Motivations...

My last post was somewhat heavy, and a lot of people had opinions on what I had to say.  I feel like a little background to the post may be warranted.

My dad and I are going to the Kingdom Man Conference this weekend.  I'm really looking forward to it.  But not for the usual reasons.  Dr. Tony Evans, I'm sure, is a great speaker.  And Shane and Shane leading worship is a guarantee that it will be a night to remember.  But that's not what I'm most excited about.

The topic of the whole conference is Biblical manhood--how to be a man of God and how to measure our "manliness" according to His standards.  It's a topic that has been in the forefront of my mind for months now.

Why?  Because of Brayson.  As he grows older, it's going to be my responsibility to teach him what it means to be a man.  What he thinks a man is, how he views manhood, for good or bad, is going to be directly affected by how he sees me live my life.  And I want to give him his best chance.

I pray every night that one day Brayson will come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.  And when that day comes, he's going to need community.  He's going to need to walk with others as he grows in his relationship with Christ.  "There is no such thing as a Lone Ranger Christian," my former pastor used to say.  He needs community to help him grow.

What I don't want for him is for his relationship with Christ to become a sanitized, habitual, obligatory duty to be performed once a week and then forgotten until the next Sunday.  I don't want him to measure his relationship with Christ based on a checklist that even the lost could keep up with.  I want him to desire a righteousness that "surpasses the Pharisees" (Matthew 5:20).  I want him to "throw off everything that hinders" him (Hebrews 12:1).  I want his relationship with Christ to be something so central that it permeates to every part of his life, from the clothes he wears to the classes he takes to the food he eats to the games he plays.  But, lately, it seems that those in a body of believers who truly desire a radical, life-altering relationship with Christ are overshadowed and ostracized by those who desire homeostasis, control, and prestige.  And the only response people have when that is brought to their attention is "yeah, well, no church is perfect."  No desire for change, no yearning to be better than what we are.  Just a simple, defeated attitude that this is as good as its ever going to get.  It scares me to think of sending my son out into that.  Because that's what happened to those two families I mentioned, and they are suffering for it.

I realize that no church is perfect, that there are always going to be problems no matter where I go.  But I can't just sit here and hope that Brayson can make the best out of what's out there.  I want to give him his best chance, and that means I can't just sit on the sidelines and accept things as they are.  In the words of Ross King, "smaller victories will never be all right with me, 'cause I've got my intentions set on bigger things than that."

We'll be moving to Shreveport soon, and once we get there, it's going to be a while before Mandy and I decide to be part of any church.  I'm less concerned about having my name on a roll than I am about being part of a community that is actually going to follow Christ, even if it means stepping away from comfort and control.  Because I want to give Brayson his best chance.  And that is more important to me than a lifetime of Sundays spent sitting in a pew.

Love me, hate me, burn me at the stake---that's where I am right now.