"Now the purpose of the commandment is love from a pure heart, from a good conscience, and from sincere faith."

The marine air rolls into my windows from Elliott Bay with increasing regularity now. As the calendar (although not quite the low ‘80’s daily highs) heralds the ending of Summer, I look forward to Fall as most ‘normal’ people seem to dread it. With thoughts of hockey games and the comforting envelopness of sweaters, my peacoat(!) and anything at all made of wool fills me with giddy expectedness.

On Mars Hill:

I just finished reading my pastor’s newest book ‘Confessions of a Reformission Rev.: Hard lessons from an emerging missional church.’ I finally picked it up after my friend Amanda generously loaned it to me just yesterday and since my Sunday has been spent doing laundry and recovering from the previous day’s Endfest 15 festivities and sunburn; and not going to church like a good boy, I felt it proper that I should at least spend a good part of the day studying and reflecting.
Mark’s book is focused on the mechanics of the growth of the church to its current 4,000 member level. and looking ahead to the 10,000 mark. My immediate question after finishing it is to wonder where I might fit in the continued growth. This question is rather timely as in the last month or so I’ve been wrestling with a few issues that have caused me to back off a bit on my commitment to Mars Hill. These issues are, in brief; 1. My continued struggles with ‘singleness’ that falls into both idolatry of marriage and sexual sin. 2. My hesitation with being baptized in the church and 3. The issue of ‘glossolalia’ or ‘xenoglossolalia’.
A little personal history. I was not raised in the church, faith was sporadically introduced to me growing up until my ‘conversion experience’ at twenty-two after which I was hardheaded enough not to come to terms with it for another seven years. Near the end of this term I attended several liberal Presbyterian churches, encountering some aspects that I dearly loved but never feeling that it was a place that I ‘belonged’. Until I stumbled across Mars Hill. Although it is many things that I always avoided (Mega church, non-traditional worship) it is everything that I believe that I need (biblical teaching, reinforcement of gender roles, accountability and Man’s general ‘suckiness’). For the first time and continually in my year of attendance, it has been a place where I’ve grown beyond measure in my ‘walk with the Lord’ and have even learned how to talk like an evangelical and mention Jesus in casual conversation.
The situation is thus: the church is large and continues to grow, calling for more involvement from it’s members to succeed and yet because of some (hopefully) minor theological issues and dealing with my own sin I feel unprepared and not wholly worthy to assume the role that seems to be needed and heed the call that I believe that I hear. Additionally with my having been pushed into the deep-end of the pool of apologetics I also find myself somewhat out of sync with those that I would prefer to help in carrying the load. Disagreeing with church leadership and with people that so obviously have a love for Jesus deeply troubles me. I have no wish to be decisive but whether I state it or not a wedge has been planted. Hopefully only a temporary one and the question still remains; “Where do I fit in as the continued growth of Mars Hill and glorification of Jesus and the Gospel in Seattle is concerned?”