The Beauty of Rebelling

What is a rebel? A rebel is a person who resists any authority, control or tradition. To todays modern Christian, I may come off as rather rebellious. I happen to think I’m not, but rather I’m real.

For starters, let me just say I love Jesus with all my heart. I believe in God the father and the Holy Spirit. I believe in a Healing God, a loving God, a just God. I believe in the God of life and life abundantly! BUT, I do not choose to live the life many Christians live. Please do not feel I am condemning you or saying your ways are wrong, but instead consider what I’m writing, ponder it and weigh it out. We all have a right to opinions.

That said, here’s my story and opinions. I grew up in the AG church, I went to Masters Commission and was a youth pastor in the Brethren in Christ Church. I think all these organizations are fine, but I learned that that is what they are, organizations. Sadly there were times when things were so focused on programs and numbers that Jesus was forgotten. Sometimes we focused on getting a great worship team with all the instruments and amazing sound systems, but we forgot how to worship. When there was two and then three service we had to rush people in and hurry them out so the next service could start. This left no time to commune with each other. Sometimes we worked so hard to make the sanctuary so holy we forgot that even Jesus loved the little children, too.

Too often the people in side the building look no different than the people on the outside, except they call themselves christians. Divorce, affairs, drugs, depression, physical abuse… it’s all inside those doors and it’s not just the people coming through them for the first time.

All of this is stuff that bothers me. Not to mention the lack of faith in change being possible, healings happening and God providing.

What happened to the church of Acts? That’s the church I want to be apart of. The church, lets start there. A few years ago I was pondering this: The building is not the church, but the people are. The building is not the temple, our bodies are. So why do we call the building the church or temple? We are taking away the power that God has given us by giving our title to a building, an inanimate object. Not just that, there’s Sunday service. A service is usually something done for you. But as the church we should be doing for others.

So here I am, 26 years old, ready to walk away from the building we titled “church” and leave “Sunday service” behind. Mind you, I do not plan on walking away from God or the church. My desire is to live a life that strives to be more like Jesus, to live a life that is set apart and different, I want to pray for everyone I see struggling to live life fully. I have seen people healed, I myself have been healed a number of times. I will stand in agreement for things that are true and biblical. I want to gather with believers and discuss what the Bible says, so that we may all understand it better. I want to see our children welcome to fellowship with the adults and freely worship Jesus too. I want to be with people where I can honestly say today was a horrible day, or I am struggling with this or I am angry, I am mad and I want to hate this. I also want to be with people that I can laugh, I can mess up, I can be me, Abigail, the woman God created and not be concerned whether or not I might be judged for what I think or feel.

I feel it’s time for something new, something real. Time to stand apart, to leave religion behind and have a relationship. To talk to Jesus as our knight in shining armor, to dance with a king in an undignified way, to be human and allow ourselves and others to mess up, but to be there to pick each other back up and help each other through.

It’s not about traditions or the way organizations do it. It’s about loving one another, its about Jesus, it’s about relationship. So you smoke, have had an affair, been raped. I am not going to judge your for that, rather YOU as a person means so much more to me.

Please feel free to talk about this in the comments. I just ask that this not be a place to judge and condemn each other, rather a place to ask questions and add your thoughts. Any comments I feel are inappropriate will be removed.