Losing Your Religion

Chuck Bomar

Description

Many Christians feel as if something is missing in their relationship with God. They long to find an in-depth, authentic relationship with God. Instead, many believers find themselves living out a results-oriented "behavior management system" of spiritual growth. Unfortunately, rather than leading to an intimate relationship with God, this behavior-based system does just the opposite. It produces an unsatisfying life full of inner turmoil and doubt as Christians wonder whether or not they will ever experience the deeply satisfying life Jesus promised. Chuck Bomar calls this the "elephant in the room" that nobody seems to talk about but everyone struggles with. As the pastor of a church embraced by millennials and young families, and a long-time leader of seminars that help pastors reach this "lost" generation, Chuck is uniquely qualified to write this book.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie

Informations

• Publié par: Baker Publishing Group
• Date de parution: 18 novembre 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781441223708
• Langue: English

Extrait

Praise for Losing Your Religion
If you have ever dug through trash to find beauty, then you’ll understand what Chuck Bomar is doing in Losing Your Religion . Dig with him through the trash of your Pharisaism and you will experience the pain of discovering how much religion runs your life. Keep digging and you will experience the joyous freedom of becoming who God has already made us to be.
Gerry Breshears
Professor of Theology, Western Seminary, Portland, Oregon
Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant stuff. The term “paradigm-shift” comes to mind. In Losing Your Religion , Bomar offers us an exit ramp from the tired, worn out, inauthentic, anti-creative freeway of religion. But he doesn’t stop here. He pushes and pulls us back to the way of Jesus— the life-giving, healing, Kingdom way of life that we’re all craving. It’s not always an easy road, but Bomar’s voice is there to guide us one paragraph at a time.
John Mark Comer
Author of Loveology
Pastor for Teaching and Vision, Solid Rock Church,
Bridgetown: a Jesus Church, Portland, Oregon
Chuck Bomar gives practical guidance on how to make sure we have not subtly missed the joy and vibrant life of what it means to follow Jesus. If anyone wonders if they might be following Christianity but not following Christ, this book can change everything for you.
Dan Kimball
Teaching Pastor, Vintage Faith Church, Santa Cruz, California
Author of They Like Jesus but Not the Church
A convicting book full of invitation, Chuck writes about what he is personally living and helps us trade in our religion for the genuine article of life-changing faith that God has created for us to live in, with and by.
Rick McKinley
Lead Pastor, Imago Dei Commmunity, Portland, Oregon
Author of This Beautiful Mess
This book grabbed me by the chin and made me look deep into its eyes as if Jesus was trying to get my attention. It worked. From beginning to end, Losing Your Religion made me desire again a real, honest relationship with Christ—for me, my kids and my church! It provides a bold and practical road map for deconstructing faith grown old and rebuilding it into a thing of freedom and beauty. I’ll come back to the biblical truths here over and over again.
Ron Merrell
Teaching Pastor, Heights Church, Prescott, Arizona

