Alright guys, venting time.
Phrank here, after a long day of gettin my Jesus on at church and community group. I know this is the internet, and safety is key and all, the whole 'don't give personal information to strangers in the internet, or you'll be kidnapped and murdered and whatnot', but to the pits with that, I'm gonna be 'risky' here for a minute. I go to a church called Cross Point Church, we are centered in middle Tennessee, with our broadcast campus being in Nashville. I know, sounds confusing, but it's not I promise. See, we are a 'multi-site' church, with several locations, or campuses. Those locations being one in Nashville, Belleview, Franklin, Dickson, and one called the Dream Center, which I believe is also in Nashville, but is mainly a help-center type thing. Nashville is called the broadcast campus because, though every campus has it's own pastor, every Sunday our Senior Pastor, Pastor Pete, preaches from Nashville to all four of the other locations via live video broadcast, which, if you're interested, you can watch live online anywhere at crosspoint.tv/live. Sorry. I didn't mean to start advertising. Anyways, tonight at my community group, a few interesting points were brought to my attention. Not really points, so much as questions. We were staying on topic about as well as a bunch of high school teenagers could, which surprisingly was very focused par our usual standards. At some point one of the girls slightly older than me- for blogging purposes I'll call her Sam-said some word, I can't even remember the word anymore, but it somehow lead to our group leader of the night-our youth pastor- to ask us this question=
If a man spends his whole life on an island, never interacting with another human ever, and dies, does he go to Heaven or Hell? Naturally, the technical questions were asked, how did he get there? what about his mom, who was she? he had to have a mom. How did he survive to adulthood? things to get him out of being completely solitary his entire existence. Mr YP(youth pastor), who was playing the Devil's Advocate, just said to try and forget the technicalities, make up our own versions, but keep the fundamental points the same. After attempting to do so, he asked to signal a thumbs up of down to tell whether we thought he'd go Upstairs to fluffy clouds and peace or down to hell fire sulfur smells and brimstone(whatever you prefer). Everyone signaled up. Except for Mr. YP, playing advocate. (if you don;t know what it means to be the devil's advocate, it basically means to ask questions from a non-believer's point of view, causing believers to question why they believe the way they do, and hopefully strengthen it.) Now, we got into a whole big discussion as to why he would or wouldn't go to heaven, but if I told you every piece of evidence used to make one way correct versus the other, I'd be here till Christmas (for those of you who can't find the dates on the post, today is January 20, at 12:something A.M.) So, here's where you, our readers, if we have any, come in. I want you to give me your perspective, please. I'm still having a lot of runnaway thinks in my brain, and can't quite pin down what I'm trying to decide inside my head. I would really appreciate some input, if for nothing else than to answer the pleadings of a confused mind. Another thing that was said was what was our lives liked before we got saved versus now. That's a hard question for me, for a couple reasons. One, I was raised in a church of Christ, so I've pretty much believed in God and Jesus since I knew what church was. Two, I don't know if I'm considered technically saved. I know most denominations think different things make you saved, and sometimes I don't know what to think is right. In COC, I don't think they consider you saved until you've been baptized, which I have not yet. I do have full intentions to, but I don't consider myself to feel ready yet. I think I'm close, but not quite. But Cross Point is what's called non-denominational, and was built with the mind set of making a church for people who hate going to church. So when Mr. Yp asked what it was like before I was saved, I felt I couldn't answer the question, I truly didn't know if I was saved, and it was a bit frightening. So another assignment for you readers, I want to know what you think it is to be saved by God. I don't care if you're baptist or Church of Christ of from a snake church or whatever you believe. For once in my life I feel actually drawn to the idea of God, and Heaven, and Faith, and my own faith is starting to feel real. I'm not just going to church because it's what you're supposed to do, I want to go, and I believe because I actually do, not as a mindless mandatory thing you're parents tell you. So please. give me your opinions. I crave them. Whether or not you believe in God or Gandhi or Buddha or you're Wiccan or atheist or even ancient Greek or roman gods/goddesses or you're just not sure. I want all of your opinions, and value them all. So please don't ignore me if you read this, I don't care who you are.
Sorry for the long post, and going all 'churchy' on you. Goodnight,
Phrank M.
No comments:
Post a Comment