Somewhere Between Truth and Faith

We are a middle generation. A generation dancing somewhere between the fundamentalist foundation of our Baby Boomer parents and the “new” direction so many Emergents long for us to follow.

I am only one of many seekers eager to know and embrace absolute Truth but remain humbly aware of our inability to know it absolutely. I am one of many who were raised to find respite in the stability of doctrine and take comfort in the supremacy and authority of Scripture, but who have since come to find that, more often than not, point-by-point doctrine cannot speak to the gray areas of everyday life that require the deep-seated wisdom borne of a true relationship with the Most High who equips us to discern His will rather than simply telling us what He wants.

Many are we who were raised by champions of doctrine, have studied the chapters, can recite the passages and relay stories of faith and miracle. And yet we struggle to bridge the gulf between the Truth that binds us together as One, and our authentic, deeply personal and uniquely individual faith that acts and lives and breathes Christ as differently through each of us as we are unique in personality.

Many are we who – so the saying goes – talk the talk, often verbatim and in unison, and yet fail to walk the walk when our journeys lead us down different and lonely paths and into some seemingly contradictory ends. It is much easier to remain One when we remain close in proximity.

And yet we know it is along the lonely path that Christ becomes defined in us each, when His face and power take on our unique features, and He takes form and becomes perfected in our varied skins and personalities.

So where do we find commonality along our unique journeys? Where do we turn when doctrine cannot answer the challenges of real life, and we lack the understanding to treat our different beliefs and their implications?

We turn to Christ, His life and teachings, and to the example of His disciples.

There we find Him surrounded by twelve men from as varied and opposing backgrounds and vocations as our own, but who abandon their posts to follow Christ…together. We find a tax collector living alongside the fishermen he formerly swindled. We find a zealot mingling with unclean gentiles. We find lovers of Christ forgiving His betrayers…because such is the Way of Christ.

Perhaps more significantly, we see them joining with Christ during His ministry and continuing it even after He’s left them with His Spirit, setting aside their former divisive concepts of black and white truth, and taking up the cross of service and love to become the hands and feet and miraculous power of Christ to those who had yet to hear.

And while they continued to debate doctrine and go head-to-head on matters of theological truth, they remained bound by the sole profound and elemental Truth that roots authentic Faith deep in the soul: the resurrection of Christ, apart from which everything is done in vain. As Paul, for whom “to live is Christ, to die is gain” taught, “If Christ be not raised, our faith is in vain.”

And I believe for we who live in this middle generation, unity looks like a continual search for basic Truth tempered by the humility to accept our limitations, as we ban together under Christ’s resurrection.

And we love. We serve.

For, in all Christ taught and did while He walked among humanity, He made inarguably clear exactly what sets the True believer apart from frauds, how He would separate His sheep from the goats. And in the end, it all boils down to how we treat the fatherless and the widow, whether we clothe the naked, feed the hungry, and comfort the oppressed. Do we love justice and mercy? Do we walk humbly with God, recognizing our limitations in humility, seeking above all to know and love one another rather than beat or one-up each other?

These are not new or groundbreaking concepts. They’re foundational and fundamental. God has outlined for us throughout Scripture, implicitly and explicitly, that there is knowable and unknowable Truth. “For now we see dimly, as in a mirror, but then we shall see face to face.” That the soil of doubt and doctrinal differences and discussions are the purest for the seeds of faith, and for the evolution of belief based in but independent from doctrine.

In terms more specific to our times, these concepts come to life in exercising God-given intellect, the power of the mind, to discuss and hash through questions of human origin, honestly seeking a balance between science and spirituality. And in continually testing and challenging those doctrines time has taught us to blindly embrace. And in remaining humbly aware of our intellectual inferiority to the Creator against whose wisdom even the wisest men are fools.

Socially, Truth and Faith come to life in feeding and clothing the homeless and treating them as spiritual equal, beloved of Christ. In embracing and caring for the single mom, regardless of her situation. In loving homosexuals and providing them a safe context within which to live and struggle and succeed, whether or not we agree with their lifestyle.

It means giving and doing all we can to ensure that those dying for lack of clean water no longer go thirsty, either physically or spiritually. It means giving our hearts over to the brokenness of loving a man, woman, or child whose only ever known sexual slavery, and lending them hope.

It means living a humble and selfless but wholly pleasing life before God, that others may see and know Whose we are.

It means, essentially and simply, living Christ.

The question is not whether or not we are embracing the right doctrines and asserting correct Truths. But…

Are we Christ to an unsuspecting world?

The Trappings of the Trade

There are things you inevitably learn about yourself as you navigate the fields and forests of your passions and dreams. Both exciting and discouraging truths that dress the path ahead like flower petals for a bride or stones under the toes of a weary traveler.

If you must know, it was never my dream to be a professional touring and recording artist. Granted, I was raised in an unusually musical family who traveled around giving concerts at various churches, etc. And I readily – if with some embarrassment – confess that I spent countless hours in front of a mirror, hair brush in hand, lip-syncing my own video to Michael W. Smith’s “Place in this World” and DC Talk’s “The Hardway” among others.