2013 Chuck Bomar
Published by Baker Books a division of Baker Publishing Group P.O. Box 6287, Grand Rapids, MI 49516-6287 www.bakerbooks.com
Baker Books edition published 2014
ISBN 978-1-4412-2370-8
Previously published by Regal Books
Ebook edition originally created 2013
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means-for example, electronic, photocopy, recording-without the prior written permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is on file at the Library of Congress, Washington, DC.
All Scripture quotations are taken from the English Standard Version , Copyright © 2001. The ESV and English Standard Version are trademarks of Good News Publishers.
To my three beautiful daughters: Karis, Hope and Sayla. Your daddy loves you .
Contents
Acknowledgments
Foreword by Mike Donehey
Introduction
Part I: Necessary Deconstruction
1. Unrecognized Chains
2. The Pharisee Within
3. The Gospel We Accepted
Part II: A New Foundation
4. New Motivations
5. Where Freedom Begins
6. Embracing Our True Self
7. Belonging in Community
Part III: Guardrails and Scaffolding
8. Freedom from Legalism
9. Faith Rhythm vs. Superficial Routine
10. Living Generously
Acknowledgments
I first want to thank my wife, Barbara, for bearing with me over the past 12 years as I’ve wrestled with the differences between embracing religious routines and really living in the faith, love and hope God has for us. I love you very much.
I want to thank my staff at Colossae Church for entering into this wrestling match with me. Justin, Ari, Adam, Sean, Dave and Geoff—I appreciate our conversations about our faith, more than you know.
Geoff, thank you so much for walking through every word of the rough draft of this book with me. I appreciate your feedback and willingness to take the time to help me iron out much of these thoughts.
Foreword
As I write this, I’m sitting on a plane somewhere over Middle America. I’ve just come to the end of Chuck’s book, and I can’t help but stare out the window at the cities below. Then I take a look at my co-passengers seated around.
I wonder.
I notice the flight attendant’s forced smile. I take note of how wide my sleeping friend’s mouth hangs open. I watch the new father a row ahead making ridiculous faces to placate his child. I sense all the strange and joyful, annoying and authentic world of activity in, outside and around me.
And after what I’ve just read, I question: How many of us really know why we do what we do? From the honest to the insincere, we’re all aware of the things we do on some level, but how many of us are aware of what’s truly running our lives? More than the “what,” are we in tune with “why” we do what we do?
After all, life is not action, it’s reaction —so the real question is, What are we reacting to?
Are we living lives that respond to the fear, guilt and pride this world cultivates in us, or have we been seized by the power of a great affection? Has the love of Jesus freed us to live lives that spring out of gratitude for Him?
These are serious questions to be sure, but they are the questions we must ask if we ever want to dig down deep enough to see what’s really happening in our hearts. In the pages that follow, Chuck does a masterful job deciphering the motivations that pulse behind our everyday spirituality. As somewhat of a minister myself, having played for churches all across the country, I’m so grateful for the truths that Chuck reminds me of. We all could use some reminding, couldn’t we?
I simply pray now that God would use Losing Your Religion to help you see whether you’re living “for God,” or “because of God.” And my friends, there’s an ocean of difference in between.
Mike Donehey
Lead singer, Tenth Avenue North
Introduction
This book is not about pointing fingers at other people (and especially the Church); it’s about each of us looking in the mirror at ourselves, individually. Despite my best efforts to keep that point clear, as you read, you may get confused about this. So I thought I would mention the true focus at the start.
C. S. Lewis once said, “Show me a man that is well traveled and I will show you a man that knows the lies of his own village.”
I’ve found this to be true as I’ve traveled to 26 countries. The differences in how people think about life in other cultures can be revealing. Learning about these differences can serve to open our eyes to the flaws in our own thinking and approaches to life.
I’m hoping this book will serve as a mirror to reflect aspects of our church sub-culture that are off-base. When I say that, I’m not speaking of other people; I’m speaking about each of us as individuals. We each make up the sub-culture we live in.
I have a growing concern that more and more people who call themselves Christians are unintentionally slitting the wrist of their faith. In a pursuit to be faithful, they try to will themselves into embracing habits and routines and disciplines they believe will cause them to be a “better Christian.” Although this seems like the right thing to do and seems to be the norm for our culture, it’s actually suicidal.
It is this concern that leads me to write this book. I think people are dying to be made alive again in their faith. I know countless people who long to be freed from the religious chains that bind them, yet they cannot seem to put their finger on what chain is actually around their neck.
I’m not claiming to have unleashed any sort of secret formula to the Christian life; nor am I claiming to have all the answers. But one thing I do know: Far too many people think Christianity is simply about agreeing with a certain set of doctrinal points and modifying their behavior or managing their sin to be a better person.
I claim this idea and thinking as fraudulent. It might not be how we talk about Christianity, but it’s certainly how we practice it. Yet, this couldn’t be further from the faith Jesus invites us to live—and I think deep down we know it. I think people feel the weight of shame and guilt of this system of “doing church.” I know there are many Christians in the world today who don’t feel quite right about their faith and, I would say, with good reason.
To that end, I would like to help you identify and distinguish the faith, love and hope Jesus calls us to live by from the behavior-management system we too often refer to as Christianity.
To begin, I want to ask for grace. I write with some very strong language at times—especially in the first section—and I did that to promote deeper thought about how you think about the Christian life. This book will require some introspection on your part. It’s not that what I write is so deep as much as it is hard to see inside yourself. But I believe that if you try to recognize these things in your life, it doesn’t take long to see their manifestation.
This book begins by deconstructing some of the core of how we go about “being the church.” In Part I, I’m not looking at the institution side of things. I’m talking about each of us individually. There are times when deconstruction is necessary for building a new foundation, and I would suggest that most of us, if not all of us, need to deconstruct some of the ways we think about our faith.
The next four chapters (Part II) are about how you can develop new foundations of thinking that will affect how you live your faith. If the first section is about pinpointing some of the ways we get off track (which is a vital part of this process), then this sect