I Tried

Evangelical.

I tried.  I really did.  In the end it just wasn’t for me.

 

On my spiritual journey I jumped into the “church” during my sophomore year of high school.  The family had just moved from a long tenure at the Air Force Academy in Colorado to a “real” military base—Offutt Air Force Base—in Bellevue, Nebraska.  Though used to moving, this was a big move for me.  From the familiar to the unfamiliar . . . mountainous beauty to the drabness of the plains.  I was the newcomer . . . the stranger in a foreign land . . . the fish out of water . . . and I felt lost.

 

The desire to belong and be accepted is a powerful motivator.  On the school bus one day I was invited to church by a kid I viewed as “popular”.  Not being a dummy, I jumped at the opportunity to go to church with this individual on the promise that it would be fun and that there were lots of cute girls.  I took it in . . . hook, line, and sinker.  Caught by the need to belong and the raging hormones of a teenage boy.

 

Thus began my foray into the evangelical world.

 

Primarily it was through the youth group that I experienced evangelicalism.  The youth group was fun and there were a lot of cute girls.  In youth group I learned about the Bible, “saving souls”, and sharing the “good news”.  We sang a lot of cool songs, laughed a lot, ate a lot of pizza, and had a good time.  We lugged around our Bibles wherever we went outside of school.  For some reason our Bibles never came out of the locker except at lunch time.  We were called upon to save the world and keep humanity from descending to the depths of hell.  We were, though I did not know it at the time, evangelists.  Actually, with 20/20 hindsight, evangelicals.

 

I enjoyed the youth group.  Other parts . . . well, I wouldn’t put them on a list of favorite things to do.

 

Worship services were long.  The preacher/minister dragged on and on telling the congregation about the wages of sin.  At times it was real fire and brimstone kind of stuff.  Sometimes it was downright apocalyptical, end-of-the-world sort of stuff.  It seemed that the whole world was going to hell in a handbasket and we—the faithful had to hand on until Jesus returned.  Which I was told would be soon.  There wasn’t a whole lot of “love” preached except for those repentant who woke up, smelled the roses, got into line, and were “saved”.

 

It must have gotten my attention because I finally confessed my sins, sought forgiveness, swore I would repent, and expressed my desire to die to the old and be born again in the grace of Jesus.  In hindsight I am not sure how honest that whole exercise really was.  As I said, worship dragged on and on.  At the end of every service there was an altar call for people to make their confession of faith to join the church or to share a witness story of Jesus’ presence in their lives.  Until someone came forward the congregation would sing the altar song over and over!  The preacher was always certain that there was someone who wanted to spill the beans and sign on.

 

Now remember . . . Jesus Calls Us . . . over and over.  I am not sure if I made my confession of faith because I honestly felt it or because I just wanted that hymn to stop.  God only knows, but I like to think that God was happy when the singing stopped.  Yes, I heard Jesus the first time . . . but isn’t it a little pushy on the 16^th time?  Or maybe it was from the pressure of those members of the youth group who kept asking me when I was going to be born again.  Could have been the constant pressure I felt from the pastor who kept telling us that he knew that Jesus was working on someone’s heart to confess . . . all the while it felt like he was looking and talking to me.

 

I guess something inside of me snapped.  I confessed.  I was saved.  I was born again.  In all honesty it felt good to get that weight off my shoulders.  It was replaced with the burden of being evangelistic . . . of “witnessing” . . . of going out into the world to share the “good news” and making new disciples of the world’s abundant heathens.

 

It was an introvert’s worse nightmare.  I sucked at it from the very beginning.  The first time we did it as a youth group they dragged us to the bus station in Omaha.  How do heathens travel?  Where else would they be?  The bus station of course.  They dumped us off with the evangelical survival kit . . . our Bibles and a whole bunch of Bible tracks.

 

Bible tracks . . . you know what I am talking about.  They were little illustrated booklets—holy mini-comics—that told the salvation story of some wicked lost prodigal who had fallen among the sinners of the world.  The devil made the person do it.  They were pawns in the hands of the devil.  In these stories there was always some miraculous conversion in which Jesus saved the sinner at his or her worse.  It would have been more “real” for me if they had one about having to sit through a 16-verse altar call in church.  That seemed more “real” to me than what we were handing out.

 

In all of this the goal was to bring people to salvation.  Give a track, strike up a conversation, and save a soul.  I couldn’t do it.  Too introverted, plus it felt dishonest and based on a whole lot of guilt.  To me there didn’t seem to be much about what mattered most—love.  I did it once and never again.  If I was given Bible tracks to distribute, I typically left them in places where someone might find them.  I flunked the “evangelist” part of being evangelical.

 

I should have known I wasn’t a good match for the evangelicals when I finally got my own Bible—The Living Bible.  It wasn’t the King James version.  It was almost blasphemous . . . it wasn’t God’s word.  No, it was a paraphrase.  But I tell you what . . . it sure was easier to read and understand.  The King James was like stepping into a foreign land in which everyone spoke a language I had never heard.  It was Shakespearean while the Living Bible was good ol’ English that I could understand.  I was rarely asked to read from my secular Bible at youth group.

 

There is much about the evangelical church that was not congruent for me though I could not put my finger on it at the time.  It is a patriarchal structure and system.  Women are not valued equally as the “children of God”.  No, men are the driving force and blessed of God.  I never like the way that all the important tasks and leadership roles—even in youth group—were saved for the men.

 

I did not appreciate the way that they looked down on those who were not “saved” or “born again”.  They were heathens . . . even my family who put up with this evangelical fever I had at the time.  They were on the other side . . . lost forever.  Again, it just didn’t quite add up for me.  It just didn’t feel right.

 

People who were different.  My brothers with disabilities . . . they were a burden to endure.  They were “less than” . . . not among the “chosen” as demonstrated by their disabilities.  A mark of sin.  It was never said directly, it was implied.  They were not the children of God.  They were not embraced for who they were, but as something of a charity case.  I’m certain, with 20/20 hindsight, that the belief was that my brothers. Were a price to be paid for sins somewhere in the family tree.  I couldn’t buy that.

 

Diversity . . . there was none.  It was about as homogeneous as white bread.  Though it was never said, I could feel it.  If you did not fit the mold, you did not belong.  One of my best friends at that time was black.  Though he went to church with me several times, he started refusing.  Told me that he didn’t feel welcomed—tolerated, but not welcomed.

 

I really tried.  I really tried to be evangelical.  But I just didn’t have what it takes.  I just didn’t fit.  I was never comfortable.  Never thought I fit in.  Too extroverts for an introvert.  It was too dogmatic.  Too rigid.  Too regimented.  Too patriarchal.  Too controlled.  I flunked the evangelical test.  I just did not have what it takes . . . I have a brain.  The brain is a terrible thing to waste.

 

I was an evangelical for a little over a year.  My father got transferred and we moved again.  I moped around for several months when we settled in.  My mother got tired of it and suggested that I hoof my way down the church at the end of the street.  So, I did . . . it was a fork in the road, and I took it.  It was not evangelical.  Nope, far from it.  I never looked back and never felt better.  But that is another story for another time.

 

Honestly, I did try.