My Own Man
And me, I love to read my dad's stuff 'cause it makes you think. Granted, a chunk of it is crazy talk designed to get a reaction out of us but I still like it. I think his core opinions are valid and well considered even he is still figuring things out for himself in many ways.
The problem is that I seem to get painted with the same label as my dad. Whatever little description we place on his stuff tends to get applied to me as well. And yet, I'm the one that directly challenges my dad more than anyone else. I could give examples directly from my own blog or from my comments on his blog, but even in my own daily discussions with him I tend to take everything that he says with a grain of salt.
Not that I think my dad is too off-base with some of his thoughts. It just so happens that I've been growing in the same areas that he has for the past ten years or so. I started my own cell group back when I was 21 years old because I realized how shallow and superficial so many of my own friendships had been. (As I wrote about here.) And in recent years, I've noticed the same pattern in soooo many other Christians and that makes me questions the effectiveness and purpose of the local church.
Of my entire family, I'm the one person that has consistantly attended church for the past 29 years of my life. (More than that, if you count when my mom was pregnant.) Each of my family members has lived in other countries for periods of time, has gone to school, and for whatever reasons they haven't always gone to church consistantly. But I have. And now that my dad has a lot of blog posts questioning the goals of the average Sunday service, people think that I'm in the same boat. If anything, I believe in church more than most people, and I've been more involved in church ministry than almost anybody else. Heck, I'm probably more of a goody-two-shoes-churchy-McChurch-A-Lot than all of you.
But you know what? As much as I love church, and as much as I have been involved with church ministry, I'm always willing to talk about the problems and search for better ways. Better ways of reaching out to people, better ways of communicating God's love, better ways of building friendships, better ways of being the followers of Christ that we were meant to be. And if that means asking a few innocent questions about the modern machinations of church then so be it.
So my question to you is: How many of us are just following in the footsteps of our own parents? How many of us believe the same version of religion that our parents believe? How many of us have only one or two friends, just because that's what our parents have? How many of us think it's all right to yell and scream during an argument, just because that's what we saw and heard while growing up? How many of us still hurt because of something our parents said or did, and still allow those memories to wound us all the time?
How many of us like still make little decisions every day as a direct result of what our parents did? And how many of us are willing to step back and try to grow a little more on our own? We can take the good and positive things from our parents without allowing the negative stuff to control us. Be thankful for what our parents gave us, and what they still give us, but without limiting ourselves to being mere reflections of who they are.
12 comments:
Growing up it was my biggest fear, that I was turning into my father. My oldest brother and I would often poke fun by saying that each other was turning into dad.
Now that dad is gone, it has become apparent to me that one thing that will have me feeling accomplished come my own end ... is if somebody says I remind them of my dad. He was intelligent and strong, thoughtful and a firecracker. All things that I can only hope he passed on to me.
Knowing why we do what we do is always a unique challenge. Many people will make assumptions about our motivations. Living in our own skin doesn't even mean that we will be accurate in our assessments of ourselves.
Some people will do things to gain favor with a loved one or they will do the opposite of what their father/mother wants just to prove they're not them. In either case they are not being their own person.
Being free to love without the expectation of pay back is the noblest way to love.
Jamie you have always made your own decisions and followed through with the actions that prove your beliefs.
How many of us believe the same version of religion that our parents believe?
Isn't it the role of a parent, as set out in Ephesians 6:4, to instruct their children in the way of the Lord? What else are the children supposed to learn? Surely the parents aren't expected to teach their children stuff that the parents themselves don't believe?
I realize the counter argument is: children should not simply accept everything at face value, etc. But that doesn't change the parental responsibility. And that's what I think is missing here.
I also realize that in your last paragraph you seem to temper your comments a little, but I'd be cautious of the slope your argument leads.
Since this is all kindof mashed together in one post, I'll separate my comments (and perhaps David needs to answer this, but anyways):
What part is "crazy talk designed to get a reaction" and what part is "actual opinion"?
And, as a general rule, I find that incendiary comments are rarely effective. Just a thought.
Re: Parents & Kids
I was chatting with one of my pastors last week over lunch. He commented on the parallels between my life and his: Our fathers were both pastors, he and I were both heavily involved in worship ministry...
And most importantly, he and I both had to find a way to define ourselves as our own men. We had to decide which beliefs we accepted from our fathers, and we had to decide what we believed for ourselves. That process is complicated and frustrating at times, especially when people label us as simply clones of our fathers, but it's necessary for everyone.
Re: Parental Responsibility
Well said, Lawyer Boy. And Tamrah emphasized this nicely as well, pointing out that a healthy relationship with the parents will make you admire the parent rather than rebel against them blindly.
Of course, I'm 29 now so the age of my parents raising me up has long since passed... We have a very different kind of relationship now, which I fully appreciate.
Re: Incendiary Comments
Mmm, I agree that flamage rarely helps anything. I take great pains to avoid them myself, which is a lesson I learned back in high school. However, I have taken a much more polite approach about this for the past year. Lo and behold, my approach is equally ineffective. Lighting a fire under someone is the only way to get a reaction sometimes...and my dad has certainly gotten a reaction, even if people tune him out eventually.
