I Left the Building, Not the Savior

With most things in my life, there isn’t a direct route. I find the most convoluted pathway, and then stutter-step back and forth until I eventually land somewhere. To say my journey with faith was any different would be something bordering on hysterical.

I explained some of that journey in a recent interview for a magazine. I’m quite curious what comes out of that, considering we talked for two hours, and I was all over the place, as per usual. There I go, straying from the point again. I digress.

After the preamble in the interview regarding my many fits and starts with religion, I was asked if I still believed in God. I answered in the affirmative, but with the caveat that I’ve nearly lost all faith in what we collectively call the church, which, in my layman’s opinion, has strayed far from its original intent.

Don’t get me wrong, I still believe in the mission of the true Church. Let’s call it the “big C” Church. But the corporation we often equate to the church, small c, seems more focused on political interference and social posturing. I imagine that the shortest scripture in the Bible applies here. “Jesus wept.”

Still, I find myself clinging to my faith. I studied to show myself approved, got the degree, preached professionally for several years, and then got jaded and walked away from the building, but not the Savior. If we’re called to be “salt and light” in a dark world, perhaps we ought to leave the safety of our social clubs and love our actual neighbors. I know this is a foreign sentiment, and you probably won’t post a selfie on your mission trip next door, but it’s probably more valuable to the kingdom than your sanitized Christian vacation with a fun name.

It’s funny to think back on my journey, getting back to the original point. I spent much of my life before 2009 as an agnostic, and sometimes I’d have even said I was an atheist. As a child, I remember times when one stepparent took us to church, and I felt loved by God. There were other times when another stepparent took us, and I saw such vile corruption that I wanted nothing to do with religion.

It seems my problem has never been so much with God as it has been with the loudest voices shouting about his love while they beat me to death with their unread Bibles. It’s as if they took the verse about the word of God being the sword of the Spirit literally and hammered those thin pages into shivs to tear away those unlike themselves. Well-meaning as they may be, they seem to forget the parts that required empathy. Seeking justice and retribution is always easier than doing the hard work of loving those who curse you.

The first time I preached was, no joke, to around a million people. The small Bible college I attended after my drastic conversion to Christianity in 2009 had a requirement to preach on the streets during Mardi Gras in New Orleans. We set up on the corner of Bourbon and Canal streets and just went two by two to talk with folks and pray for their needs. We were stationed right next to another group of “Christians” with signs sending everyone to hell. Those dudes were no fun.

I remember stepping up onto a milk crate to elevate myself above the fray just a little bit, and I grabbed the microphone we brought and just started speaking. Of all the things I could have preached about, I remember just letting people know they were loved. I explained the process of being made into a new creation because 2 Corinthians 5:17 really had a hold on me since I had recently felt I had also been made new. I knew that if God could love someone like me, it was fair game for anyone. If he could change my heart, then, well, he could likely change theirs.

I was spit on; I had beers thrown at me and poured on me. I didn’t care. One dude tried to fight me; the pride swelled up in me before the love of Christ did, I have to admit. I was a heavyweight boxer at the time and had the confidence to know I would have destroyed him, but I had to shove that old man back down. It was a test of my faith to bless those who cursed me. I still wrestle with the dualism of laying on hands as a first response, and I vacillate between the physical and spiritual.

Speaking of pride, that may even be why I just told you all of that. I don’t know. It does sound cool, especially because it’s true, that the first time I proclaimed Christ in a public setting, it was heard by so many. My story didn’t end there, and over the next few years, I found myself in front of crowds I had no business being in front of.

As I mentioned earlier, I don’t know where I stand with evangelicalism anymore, as the flavor of it most commonly sampled in America seems disgusting to me. I also don’t want to cop out and just say that I’m “spiritual” because that’s the sort of lukewarm dogmatic statement that gets vomited out of people’s mouths who won’t take a stand for anything. I haven’t deconstructed like many of my peers, but maybe to those who don’t know me, it looks like that. Faith and the pursuit of God may offer me more dissonance than any other venture.

I’m always conflicted by what I see in print and what I see in the small-c church. I also don’t want to make a blanket statement and say all churches are bad. I spent years traveling to all manner of denominations, and I’ve seen the best and worst of them, and it all depends on the community. There are truly some great ministries and churches still trying to do their best. Sometimes I need to follow the advice of my father-in-law and just chew up the meat and spit out the bones, but I guess for so many years, it’s felt like I’m breaking my teeth on only bones.

At the end of the day, I do still believe in God, and I try my best to follow Jesus despite how many times I stumble and look like a fool. My mindset on evangelism shifted from trying to sell Jesus to trying to show him to them with my life. The caveat is that I’m a broken man trying to make sense of the world as best I know how, and even I don’t live up to the standards I have for others. Maybe, with as crazy as the world is right now, if we all tried a little harder to show Christ with our actions more than we focused on the sins of others, we’d all be in a better place. Again, who am I anyway? I’m just some dude that cusses like a soldier and spends way too much time with toads.

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Stan Lake is a writer, photographer, and filmmaker based in Bethania, North Carolina. His work has appeared in Dead Reckoning Collective, The Havok Journal, Reptiles Magazine, Lethal Minds Journal, and other outlets, and he directed Hammer Down, a documentary about his 2005 deployment in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom with Alpha Battery 5-113th of the North Carolina Army National Guard. For The Havok Journal, he often writes essays and reflections about war memory, veteran life, the outdoors, and everyday experience. You can find his books, collected works, and social media at www.stanlakecreates.com.

As the Voice of the Veteran Community, The Havok Journal seeks to publish a variety of perspectives on a number of sensitive subjects. Unless specifically noted otherwise, nothing we publish is an official point of view of The Havok Journal or any part of the U.S. government.