much of the Bible, I have doubts if they’re that much of a Christian.  But should I have those doubts?  I’m starting to doubt the importance of every Christian having the exact same beliefs about every last story in the Bible.

What do you think?  Do you believe all the Bible literally?  Are there stories you have trouble believing?  Do you have trouble believing that someone who doubts parts of the Bible can be a Christian?

To kick off our final week of Doubt Month, I want to ask you a question.  Has church ever insulted your intelligence?

When I was a teenager, my friends and I used to rent really bad movies, just to laugh at them.  It was impossible to “suspend our disbelief” and buy in to the movie.  The terrible writing, acting, and special effects made them worth nothing more than fodder for being shamed by teenage boys.  Even our very small teenage intelligence was insulted by these movies, and we responded by mocking the hard work of the filmmakers.  If you’d like to try this, AMC is running a Tommy Lee Jones marathon with “Volcano” in the mix.  It’s terrible.

That’s the problem with church.  You’re supposed to believe it.  You’re supposed to buy into it.  Sometimes, it’s difficult to believe what’s happening at church.

I’ve visited a lot of churches.  A lot of those churches and pastors seemed to spend a lot of time trying to convince me that they are awesome.  One pastor went on a long bragging tirade about all the ways they are the best church in town.  Another praise team performed a prayer in song that told Jesus that he wanted to bless their ministry, repeatedly.  Before this, I had never heard of praying to God by telling him what he thinks. 

Now, my church does some stuff that’s good, and I make announcements about it.  And I’d like to think that Jesus wants to bless our ministry.  But I’m not one to need to remind everyone each Sunday about how awesome we are.  We just are awesome, and everyone sort of picks up on it.  I’m also not one to tell Jesus what he wants to do.  I think he knows what he wants to do without me telling him.  But maybe I can try some reverse psychology.  “Jesus, you don’t want to help us build a new multi-million dollar building.”

I know why pastors do this. 

They’re trying to pump up the crowd.  They’re trying to convince visitors that they are the most dynamic, spiritual, above all exciting place to be.  They’re trying to remind the burned out or doubtful members that the church might not be perfect, but they certainly won’t do any better with the Methodists, so don’t bother going church shopping. 

The pastors are trying to convince people that their church is worth giving money to, and they are worth their paycheck. 

It’s important that the people buy in to the church, believe in it.  It’s important for a lot of churches to spend a lot of time creating hype over every little thing they do.  It’s also important for the people who may think the pastor is full of baloney to carry the water and not make the church look bad.

One of the biggest cogs in the hype machine of many churches is still the altar call.  That’s when the pastor tells everyone to close their eyes, so Jesus can finally do his thing and save some sinners.  Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

The pastor will call for people to raise their hands who want to get saved.  Then he’ll acknowledge this hand, that hand, thank you.  And all the while, some sinner will be watching the whole time, and see no hands being raised.  It’s almost a cliche.

Other churches allow the members to look, because there are always people going down to the altar.  It looks really impressive.  What the average member may know is that most of those people are members who are designated to go down, to encourage the wayward sinner to quit being a wimp and go down there to face Jesus.

Whether churches do the altar call or not, they judge themselves every week on whether or not they were “successful.”  Churches like to feel “successful.”  They like big numbers in the attendance and the budget and the baptisms.  It validates them.  It makes the pastor feel he’s worth something.  But what if the numbers aren’t there?  What if everyone in church is already saved?

Fake it.

In a culture where failure is worse than death, the church leaders put on a performance, and the audience is wowed.  Everything is okay.  People still buy into it.  They still put money into the offering, even if the whole production sort of insults their intelligence a little, like a stupid movie they paid $8.00 to see.

Everyone still leaves feeling good.  Well…almost everyone.  The pastor goes home Sunday afternoon, knowing that the hype was hot air.  The altar call was a lie.  His personal accomplishments, his church’s influence are not what he would like.  And so, of all the people who carry a little water for the sake of creating an image, he carries the most.

It must be exhausting.  It must make being a pastor the toughest job on earth.  I cannot imagine the emotional drain it must put on the man who absorbs that week after week for the sake of making everyone else feel good.  I wonder if he ever asks Jesus why he won’t send anyone to the altar.  I wonder what he thinks of his worth as a pastor or a person.

And guess what?  Even if the numbers in attendance doubled, even if a hundred people were saved every Sunday at the altar call, even if Jesus himself appeared at church, we’d still want more.  We’re not addicted to Jesus.  We’re addicted to hype and success, and we’re usually willing to suspend our disbelief for a pastor who will deliver the hype.

Is your church big on hyping itself?  Does your church do the altar calls? Are they legit, or all hype?  How have you carried the water at your church?  Has your pastor ever done something that made you say, “Yeah, right.”?  Is your church happy with what it is, or does everyone sort of wish it was something else?