A New Found Freedom

I have experienced a profound sense of freedom from a lot of the religious baggage I carried with me and had brought with me into Hillsong London Church – even after I had been brought into this message of grace.

When I started listening to The God Journey and the Free Believers Network: Into the Wild podcasts, I felt as if I had had something like a vitamin deficiency in my spirit. I developed a craving for this totally honest, down-to-earth, relevant, balanced and humorous style of conveying the grace message. I feel that I had been missing this vital element of my Christian “diet” for a long time. For too long I had been pretending to be spiritual, devoted, kind and all of that stuff – all in the hope that God would eventually bless me how I want and when I wanted. I have felt encouraged to simply be myself now.

Christianity does not have to be weird, wacky, difficult, awkward and oppressive. Christianity is meant to be natural and spontaneous. When we make Christianity all about avoiding hell and not sinning, rather than on the love of God for us, it goes off on a totally different and unhealthy tangent.

When I first started hearing these podcasts, I soon downloaded all of them and listened to them exclusively of any other Christian teaching. Now that I have listened to most of the past teaching, I anticipate the God Journey and the Free Believers Network podcasts each week with great delight. I tend to listen to each of them now at least twice, perhaps even three times or more. The God Journey has been going now for about five years, so there are still some messages I haven’t yet downloaded.

I think I would have gone crazy if it was not for these podcasts because all the unrealistic expectations needed to be dealt with. I had reached a point in which I realised that it was highly unlikely that I would ever get into full-time ministry, write my own books or experience miracles on a regular basis. But now I have the freedom to enjoy everyday life, instead of gravitating towards some unrealistic fantasy world that leads to disappointment, frustration and guilt. I can see in retrospect that the institutional church and Word of Faith teaching had encouraged me to accept a foul, demanding God by giving me over-the-top promises that were loosely based on the Bible. Now I have learned to truly appreciate the simple, normal and everyday things of life; seeing them as no less profound, beautiful, valuable and enjoyable than the miraculous things.

I have cooled-off from scouring scriptures with a means of finding formulas and nuggets of truth that will give me the key to being blessed by God. I will admit that I would not have got so heavily into studying scripture if I had simply known the love of God and lived from that place.

My biggest criticism of the Christians at Hillsong London was that they did not seem as excited about the grace message as I was. Instead of spending time engrossed in Bible study – these Christians were more interested in social events and get-togethers. But perhaps they were just living from that place of God’s love, regardless of their ability to associate it with Bible verses? But I am adamant that a means must be saught by which insecure, gullible Christians can reach that place of inner transformation in which they find peace and balance, just like a lot of the people that I see at Hillsong London. I tend to find that this inner transformation that I have been searching for looks much more like a sense of security more than anything else – nothing weird and over-the-top.

Perhaps my insecurity had caused me to go overboard with the Bible and the antics of the intuitional church. When most, secure minded Christians, would have learned to take a more balanced approach to it all? I have been single for a long time now and I feel that this is what has enabled me to devote such as lot of time to Bible study, writing and reading Christian books. Most balanced, secure-minded Christians don’t have the time to engage in such activities all that much – perhaps that’s the way it is meant to be?

I think the main reason I have cooled-off from blogging and Facebook activity recently is this very shift I have been talking about. I just wonder where I will go from here.

I think I had become many of the characters in Phil Baker’s hilarious, but relevant and honest book, Weird Christians I Have Met. I had become a Theological Theo, Frank Faith amongst other personas detailed in the book. It still amazes me that this book was written in 1996 – at the peak of the charismatic movement.