This is not my typical “missionary update” kinda post. this will be more of a “momentary glance into Eric’s head” kinda post. so now that you’ve been warned…
Those of you who know me well, know of my life-long religous/spiritual background. I grew up going to church twice every Sunday, and at least once more during the week. I also went to a Christian school from preschool all the way through high school. So Christianity was never something unfamiliar to me. Later I realized what a blessing and a curse that was. A blessing, because it was a solid foundation for the faith and relationship I have with God today. A curse, becuase it took awhile to get past all the stuff I took for granted, and all the crap I never questioned. The past several years, since I have left the church I grew up in, and really stepped out on my own (both in life and with my personal relationship with God) I have been discovering what “church” really is.
I am not a fan of labels, but for the sake of a general description here goes:
I have been doing a lot of reading (but still have soo much more to investigate) about different (note I didn’t say better) ways of worshiping, preaching, leading, meeting, and generally growing spiritually. A lot of ideas that I enjoy seem to fall under the category of the emerging / emergent church or postmodern church. Now, I have been careful not to jump onto any bandwagons to be like the cool kids; and I am glad, because there will always be the next wave (or generation) that just want to be differnt. however, I do fall back on some of my reformed background when I hear some things being preached that most people might fall for. I can think of a couple times when I thought I found this great writer or preacher online, and started to read his book/article, or listen to his sermons; only to have him write/say somthing blatantly contradicting the Bible. This has also caused me to begin the endless self-debate of what is “essential’ to me. what am I willing to fight and die for, and what am I willing to “agree to disagree” on.
I’m feeling reflective right now, so this is becoming a “what have I learned post”…
So where does this leave me now? This journey, along with the whole experience of moving to another culture, helped to reinforce the ideas that 1) churches are comprised of people and people are messed up, therefore churches will be messed up 2) christianity is more of a way of life than a “religon” or “sunday service” 3) yes times do change and cultures are different, but God doesn’t and His Word never will 4) don’t sacrifice quality for quantity (i.e. waterdowned sermons to be “seeker sensitive”) 5) a church is not a business 6) although part of the church is tp serve you, a humble maturity should lead to you serving the church.
I think thats enough for now. hopefully I’ll post a part 2 to this soon.

I feel that I often learn best through conversation so feedback is greatly appreciated. i also want to encourage questions, critiques, and please recomend readings, websites, podcasts, etc