Repacking Your Bags

When I was in college, a teacher who just had her oldest child marry someone, and her youngest child graduate shared with us some words of wisdom that she heard when she was younger.

She said that as we grow we have our parents and other significant persons pack our suitcase for life. They pack our bags with morals, good habits, spiritual awareness, different sets of values and attitudes. Then, when we get to a point when we move out of adolescence, our job is unpack and repack our lives baggage. Some of us have lots of unhelpful and unnecessary stuff for our journey. It takes a little while longer for those of us in that situation to sort those things out. And those of us that have had a really difficult upbringing may have had everything we had from our childhood soiled, and we have to go through a ardous process of analyzing and washing everything through before we can even see what is necessary to keep.

I think this is often true with our faith background. Especially those of us who don't feel like they fit the mold of today's church. Having been raised in more fundamentalist churches, energized in more evangelical churches, and served most of my ministry career in mainline churches, I do not feel like I fit neatly in any of those molds anymore. So how do I deal with it?

As a child, I was put under a lot of rules when I went to church. Shorts were bad. Secular music was "of the devil". Dancing was a prelude to all sorts of evil. The King James Version of the Bible was the only proper Bible to use. My former pastor at that church, having moved to a slightly less conservative church said after leading the congregation in this direction, "I grew more and more legalistic, and I found that soon I could not live up to all the rules I was trying to put everyone else under."

Now, there is a lot of head-shaking that goes on when I think about this church, but it taught we a love for the Bible and a love for Jesus. I unpack the legalism, but I keep the love for Scripture and the love for Christ.

As I grew older, especially in college and early in my ministry, I connected to a more evangelical crowd. I soon discovered Christian books, Christian music, praise music worship services, the megachurch, Christian colleges, and Christian celebrities. I developed a heart for making an influence in my world for Christ. I kept that in my stuff I carry into adulthood. But I try and sort out all of the Christian sub-culture and desire for political dominance of a right-wing moral majority agenda. And the stuff that does not seem about Jesus are like clothes that do not fit any more. I set them aside.

In my adult years I have served in mainline churches. I have loved their love for knowledge and their passion for compassion and multiculturalism (our denomination is about half white and half non-white congregations). It has taught me to listen and be tolerant and open to people's opinions that I have no way of agreeing with. It has nurtured my intellectual gifts. But it has also brought me into a larger group of people who serve the institution more than the mission. Who are more about political correctness and nobody's feelings getting hurt than having Biblical convictions. I unpack the milktoast convictions and the traditions. I throw in the freedom to not be stuck in a camp or a box in what I believe, and a growing humility to hold my attitudes and opionions more loosely. Also I take with me a passion for justice, and a desire to look past the religious right party line on political issues.

What kinds of things have you had to pack and unpack in your life?
In your spiritual upbringing and development?