Rick Gregory, Writer

Translating Messages From Heads To Hearts

Relevant . . . or Irrelevant?

I ended my last post with the confession that I was “scared to death.” There is such nuance buried in those three little words. Today we’re on the threshold of a move that has been about 7 years in the making. Here’s a bit of the back story . . .

Sherry and I began this journey decades ago, committing our lives to the One greater than us—thinking then that we had fully abandoned ourselves to His care and cause.

I threw around words easily and quickly. I sang worship songs proclaiming my love, loyalty and allegiance to a God I then carefully allowed only into protected areas of my life. Over the course of many years, and in the midst of a busy life and career, I lost sight of what it meant to be truly abandoned to Jesus. My “relationship” with Him informed only some of my emotions, choices, decisions and actions. And yet, most people who knew me would have likely said I was a “good Christian.” The horrific reality was that I meandered into—without realizing it—the worship of a god and faith, essentially of my own making; a god whose job I saw as blessing me, protecting me, taking away my hurts, and insuring my place in heaven. In fact, nearly all of my faith was about . . . me.

I had slowly, unwittingly, yet willingly offered myself as prey to the seductive, paralyzing scourge of loving this world. From the outside, I looked just like so many others around me, men who were good, honest and “god-fearing.” Some called upon the same faith as mine while others made no such declaration. Some were in the church and some not; yet there was virtually no difference between us. I was stunned to realize that the faith I claimed to follow did little to set me apart from those who claimed no faith at all.

It wasn’t surprising then, to look in the mirror and see someone affluent (especially compared to 2/3 of the rest of the world), comfortable, arrogant, and to those outside my own orbit, irrelevant. If I represented what a good Christian looked like, it’s no wonder our young people are leaving the church in droves! Tragically, with good Christians like me as a model, I fully understand why they are abandoning a Christianity that to them is irrelevant.

Fast forward 7 years; last night we bought our tickets—one-way tickets—for Uganda. We’re now officially committed, leaving January 4th at 10 am, headed to Entebbe, unsure when we’ll be coming back. Not that I’m counting or anything, but that’s only 55 days away, or about 7 ½ weeks. Time is now screaming by, leaving a trail of myriad tiny details clamoring for resolution, and conspiring to keep us from people we’d like to see and things we’d like to finish before we leave. Please pray with us for consistency between what we say and how we live our lives!

2 thoughts on “Relevant . . . or Irrelevant?”

  1. “I was stunned to realize that the faith I claimed to follow did little to set me apart from those who claimed no faith at all.” – I was struck by this sentence in particular. While I am a relative newbie in the learning of spirit and god, I do believe that one’s *religion* should be of total inclusion. We are All One. Namaste Rick 🙂

  2. Lynn Quitoriano Mayer

    Holy Cow you guys are doing it!!! I’m so proud of you guys! You will do awesome!!! Can’t wait to visit you guys out there!

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