I haven't been to church, like a church building since um Easter. Hey guys, I'm just doing another evening stroll and, um. I just thought I'd maybe record some thoughts. You know, it's a good time as my brain's just chewing and turning. Um, so maybe this resonates. Maybe, maybe it definitely doesn't, but again, it's just my thoughts, right? So you don't have to, you don't have to agree. You don't have to like it, you don't have to be offended. You don't have to, you don't have to even listen. There's no pressure any way around. But I do wanna share what's been churning in my heart and my mind. So. Anyway, I haven't been to church since Easter, which is crazy.'cause you know, I grew up like you didn't Ms. Church, you know, like you, you were there Sunday, Sunday, Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday, all that stuff. So very much an ingrained sort of rhythm for me, pretty much my whole life up until this last, I would say year or two. I think as a whole, on my journey as a whole, it's been a, uh, it's been an, I'll say a rich break. And again, I don't mean to offend anybody. I know church friends. I probably won't like that, but I'm just keeping it real. It's been like, it's interesting. I've had two really super clear times in my life where I felt. Just like a long season, an extended season of just God's sharing, like really almost like downloading stuff to you. Just like, you know, those, those sort of times where you just feel like it's flowing and you're hearing and it's, yeah. First time I had that was when we moved to Knoxville to start Knox Life Church. We were gonna start a, we did start a church in, in downtown, but before we did. We had to wait for the movie theater downtown to open up and it, we moved there, I believe it was March or April, and the theater didn't open until September or October, something like that. So we had this sort of, what, six months or so of um, you know, five or six months, whatever it was, of where we'd stopped going to church for the first time in our life. Sarah and I, I say us,'cause Sarah and I. My wife Sarah. Um, it was the first time we stopped going to church, either of us, since we were literally born on this planet. Like maybe you miss a week or two, you know, on vacation. Maybe, maybe you miss two weeks, three weeks. Who died missing a month without being in church? Ugh, no, that never happened. So it was a very, I would say like an odd time for a minute, but then something beautiful started to happening. It's like we just. Literally unplugged from that. From like someone focus, focusing our attention on like a specific area, a specific zone, a specific level or or coloring of, of the Bible or, or of, of what was, you know, called the good news. Like instead of just hearing it through somebody else's lens and perspective, it was like we started to hear it for. Through our own perspective and, and that looked like, you know, a lot of reading or, you know, books or, you know, learn videos. Just, just learning from sources and people, um, that were doing things maybe different in the kingdom or, or just had different priorities. Perhaps you know him. Yeah. And then we started Knox Life Church. And it, I swear in that six months, God literally changed the heart, the entire heart, literally the heart, the location. It was like, uh, like an awakening to something new that we didn't even know was there, but had been there the whole time that God, that's what we were sent there. And it was beautiful and it was amazing. But that was the first time. This past year, I feel like I've been in another one of those seasons of just not being at church in the building and unplugging from that for a minute. And it's again, learning from other sources, different maybe traditions, different ways people have interpreted. Scripture, different maybe levels of understanding. And it's been rich and it's been beautiful and it's been hopeful. And I don't know, I just, I haven't been to church in a while and I don't know that I'll be back for a while. I, I, I, if, if I, if I do go back, I don't know. I know, I know, I know. I'm not supposed to say that. I know you're probably disappointed to hear that, but I promise you like. I don't know. I just don't know if I could do that right now. Just the way things, I don't know, think about church right now and the way Christians are in America. Just the anger and the, the judgment and the violence, it's just, uh, it's a sad thing to see. I don't know. I think most of the Christian Church today. Not all, all, all right. Let's just put the, the blanket statement out. It's not all I get that. So everything I say you could counter with, well, not everybody, or I know this group that doesn't, or this guy's doing it great. Or we don't do the Okay, fine, I get it. I'm just saying as a current, as the general population, as the coloring, as the tent, as the shade, the vibe, what. Someone on the outside would sense and see and taste, and notice that's what I'm talking about, that general vibe. What would that feel like for someone who wasn't on the inside? So picture that, and what that is, is just so about itself. It's like self preservation. It's like self edification, self worship. It's like honestly very little to do with Jesus. I feel like they borrowed the name. They like the name. It like helps, it helps the pitch or something. But as far as like his teachings and, and living and doing and just showing up in the world in a way that even remotely starts to resemble the things Jesus cared about, I don't, I don't see that. I'm not, again, I wanna say I'm not pointing fingers. I'm trying to notice, I'm trying to say what I see. It's not about blame. That's such a lame way to look at this. I'm just trying to say what I see. So we can open our eyes and we can all do better. We can get back to being our real selves, who we were made to be of seeing the image of God in every single person, every human we see divinity. We see Christ. That's what I want us to be about. That's the life, the team, the journey. That's, that's a group. That's the people I want to be with is the people who see like that. That's called heaven. That's called heaven. Jesus said the kingdom of God is here and now, but he did say this. He said, unless you are born again, you won't have eyes to see the kingdom. It'll be here. But he literally said, you won't. He literally said, you will not have eyes to see it. You won't be able to sense it or notice it. It's like you are, you'd just be blind to it unless you're born again and born again is one of those churchy words. If you've grown up or been around church like. It's, it's beyond cliche at this point. It just is like a slogan. It's, it's just a tagline. It's, I don't think we understand it or, or use it, or we certainly don't live it like it was meant like it was originally heard, literally born again. You have to be