2 Reasons I Returned to Church: How a Scoffer Experienced Christ through Prophecy

I never thought I would write about, much less champion, prophetic ministry. I've always been skeptical, cynical, pragmatic. 

For a long time, I didn't think God could, or would, speak to me. Doesn't He have better things to do?

I doubted the stories of prophecy and healing miracles I heard from friends in small groups, on email chains. I cringed suspiciously when churchgoers would explain, without a hint of doubt, how God had definitively and unmistakably spoken to them. 

I just wasn't buying it. 

Until I tasted, touched, and lived God's transformational, prophetic words in my own life. 

Rachel Held Evans recently posted 15 reasons why she left the church and a follow up 15 reasons why she returned.  I can boil the reasons behind my prodigal return down to two: 

Hope and a heart for justice. 

When I first visited the Vineyard Church that I now attend, I was struck by the heartbeat of justice that seemed to pulse through the congregation. At the time, I could have cared less about Jesus or daily devotionals or small group prayer time; but I cared deeply about serving the poor, fighting injustice, and living intentionally, compassionately. 

And that's what I saw in this church: men and women doing meaningful things--making friends with people who live outside, caring for the environment, learning how they could spend less money on themselves so that they could give more to those in need. 

I couldn't get enough. This passion for justice struck a chord so deep within me that I kept coming back. I keep coming back. 

The other thing I experienced in church was hope. 

It takes an immense amount of hope to work for social justice, to believe that things can change. 

In my church community, I found people who lived like there was a God who reconciles all things. They had hope for our world here and now. They had hope for me. 

They shared this hope with me through prophetic ministry. I know it sounds weird, or foreign, and you may be writing me off like I once did to the miracle junkies in my life. But please just give a minute to explain. 

The Vineyard Church describes the heart behind prophetic ministry, "We believe God speaks in many ways and often speaks to encourage people and release his heart to them and point them towards their destiny. Prophetic sounds a little mystical but is a way for followers of Jesus to give voice to what God is doing or wanting to do in the lives of others.  We believe that God works in us through a still small voice and if we listen that we can use the prophetic ministry to encourage others that God is working in and around their lives."

I don't really know how it works or why it works, but I do know that my church friends encouraged me to experience God--and I did. They opened my eyes to see God's face; they opened my ears to hear God's voice. 

I know not everyone can relate to this. There can be a lot of pain and confusion in feeling like you're on the outside. I also know that God loves you. That God wants to speak to you and be known by you. That just because you can't feel Him or see Him now, doesn't mean He's not there. 

My pastor once said, "Your area of deepest doubt can become an area of your deepest worship." 

So whatever it is you doubt the most, whatever it is that has made you leave the church or doubt the Church or your faith-filled friends, I'd encourage you to stay in it. Look for God even in your doubt, even in the places you are certain He won't show up.  

I pray today that you be given eyes to see and ears to hear Love Himself in your life--through whatever voice or vision or feeling that resonates with you. 

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Curious about these visions? Tomorrow I’ll share more about a prophetic vision that continues to shape me, challenge me, and draw me closer to God. 

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Do you have any experiences of doubt-turned-to-worship? I’d love to hear them. 

T.S. Tuesday: Why I am Pro-Choice

“If you haven’t the strength to impose your own terms upon life, then you must accept the terms it offers you.” T.S. Eliot

In the spring of 2006, the terms of my life were turned upside down. Life gave me anger. Anger at injustice and poverty and the overall suckiness of a broken world. After what I’d seen, I thought I had no choice.

I thought I had no choice but to wallow, to lash out, to leave the church that was complicit in the complacency that allows injustice.

But in the midst of this anger, I ever-so-painfully learned something. I discovered that faith and hope and love can be chosen. Not only can but must.

I learned this because I was choosing precisely the opposite: not to have faith, not to have hope, not to have love.

It seems like something you can't choose. You're either a glass-is-half-empty or glass-is-half-full type of person and there's nothing you can do about it. But that's not true.

You can choose hope.

I can choose hope.

