I suppose I've always been a passionate, all or nothing type person, so being more expressive about my faith came easily to me. In the "House Church" or new church environment I thrived! I became a teacher of basic Christianity for new believers, a home group and worship leader and head of the evangelistic outreach team for the local church, with a particular interest in the teachings of other faiths.
My Bible College training meant that I knew the scriptures well and so when I saw excesses within the local church I challenged the leadership. Sadly they weren't willing to back down and so to be a man of peace I left the church. I thought hard and long about what had happened and realized that I had become so dogmatic about my doctrinal beliefs, that I had lost the joy of my faith.
One day I heard a knock at the door to find some Jehovah's Witnesses there, in the past I would have spent a long time speaking to them, like I had to the church elders about where they were leaving the teachings of the bible as I saw it. I decided I no longer wanted to be in a minority of one and told them maybe they weren't wrong about what they were saying, maybe we all were slightly mistaken?
They probably thought I was talking gibberish, but it was a totally significant moment in my life. I no longer wanted to waste my life arguing with people and telling them where they were going wrong. The fact is we all see things differently and I know my faith had always been a source of joy and happiness. To regiment people into believing what I did was no longer what I wanted to do.
Everything we do in our lives adds to how we perceive things and the way we see ourselves in the world. To put people into a box and label their beliefs is like attempting to nail a balloon full of paint to the wall! Our six billion belief systems on planet earth are a moving target and we can all chose to believe what we want to, it is part of the amazing variety which makes up the human experience!
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