My polite and logical questions are usually met with an instant defense of church-as-it-is. The ready response is to blame individuals for the inefficacies of the church, and to give credit to the church for people being saved. It's like talking to a wall sometimes...
That being said, I've also been surprised to see how common my own opinions about church are. (And those of my dad...) It's almost freaky to hear so many people express dissatisfaction with their own church, but they don't know where else to go or what else to do. I talk about the need for closer friendships and that really resonates with a lot of people, and church simply doesn't address this issue for many.
People are a lot more dissatisfied with church than we think. But eventually, those people leave the church because no one wants to listen and they feel stuck. That leaves pro-church people in church and everyone else outside of it, creating an illusion of harmony and success.
You've kinda hit a couple of my thoughts yourself here.
A few more:
An analogy first: It's probably pretty clear that I'm fairly "right-wing", whatever that means. So I tend to be skeptical of all people I identify as "left-wing". One exception to this is Abe, because he is reasonable (generally), polite (almost always), and although he may disagree with you, he won't hate you for life (at least, I don't think so). And I really like hearing differing opinions, which is why (apart from the fact I consider him a friend), his blog is one of my favourite reads - because he's not insane with his commentary.
You've hit the nail on the head though when you say "even if people tune him out eventually". In my (relatively short, admittedly) experience, once people tune you out because of inflammatory remarks, you will rarely ever get the benefit of the doubt again, if in fact people will even bother to listen to you. There is an extremely fine line between getting people to think and being "over-the-top" enough to cause them to stop listening.
I've been trying to decide how to say the next point without falling prey to my preceding comments. I guess the easiest way is this: if you are interested in fixing and helping, the best way to do that is by involving yourself and helping the system from the inside out.
Quitting and leaving would rarely seem to be the correct answer, as it seems akin to taking your sandals off and shaking the dust as you leave.
Who's talking about quitting and leaving? Pas moi! I've been a staunch defender of church, continually identifying the reasons that it works. My pastor echoed these same concerns during our conversation, not wanting me to throw the baby out with the bath water. Questioning is not the same as ditching.
I've done the cell group thing for ten years, I've done the mentoring thing, I've done the Alpha, I've worked within the system. And I have tangible results that prove that Christians can be effective and have close friendships. Most of the time, though, these results have been because of me and my goals and the church as a whole only contributes in limited ways.
Such is my conclusion these days. The institution of church does some things very well but building close relationships isn't one of them.
So what actually happens is that churches throw the non-churchies out. People don't run away, they're pushed out. I could cite various examples but group-think overrides honest questions more often than not.
"The rebels didn't leave, they were labeled rebels and they were asked to leave." - JAG
Did you really just quote yourself? Haha.
In response to the OP, about family relations, I think its important to point out that our families don't shape everything about us. We aren't built like machines in the factory of the nuclear family.
It's connected to the larger issue of how we relate to our past in general, which we've discussed on this blog before. Short recap: we aren't totalized by our past. We're thrown into a present. What happened to me yesterday does not dictate what I am today.
Mike
Joel,
"parents should instruct their children in the way of the Lord."
I think that's a good point. The problem is that sometimes in their zeal for their brand of religion parents are not pointing their children to making real decisions about the Lord but rather about being loyal to their group which they equate to the way of the Lord.
Matt 10:37 (NIV) "Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me;
They somehow consider being honored as their kids agreeing with everything they have taught them.
The reality is no one is infallible and yet there is often not a lot of reflection about core assumptions.
Understanding this dilemma through only looking within the context of a personal belief or practice it is difficult to be objective. But if you find beliefs that are "out there" ie snake handlers, groups that teach open sexual relationships with all members, it is easier to see that destructive elements do come into play.
When we nonchalantly consider sharing Jesus with a Moslem we don't consider the familial and social consequences that we are asking of them.
If we are saying the Lord is more than worth the price then we have to be able to question are own potentially false assumptions as well.
As far as working within the system to correct it is a an interesting statement. If you don't know my history then I guess you could point your finger at me that I didn't give that a go. But I think I did give a try.
I've watched some of my best friends be corrupted within the system. I had one tell me the other day that the reason we don't have to worry about churches designating 2% of their budget to the poor is because we don't have any poor.
I watched myself teach tithing as a principle and the end result was that I had some truly poor people giving their tithes in order to pay my salary. I guess it sounds infammatory to say that pastors shouldn't get paid by self serving false teaching about tithing, and gladly receiving offerings from the poor, but I'll live with that indictment.
Sadly, they can't stop what they are doing because it's rather like a house of cards and they fear their system would collapse if they seriously looked at and changed any one of their core assumptions.
A core assumption is that a pastor's job is to preach a sermon on Sunday. What if a pastor decided that from now on he would only do podcasts and encourage his flock to meet in homes on Sundays to build up and encourage one another. He would see the building and give the money to the poor.
He wouldn't be violating any scripture but I doubt that he would continue to get paid. He would likely be more effective and people would be better equipped to minister to one another. The potential for growth and true friendships being built would not be limited by budgetary concerns. But what has that got to do with anything?
I'm not pointing a finger because I don't know your personal history, although I don't like to point fingers anyways.
I'm sorry I missed these comments - I was away from blogs for a couple of days.
I'll be responding more fully on my own blog - that's probably easiest.
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