Where are you coming from?

 

 

"You can never change where you come from, you can only change where you are going..."

 

 

Thank you all for returning for my second post of this blog. Last week I kind of gave you a rough idea of why I am making this blog and what sorts of topics/discussions will be had on this blog. I believe my core purpose is to love God and love my fellow man....but I also believe we are called to study The Bible and do our best to understand its principles because it is thru practicing those principles that, I believe, we show God our love. That is, hopefully, going to be the focus of this blog. To study Gods word and try my best to express it in broken down ideas to better explain it, and hopefully grow personally in relationship with my God...but this week is a bit different...I believe that even though we cannot CHANGE where we come from, like the quote above says, I believe we should always remember and understand where we come from...it is thru our understanding of our journey thus far that we can continue to move forward...otherwise, I believe, we run the risk of being repeat offenders of the same old stuff. so to kick this post off I simply wanted to give you all a rough idea of where I am coming from....

 

 

Hello, My name is Joshua. I am 25 years old. I live in Reno, Nevada with my wife of 3 1/2 yrs, Bethany. I was born in Las Vegas, Nevada. I was raised in a religious home. My parents both were raised in the church...and both attended a christian college. I was raised in the Church of Christ faith-belief. The Churches of Christ come out of the reformation movement mostly influenced by two men, Barton Stone and Alexander Campbell. One was a Presbyterian and the other a Baptist, They both got fed up with the teachings of those churches, believe they were obviously non-biblical. They started separately and later joined forces to start a "Bible only" movement where people would get serious about reading their Bibles and using it ONLY to figure out church doctrine....Ever since I could remember I was in the Church of Christ faith-belief (or, C of C, for short). Most of my growing up years have been spent with one single congregation. We used to identify ourselves as the Wedekind Road Church of Christ (simply because of the street we were located on) until a few years ago when we had the opportunity to build in another location. due to the nicknames and neighborhood names of the area, and thru congregational voting we now call ourselves the Foothills Church of Christ. Our name has changed, but many things have not. Many of the same people still attend, we still have a similar schedule of events, and we even hold to a very similar approach to our "pursuit of The Truth" as our mission statement says...You see, many would call our particular congregation a "liberal" congregation. We still have many traditional aspects of a C of C congregation like A Capella singing for our services and such....but we do have some differences. First, is our minister....Dr. Gary Cage has been the minister of this congregation for 30+ years...even before I was a twinkle in my mothers eye. Gary takes a very logical, reasonable, very "philosophical" approach to his study of the Bible. I put philosophical in quotations only because people do not always like the term. Sometimes people hear that term and think of old grecian men in white robes discussing the wonders of the earth but with no talk of a deity (at least that is what I used to always imagine :) ). Make no mistake, Gary Cage is very much a theologian....but I believe he takes an approach to the bible that demands reason, logic, consistancy, and in that we are pursuing truth. If something is true, it HAS to be reasonable, logical, and consistant. That, I believe, is his approach to the Bible. I believe he truly is a man who takes more concern with the truth than being right. It is this man who has taught me thru the years to take the same approach when studying the bible. I believe our open pursuit of the truth is an amazing aspect of our congregation....I also believe that what goes along with that is our stance that we may have evidence to support our understandings, but we are always open to discussion and we, ultimately, are open to the possiblity that we could be wrong in our understanding of the evidence. That is also what brings me to another way in which I believe the Foothills congregation to be different....it is true that some members of our congregation actually DISAGREE on certain matters. I will not go into specifics, but I can say that on some matters, we actually disagree. I believe what makes us different is that our disagreements do not separate us. We agree to disagree and continue to study with each other and believe that it is only thru sincere study that we may know the truth...and I would even say that our congregation would say it is okay if we come to a different understanding of the evidence....as long as we are constantly studying in an attempt to know the truth. Here is where I may have already lost a few of you, and some of you still reading might be getting upset over what I have written so far...just hear me out. I believe the Foothills congregation deeply believes that we can disagree on many things and still be one with each other....because we might not all be at the same point in understanding. I think back to the passage where it states that it is wrong of a person to eat meat sacrificed to idols if he believe it to be wrong, but it is alright for another man to eat of meat sacrificed to idols who does not believe it to be wrong...that, and other passages, have lead me to believe that it is alright to be at two different points of understanding and still be one with each other in Christ. I believe that my upbringing in this congregation has lead me to rethink some traditional christian views...even some c of c tradition even though I was never even raised in a "fundamental c of c". It is my attempt to take what I have learned here from this congregation while I was growing up and use that knowledge to further understand God, his kingdom, and his desires for his people. I may not be able to change where I came from...but where I came from, where I am, and where I hope to go seems to all be a great blessing from God and I would NEVER want to change that. Thank you for reading...May God Bless you and keep you.