There’s a part I didn’t choose: the suffering that I witnessed. The policies and politics that have been in place in Latin America long before I was born. The terms the world offers me.

But I can choose my response.

This weekend I had the immense privilege of being a part of something hopeful. I saw the fruit of choosing to love and serve and engage that has been years in the making.

This weekend I helped host an event at my church that highlighted many of the world’s injustices: poverty, environmental degradation, sex trafficking, and the obligation of the church to respond in awareness and compassion.

I heard testimonies of men and women in my church who have chosen to do something. Who have chosen love for our neighbor. Who have chosen faith in the redemptive work of a loving God. Who have chosen hope.

Planting a tree is an act of hope. Making a donation to a poverty fighting organization is an act of hope. Befriending our brothers and sisters who live outside here in San Diego is an act of hope. Delivering furniture to a newly relocated refugee family is an act of hope.

I am grateful to be a part of a church whose heart beats for justice. Whose heart beats for hope.

I can’t even express the humble awe I feel that God would use me to share this hope with others.

That God would use me to give people the chance to get involved in His work of feeding the hungry, healing the sick, and caring for the poor. That, years later, I would be working from within the church to reverse the complacency and disengagement that led me to leave in the first place.

I don’t mean this to sound like I’m tooting my own horn. I type these words in amazement that I am here. That I am leading. That the guilt and pain and anger that once engulfed me has been driven out by love. That the drive for justice and redemption grows stronger not weaker as I choose to engage a broken church and a broken world.

I am grateful for the strength I am given to impose my own hopeful terms upon life.

Most of all, I am grateful for the Hope that chose me.

I am my own worst legalist

I am my own worst legalist.

The other day my pastor at Coast Vineyard described legalists as "anyone who will steal grace from you."

I've always thought of legalists as people who impose rules and regulations, add stress and judgment to your life. I never thought of what they take away: grace.

A couple months ago a friend of mine attended an event in North Carolina called the Wild Goose Festival. The Wild Goose is a celtic metaphor for the the Holy Spirit. The organizers of the festival described themselves as "followers of Jesus creating a festival of justice, spirituality, music and the arts. The festival is rooted in the Christian tradition and therefore open to all regardless of belief, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, denomination or religious affiliation."

That all sounded good to me. My own life has been transformed by the creative and re-creative power of the Holy Spirit, so the whole premise resonated with me. In reading about the festival I was especially moved by their acknowledgment that "the creative and open nature of our faith is perhaps our greatest asset for re-building and strengthening our relationships with each other, with our enemies, with our stories, our texts, and the earth."

Still sounded good to me.

My friend, Colin, who attended the festival, agreed that "the vibe of many people enjoying simply being with each other and sharing their joys, sorrows, and struggles was undeniable." (Check out more of his thoughts here)

To me, that sounds a lot like grace.

Which is why I was appalled a few weeks later when I Googled the festival and the top hits came back as articles denouncing this gathering of "neo-Gnostic fools who've unbuckled themselves from the Word of God and have embarked upon their Wild Goose Chase of subjective experience." (Southern Baptist blogger Ken Silva of Apprising Ministries quoted in an article in The Christian Century).

Now, I'm no expert on theology and I shy away at political debates, and I definitely don't want to get into a discussion about the Emergent church or anything like that, but the outcry of negativity sounded like legalism to me. A grace heist.

As my blood boiled, I was reminded of what my pastor said about legalists, "Expect opposition." That was just the fuel I needed to villanize those awful, closed-minded Christians.

And just as I was about to condemn these condemners under the rouse of tolerance and acceptance and standing up for my creative, grace-seeking brothers and sisters, it dawned on me that I had become my own worst grace-stealing legalist.

The Bible calls us not to division but to unity. My home group Bible study just finished going through the book of Ephesians and the theme of unity came up so many times that by the end we were parroting "unity" as the catchall answer like young VBSers shouting out "Jesus!" in response to any question.

Paul's exhortation to "live a life worthy of the calling you have received," applies just as much to me as the Wild Goose critics. I, too, am called to "Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all." (Ephesians 4:1-6)

It seems we all need a good dose of the Wild Goose.