Jesus, the man, the myth, the legend…..
Jesus, the personality, the religion, the trend….
Jesus, the awareness, the message, the Way…
*disclaimer-this conversation is based on personal experience and years of living life in organized religion. This is a rather real look at the possibility of a deeper spiritual connection beyond the fanatical trend of Jesus the man, the savior, the superhero.
Also…I share an interaction I had with Russell Brand on Christmas Day. Have people become enamored with Christianity as a popular club to belong to? Is Jesus just “fire insurance”? Does anyone have an actual relationship with the Truth anymore? Or is being “saved” just the pass we use to access the buildings with bright lights, stages with larger than life personalities and performances?
I served in full-time ministry for 17 years. I am an ordained pastor. I was an associate Pastor and the Worship leader for many years. In 2017 I left and began my spiritual pursuit beyond Sunday services, small groups, baptismal services, Sunday school, youth groups, women’s ministry and all of the “behind the curtain” things I witnessed my entire life. What I can say for certain is I had my first real experience with what I identified as Jesus in 2019. This isn’t to take away any of the emotional experiences I had in church, it’s just that this particular experience was so transformative that nothing since then in my life has been the same. I can say it was a real life experience of what I now understand “salvation” to be, but it did not follow any of the things religion said about the steps to salvation. Is it possible that organized religion is actually keeping us further from the deep love, acceptance and transformation we are actually longing for? It’s absolutely not a popular idea, though my favorite quote has been for years… “if the church did its job, it would go out of business.” The business of church has nothing at all to do with Jesus-Jesus the man? Jesus the Brand? How did we create a personality called Christ? We haven’t just commercialized Christmas, we’ve commercialized belonging, Christ, salvation, and the Kingdom of Heaven.
Let’s get into it.