But it never occurred to me that one day I’d actually be making records like they did and traveling to hundreds of venues to share the songs live and impact lives the way Jennifer Knapp’s live performance changed mine.

So when I jumped into the circus five years ago, with glitter in my eyes and butterflies dancing in my belly, I honestly had no clue what I was diving into. Indeed, we’ve all heard rumors about the role image plays in the lives of entertainers, even – perhaps especially – for those in the Christian market. But it’s become a rather disheartening reality as the years have gone by.

And for those of us who already struggle with body image and have battled self-hate and eating disorders for years, I dare say it’s an even greater obstacle. A true thorn in the flesh.

Still, these struggles, the sifting and navigating through endless forests to come out only to find another straight ahead, produce that promised endurance and faith, the hope and purpose. Between forests, you rediscover passion and decipher detailed purpose…it’s where you find your “calling”; that ever-elusive will of God for your life.

For me, it’s come in the form of a passion for Africa that was planted as a tiny mustard seed and has grown so powerful to overcome want for anything else. Passion for one group of People has morphed into a passion for people in general, for relationship.

And it’s grown from there into a passion for simplicity. A desire to escape the trappings of the road to fame and fortune in favor of a less-traveled path (for artists and audience alike) dusted with scents of selflessness and service, of doing much with little to make an eternal impact, if utterly unnoticed on earth. A path along which travelers are more interested in knowing than being known, in falling into a role of support and carriage rather than a role of fame and celebrity.

I don’t want fame or fortune or anything of the sort. It’s not what I seek, and it boils in my veins when I’m told it ought to be. I only to pass on passion for Good and Truth. To join with Christ in the building of a generation who’ll serve the next and the next after that. To find where God is working and dig into the dirt to plant seeds and dig wells, rather than waiting and hoping for Him to join in my missions. If lived for anything less, my life is lived in vain.

It’s not a popular opinion. I’ve met many a friendly supporter whose lone goal is to shake me from my lunacy and re-set my focus on the “right” things…like “enlarging my audience” and “getting my face in front of as many people possible” and compromising not only passion but art for the sake of a “Brighter” future. They long for me to set my gaze on the American dream, and make promises that with what talent I’ve been given, I can certainly do it!

They fail to understand that, at heart, I’m not an American. Not by blood; only by location. I’m a Christian by blood, and my home is elsewhere.

So their banter has only steadied my foothold and hardened my resolve to continue doing what I’m doing, chasing the heavenly dreams I’ve been given, trusting that if I join in God’s work, the stage and audience will grow, because He is the One who gave me a song, a voice, a stage, a passion, a promise, and a purpose within His plans that will come to pass.

Surely He will provide the intended audience and take me where I’m meant to go…providing everything I’ll need along the way.

two years, nine months, and twenty days

I think that’s right. I’m not good at counting, especially not calendar counting, because it requires me to employ the use of numbers backward and forward simultaneously. I can’t even think that way, let along count.

Anyway, Paul and I are coming up on our third anniversary. Three years. I know I’ll have more to share when the actual day comes, but for now, let me just say we are a among the most blessed.

At least I am.

We still like to hold hands. And make out.

He still makes me coffee every Saturday morning, just because it’s what we do.

We still say “I Love You” a thousand times a day.

And we don’t just say it with words. We use our eyes, our hands, our hugs, our little favors.

Tonight, he made me tomato soup. And he added pesto.

No one else could know to do that.

But he did.

And that’s why I’m more in love today than I was on December 24, 2005, when he proposed. Or on February 23, 2006 when he showed up at the church in rhubarb red courderoy pants to say forever. Or yesterday, when he made coffee for himself so he’d be awake when I got home from babysitting.

I Need Africa

As you all know, my involvement with Mocha Club has become the biggest reason for doing what I do on stages across the country. The work we’ve done throughout the continent of Africa – from building orphanages in Sudan, Rwanda, Uganda, South Africa, and more, to providing new hope to the people by providing medicine, education, and basic life-saving items like mosquito nets – is only possible because of people like you and I who have decided to give up two mocha’s a month and lend that $7 we’d otherwise spend on coffee to a better cause. But there’s more to our effort than being beneficiaries to the masses. What they give to us through their embrace of hope and their humility to receive us with open arms, lead us to say…

I NEED AFRICA MORE THAN AFRICA NEEDS ME

“When I think of Africa, the following images immediately come to mind: Starvation.  AIDS.  Child soldiers.  Genocide.  Sex slaves.  Orphans.  From there, my thoughts naturally turn to how I can help, how I can make a difference. “I am needed here,” I think. “They have so little, and I have so much.” It’s true, there are great tragedies playing out in Africa everyday.  There is often a level of suffering here that is unimaginable until you have seen it, and even then it is difficult to believe.  But what is even harder is reconciling the challenges that many Africans face with the joy I see in the people. It’s a joy that comes from somewhere I cannot fathom, not within the framework that has been my life to this day.” [read more]

Please consider lending your cash to buy the shirt and make the statement. Then use your voice to tell the story.