born again. Jesus says, and he is talking to this guy, Nicodemus, who was one of the, the high priest for the Hebrew people. This was a big religious guy, and he's telling him, Nicodemus, you gotta be born again. And Nicodemus says, what are you talking about? Like, what does that even mean? How, how can I be born? How can I go back into my mom's belly? It is like he's not getting it. I feel like that's where we're at. That's sort of the level we understand it at. It's like Jesus said, you have to be born again. I mean, something has to die and something has to rise. Resurrection, something new, something new like the, the spirit inside of you has to step in to something bigger than just yourself. Your world and your tribe, your team, and your church, and your religion, and your political party, your city, it's gotta, there's gotta be something bigger and better that opens up inside of you to sense that that small self-centered me world, like that's not enough. That's, we don't want stay at that level. We want to be at that. Fuller level where we see God and everybody. We see the divine image literally in every human. Imagine just what that would look like. It's like we've forgotten how to see that. We've forgotten how to notice God's all around us every day, bursting, showing off. Showing up. It's present to us all the time, and sometimes it's, it's hard stuff. Sometimes it's painful stuff, sometimes it's suffering, but it's all available to us. It's all there for us. Oh. Anyway, I don't even know where I was going with that, but just some ramblings stuff, uh, I'm thinking about also, if any of this makes you mad, I'm just gonna say this. If you're feeling uncomfortable or angry with me or mad at me. That's okay. Honestly, I'm not mad at you and I'm not going to be, no matter how mad you get at me, it's okay. I'm good with it, I promise. But what I do wanna say is if you're feeling something a little bit makes you mad or defensive or angry or reactive, I would just say could you set that aside? Could you just like our teachers used to say, put on your thinking cap just for five minutes. Just unplug for a second. Just put on like you're just, you're your good human, logical self brain and just ask think, why is that? Why am I defensive there? Think through some of the things that made me feel a little bit, I don't know. That rubbed you the wrong way. That's all I would say. If there's something that, yeah, maybe that's a short way to say that. If there's something that's rubbed you the wrong way, well, I would just ask you to lean into that. Just spend a minute thinking about that. Go a little bit deeper. Ask why wonder where that comes from? What does that lead to? Why do you feel that way? And then I would say follow up with this last question is does any of that, and I'm not saying that the answer is yes or no, but does it, does it look like Jesus? Does it start to feel like the things that Jesus cares about? Mostly what Jesus cares about is people. I got a couple verses I just wanna share and, uh, they're from the Old Testament, like the old days of the Bible, Moses and Psalms and King David. All the old stuff way, way before Jesus shows up. So these are like old, so stories and old lessons learned. And so as you hear this, just know this is not new. Like this has been going on a long time. God's been trying to get our attention on this for a long. Freaking time. This is from Isaiah Chapter one says this, quit your worship charades. I can't stand your trivial Religious games. Monthly conferences, weekly Sabbath special meetings, meetings, meetings, meetings. I can't stand one more meetings for this, meetings for that. I hate them. You've warned me out. I'm sick of your religion. Religion, religion. While you go right on sinning, when you put on your next prayer performance. I'll be looking the other way no matter how long or how loud or how often you pray. I'll not be listening. And do you know why? Because you're tearing people to pieces and your hands are bloody. Go home and wash up. Clean up your act. Sweep your life's clean of your evil. Doing so that I don't have to look at them any longer. Say no to wrong. Learn to do good work for justice, help the down and out, stand up for the homeless, go to bat for the defenseless. Whew. I don't think there's much to add to that. It's Isaiah chapter one from the Message Bible. Here's another one. This is from the book of Amos, Amos. Amos, chapter five. It says this, I can't stand your religious meetings. I'm fed up with your conferences and conventions. I want nothing to do with your religion projects, your pretentious slogans and goals. I'm sick of your fundraising schemes, your public relations and image making. I've had all I can take of your no easy ego music. When was the last time you sang to me? Do you know what I want? I want Justice Oceans of it. I want fairness, rivers of it. That's what I want. That's all I want. Oh man, those, those aren't pulling any punches. That's what life near God looks like. That's what God cares about. I mean, I think it's pretty clear it's not. It's not the false empty self. Self edifying. Self-referential self. I don't know. It's not. It's not that type of religion. The songs, the conferences, conventions, sabbaths festivals, all that shit, all of it. It's very clear. That is not interesting, not impressed. In fact. It's a very, it's a very negative sentiment that is expressed about those things. It makes it super clear in both places, you know what I want? I want justice. I want you to care about humans because God is also in those humans, just like God is in you. The divine image created in the image and likeness of God. That's not nothing. That's the whole thing. That's who we really are. So when we see all these teams and labels and colors and status, all the stuff we see, oh, it's not, it's not any of that. None of that is gonna last. It's not gonna go on, it's not gonna be around. That's the stuff that's here and, and then gone. There's stuff, there's a level deeper than that. That's what we're talking about. That's what I want us to see. That's what I want. The church, the real church, the Christians. I want us to open our eyes and see people have compassion for them, love them, help them. Like that's, that's what love looks like. The Bible says God is love. That's what love looks like. Anyway, all that to say, I've not been in church since Easter. Some of you will say, yep, that explains it and that explains a lot. And I, I'll have to agree with you that that explains a lot. I agree. So anyway. I'm almost home, so I'm gonna wrap this. But thank you guys for journeying with me. Um, I feel like maybe this was a little ramble tonight. You know, like, I don't, I don't write these down or preplanned this. It's just sort of a thinking while walking. So I appreciate you listening and, uh, check you, check you on the next round.