Life snapshots of a wandering soul gravitating in and around the church.
Church Retreats
My thoughts go back decades ago when I was a younger believer in the church and had little firm and grounded understanding of doctrine and I certainly wasn’t considered surrendered to Jesus Christ. I was a church attending Christian looking for experiences that would somehow boost my understanding of what “real” Christianity was.
I took part in this multiday immersion into a non-coed Christian program called the “Walk to Emmaus.” I heard it as a spin off of a Catholic teen program called Chrysalis, which presumably guides young Christians into spiritual adulthood, something to the effect of a Jewish Bar Mitzvah.
The Walk to Emmaus seemed like it had ample opportunity for improvisation. One particular evening stood out to me was a rustic upper room type of Communion where the Christ worshipping participants including the guitar playing working team (all men), engaged in this gluttonous feast of pitchers of grape juice and loaves of bread, which was a bit shocking after being used to a tiny cracker and a miniature shot cup of grape juice that we typically had during monthly Communion. To add to the feeling of things, we were all dressed casually and the worship leaders had the laid back hippie style that was popular among the liberal Christ following crowd.
I wasn’t too keen about sharing the Blood of Christ (symbolically) by drinking voraciously out of the same vessel, but it made for an experience I didn’t forget.
Although I grew up in the church, I was like many I grew with, sought to barrier myself from the evangelist handing out paraphernalia. In my church, I never saw anyone from my church going out engaging with the public like that. Nevertheless, the message that I did not forget from those encounters was this “truth” that people need to position God at the center of our lives and not ourselves. Yes, that image stuck with but I didn’t really understand how that happens short of me intentionally attempting to capitulate my own desires in order to let God sit in that little throne on my heart, whatever that meant.
What’s this have to do with bonding? I’ll get to it.
Young Adult Fellowship
I look back at my experiences in my first church and had come closest to building Christian associated relationships with others in the church. It was an important step for a person who was more interested in the social environment rather than understanding what being a follower of Christ was. I met and got to know some, who I would consider, really good people who became friends, though we have drifted apart after many years.
The group was very self-directed, but it was started by an older pastor and his wife who had a passion for Young Adults in the church. The connections that the pastor built were strong and kept the group together for some years before it faded as an official group due to attrition (couples getting married), or put on an unusually tight leash by one of the new Program Directors.
Although I became very active in this group, I never got to the point of understanding the need to surrender to Christ. Christ remained loosely spiritual and highly academic, from my point of view, in my own walk.
Being in Young Adult Fellowship, although the group was never huge, there was ample crossings and intertwining of single people desiring friendships or to be in relationships, plenty of opportunity for in depth conversation, through which, unfortunately, I found often found myself lacking in maturity without having been more grounded in Christ.
In the Navy
When I served in the Navy, I wasn’t a regular attender of church, though at first I gave it a shot. It was when I started going to a training school in San Diego learning how to be a submarine sonar operator and technician but my church-going experience came to an abrupt halt because of an outing when 3 or 4 of us prospective sonar men were invited to a Christian civilian’s home for an afternoon dinner party.
After dinner we all sat in the living room and the well meaning hosts shared the gospel with us and made it pretty clear that if we didn’t put our faith in Christ that we would go to hell. I figure they were pretty blunt.
One sailor that was truly pissed off was unable to accept that his Catholic wife (who was not in attendance) was going to hell (I did not know much about Catholic beliefs). As someone who wasn’t very knowledgable about doctrine, I could sympathize with the Navy guy (and he drove us out to the party in his Jeep) without really understanding the entire picture of heaven and hell, Jesus and how I fit in. This resulted in the other sailors falling away from attending church in the little chapel on base.
The weekend after, the Navy Chaplain, Cmdr J.O. Nations, was pretty miffed when I told him what happened. I remember clearly when he told me, “I told them not to do that!” I understood that to mean, he did not want these hosts to take a confrontational approach to sharing the gospel.
Another aspect of interaction with people who projected themselves as believers was not so much what they said about religious beliefs, but how they carried themselves in their day to day living. There’s a fellow submariner who I got to know in my young adulthood, who stood out in his personhood as God fearing man. It wasn’t clear to us exactly which religious affiliation he stood by but on a submarine, where everyone is living in close quarters and working relationships become pretty close, a guy who has clear boundaries stands out and even withstood any ridicule he may have received as a result. One thing was clear, you didn’t violated his physical boundaries, and if you did, the guy was big enough and strong enough to back up his personal objectives.
It is true that, as I discovered decades later, he was instrumental in instigating a bar fight between his shipmates and some guys from the submarine tender in Guam, but just goes to show you that even our young religious shipmate wasn’t beyond using his persuasive verbal skills to engage in some practical trouble making.
I am glad that somehow, I managed to gain the respect of this man who to this day I remain friends as his knowledge on Jesus Christ, the Bible and the protestant expansion into the America’s is quite extensive and influenced by the likes of the Christian pioneer, Roger Williams, who was friends with his ancestors.
Without all of these experiences, and much more, how was I to understand what bonds together believers? I could understand what bonds together long time friends together. I could understand what bonds together those who served together in the military who experienced the same hardships and circumstances and the greater the common threat the greater the bond.
Bonding through Christ
“Christian” means a wide spectrum of definitions for both the observer and the one who adopts the label or one who has surrendered to Jesus as Lord. You’d think that in a church, there would be ample opportunity to build a bonding friendship or relationship with a fellow believer, and while that it possible, it’s not as prevalent as one may think.
While it helps to have a common interest that add attraction to a relationship, living in a busy environment like Silicon Valley and possibly being bandwidth strapped with work and family matters, it can inhibit and otherwise deepening bond that is possible with those who are surrendered believers.
When one surrenders themselves to the Lord a greater degree of similarities begin to occur and they begin to parallel each others effort to become more Sanctified, meaning, the process of turning away from more and more sinful or worldly behaviors and activities. Sanctification may also involve seeking activities that help fulfill Godly objectives. Through this process and purpose, one may cross paths with someone who not only shares a passionate interest but someone who it also servant to Jesus Lord and Savior.
It would be substantially important if one trusts the Bible to be the inspired Word of God, inerrant and authoritative. Moreover, sharing a common understanding of Christian doctrine, based on the Bible would further the bond between believers. The consequences of deviating from the authority of Scripture would open the door to a false understanding of God and the immorality and idolatry that would result.
6 But from the beginning of creation, God made them male and female. 7 For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother, 8 and the two shall become one flesh; so they are no longer two, but one flesh. 9 What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.” Mark 10:6-8
Bring this post to a close, regarding marriage, that for a real follower of Christ, one must not only seek another believer, but one that shares Biblical views on marriage and family and someone who shares the imperative of raising God revering children. This may seem like a conflict for someone who is impatient or anxious about getting married, but nothing is served well by bypassing the wisdom of the Bible if Christ is at the center of one’s life.
In any Christ centered relationship, when every problem solving circumstance will necessarily keep conviction of sin, repentance and personal humility, and Christ as Lord. In other words, the Gospel is essential in the life and bonding of believers.
For a one minute explanation of the Gospel from the late Pastor John MacArthur, watch this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LCP9UcC7BzE
For a review of the Ten Commandments: https://www.challenyee.com/the-ten-commandments/
All quoted excerpts have footnotes removed, usually from Legacy Standard Bible (LSB), sometimes from New International Version (NIV), on rare occasion the Amplified Bible (AMP).
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3-9-24