That was my favorite hat
The purpose of this blog is to tell the story of me and my family and the adventures we will have when we leave our local church building. This blog will include reactions from church members, friends, family and our own children. It will also include many rabbit trails as my mind conjures up the weirdest things.
Who the hell am I?
The following is a fairly short summary of where I came from. I will try to put everything in short paragraphs so you can glaze over it and then come to your own judgements (yes, you will judge, we all do)
Name: Chris Enns (fire chief, hockey coach, property adjuster (yes, I work for the man), married, father of 3, part-time construction worker, ex-church board member, ex-church attendee, hockey goalie, hockey addict, just learned to fish, minor hockey president, learned how to whistle at age 22 and had my first shot of whiskey 4 years ago.
Born Christian (again, some of you are going to freak over that comment)
Grew up a fundy and thought everyone was wrong and going to hell if they didn’t say the prayer.
Alienated myself from the world, except for other fundies (they were the only ones to understand my black and whiteness)
Attended Canadian Bible College to re-enforce my world view that I need to go out and save everybody from their drunken stupor. Also, for some reason I started to become insecure with myself and was very quick to anger.
Quit Bible college and gave up the dream of becoming a pastor (thank you Lord!) and started work in the real world.
Struggled in my personal life for many years. The marriage hurt as did many relationships around me. An out of body experience that seem to occur over 3 years showed me that my selfishness and insecurities were at the root of many of my problems. (similar to the U.S. currently ; )
Stopped reading my Bible for about 3 years. Then started reading it again and found that I had distorted Jesus’ teachings through my bias’s. Realized being Christian and following Jesus are two different things. After discovering that I was doing very little of what he taught, I became very frustrated and angry. This time it was directed at my parents (whom I love and respect and now understand their God given role in my life. I hold nothing against them and find them a great inspiration) and against the church.
The church and me don’t get along too well at this point. I read Jesus’ sermon on the mount and then have to work to see any evidence of this teaching in our local churches. I see more concern over population control and how to keep poor, ineffective programs alive. There is also such a strong focus on ourselves that we become more concerned about keeping the speed limit than our neighbor who is struggling with cancer. My dearest friends and encouragers are my catholic neighbors, my atheist co-worker, my drinking buddy (ex-fundy) and Lance (Mr. Nice guy). Funny, all of these people were not found in the church but in my neighborhood. As a matter of fact, the only positive influence the institutional church has been on me is that it brought me to this place of living opposite of it.
I have also grown up thinking that everyone who is not a christian is a project. This brainwashing of my youth has taken years to get out of my head. I was unable to make friends with anyone without trying to convert them. I now realize that my only responsibility is to love them and get to know them…to be their friend and thats it. Let the Spirit do the rest. The biggest revelation for me was that I am incapable of converting anyone, only Jesus can do that. Its not my job.
So to wrap things up, you may find that I sound bitter or angry in some of my posts and this is because I am still working out my salvation ; ) So be patient as this is a journey that I have just recently been glad to be a part of.
Nice introduction. I will be following your journey here on the blog.
What happened to your favourite hat?
I wore it till it no longer stayed on my balding head. It was like I had lost a good friend. Sheltered me from the sun, warmed me from the cool wind and made me look better than I really was.
Man, the timing and the message. Boy am I encouraged! Through various incidents, history etc, our family have just recently made the same decision. To lead life ‘outside the walls’ for a time. I was thinking about blogging about it myself – I may still do so, or might just read your blog! If you haven’t come across it, “Jesus has left the building” (http://www.paulvieira.info/) helped me get to the point where I realised this was the right thing to do for my family at this point in time.
I am still attending a small men’s group at the church – sort of awkward, but I find the group very encouraging.
Anyway, Thanks again for the Blog-fellowship. I am encouraged – God Bless.
Well, David, I really do hope you get a blog going. I would love to hear how your experiences compare. Send me the link if you get one up and running. I just downloaded Paul Vieira’s podcast so I give it a listen and it might be another book I’ll have to take in. Thanks for your comments. It feels great knowing there are others going through the same thing.
Hi Chris, after much stalling, I have got my blog up and running – multiversity.wordpress.com – the first post is pretty long and rambling – feedback welcomed. I backdated the first two posts, and will hopefully keep it updated a little mor regularly now I’ve got it started.
Hi Chris,
I have been reading your blog since the beginning. I have shared some of your frustrations in the past. Fortunately we have found a church that is evangelical, but not fundamentalist, and where people genuinely seem to care for each other. Although even this church seems to have its hangups.
I think I was at CTS about the same time you were at CBC. I found that my profs at CTS really helped me in my move away from fundamentalism, so maybe we had a different experience there. People like Rod Remin, Kelvin Friebel, and Bob Webb really challenged me to look at what the Bible really said, and not what I thought it said.
What part of the country do you live in. While you feel that people are avoiding you, I would love the opportunity to chat further.
Mike Bell