Читать книгу UnLearning Church - Mike Slaughter - Страница 12

I remember one of my first encounters with God. It seemed God was chasing me. It was the summer of 1967, and I was at a real low point in my life. Two of my friends had just been busted for drugs. My mom and dad were frustrated with me. They decided to send me down south to visit relatives I had never met. They wanted to "keep me in touch with my roots," they said.

During that time, I would lie, cheat, or do anything to get what I wanted. I even had some help at breaking the rules. A few days before graduation from high school, one teacher changed an F to a D so I could graduate. In another class, I copied off of someone else's exam so I could pass. I had no interest in doing what pleased God.

Yet God was chasing me, and these God-whispers would pop up everywhere I went. In fact, all these God-whispers troubled me so much that I remember calling my girlfriend long-distance to talk about it. God had never bothered me like this before. God even went ahead of me into the restroom of a two-pump gas station in the backwaters of rural Arkansas. There, scrawled on the wall above the urinal, were these words: "Jesus saves all who want him."

The outcome of this experience and others in the ensuing months was life changing. I truly encountered the resurrected Jesus Christ, which ultimately changed everything. Jesus saved me, and I wanted him. My encounter with God in my late teens was revolutionary. From that time forward, I knew I wanted to reach a target population that has been turned off or out by the established church. This group represents a huge number of people. On any given weekend, up to three-quarters of Americans²— and an even higher number of Canadians³—are not in church. Those are the people I want to reach. I'm thankful for congregations that nurture the already churched, but I'm interested in finding ways to speak to the unchurched.

Jesus moved into my life, changing my priorities, my values, and my relationships. He transformed everything in my life." Christ in me" is the source of resurrection power. It comes only through my being dead, buried, and out of the way. When we say "yes" to Jesus, we are "buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life" (Romans 6:4).

I want to invest my life in those who want to pursue radical Christianity. The emerging leader is not enamored with the latest religion of self-actualization. The religion of talk-show television is a rudderless spirituality. Jesus calls us to self-expenditure, not self-infatuation. He says, "If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will save it" (Luke 9:23-24).

I don't want to lead a megachurch of people who come together to be inspired to live status-quo lives peppered with Judeo-Christian values. I want to empower radical followers of Jesus.