My Journey
Following Jesus through doubts and questions to a more beautiful story
What’s the point of all this?
As I reflect on this story about my own journey of faith, I want to share why I’m doing this right here at the outset. I believe this journey I’ve been on is good, and I wish for others to discover it for themselves. However, I recognize the audience I’m hoping to reach is a specific set of people.
So let me be clear. If you are an evangelical Christian who is finding deep meaning and joy in your life of faith, and you do not wrestle with questions about what you encounter in the Bible and in the beliefs and practices of your church, it is not my aim or my desire to convince you to change your mind.
I’ve written my story for people who are eyeing the exit door of Christianity.
If you have difficulty accepting the Bible as literal truth in everything it touches, if you struggle with balancing scientific progress with ancient understandings of the world and cosmos found in the Bible - you are my audience.
If you struggle describing a God who would condemn people to conscious eternal suffering as “good” and “just” - you are my audience.
If the questions that run around in your head as you read scripture and hear sermons explaining it are growing bigger not smaller with time - you are my audience.
If you find the life and teaching of Jesus much more expansive, inclusive, and beautiful than anything you have experienced in your faith journey thus far - you are my audience.
My hope is to help you who are teetering on the edge of the faith you have always held. I want you to feel the freedom of letting go of unhelpful aspects of your faith while grasping onto more beautiful aspects. I want you to find freedom, new joy, and new wonder in the goodness of God.
I grew up immersed in a beautiful story of faith. I am so grateful for the loving people who have guided me along my spiritual path. But as you read I invite you into the decades-long journey of my progression toward a more beautiful story. As you read or listen may you be encouraged in your own journey of faith. May you discover God is more loving, more good, more powerful, more amazing than you’ve ever understood or experienced before.
~Don
Part 1 - The Fulcrum
“I think it would be best for everyone if we made a plan for your transition.” These words from the leader of the multi-site church network of which I was a site pastor signaled a monumental pivot in my life.
Part 2 - Wrestling with Creation Stories
Genesis 1 has six clear days of creation, and it clearly delineates what was created on each day. All the animals are created on day 5, and humankind is created on day 6, “both male and female God created them”.
Part 3 - Wait, a Female Preacher?
What do you do when your experience of Christianity doesn’t fit with the doctrines you think you believe? This question arose as I continued my four years at Seattle Pacific University in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
Part 4 - Continental Singers
The summer of 1988, after my freshman year, I flew to LAX to prepare for 3 months traveling across the USA and Great Britain, doing 8 concerts a week with 34 other enthusiastic evangelical Christians.
Part 5 - Heading to Seminary
In a class on Paul and his writings, I chose to do a research project on Paul’s views about women in ministry. I spent that quarter reading numerous books on the subject. I studied commentaries on the meanings of Greek words Paul used in passages related to women as well as how his words would likely have been interpreted by the original audience.
Part 6 - Becoming a Lead Pastor
How wasn’t it a great fit? If I’m honest, I realized even when I was hired that the church’s statement about the Bible was problematic for me. In the 10 point doctrinal statement, #1 said this about the Bible:
Part 7 - Discovering Brian MacLaren
In this book, MacLaren tells his own story through the fictional character “Dan” who is an evangelical pastor who finds himself questioning the framework of the faith he inherited and teaches others week after week. In the first chapter “Dan” tells his wife after 17 years in the ministry he’s not sure he can do it much longer. This is because his experiences as a pastor interacting with those inside the church and skeptics he is trying to reach usually leads him to think the skeptics might be right to question what he’s always considered essential to his faith.
Part 8 - Love Wins
As I think back to how I felt as I read the book back then, I realize it was not shocking to me. It was confirming. Bell put into language the questions and doubts I was having about the evangelical formulation of the salvation story, especially the literal existence of a place of eternal conscious torment for those who did not accept Jesus as their savior.
Part 9 - The Death of Inerrancy
I sat in those studies and bit my lip. I knew that to share my opinion would cause a whirlwind of defensiveness and distrust of my leadership among those who were in the group. I knew I had to keep my opinions to myself. They simply did not match the doctrinal statement of that church about the scriptures being without error in the original manuscripts. My opinions and growing beliefs about the non-innerancy of scripture simply felt out of place and dangerous to my own position of leadership in that church.
Part 10 - The End, and a New Beginning
By this point I knew that there were definitely two of the ten points on the doctrinal statement of my church that I no longer believed. I could not sign off on the points about the Bible and about Hell. And I was pretty sure I knew what that meant for my future as a pastor there. That’s why I couldn’t sleep that night. I realized that the journey I had always been on since I was a teenager was leading me to a big moment of decision.
Part 11 - Freeing God from my Box (discovering Pete Enns)
With a sarcastic sense of humor and a deep understanding of the original languages and cultures of the Old and New Testament writers, Enns led me forward in my evolving views about the Bible. In just a couple bullet points here’s what I learned from his writing and his podcast “The Bible For Normal People”.
Part 12 - Transitioning to the “real world”
So what was I going to do next?
After going to a Christian liberal arts university and then working in churches for nearly 25 years, I was resigning from the only career I’d ever had.
Part 13 - Embracing the new (and better!) covenant
Five centuries before Jesus was born, the prophet Jeremiah lived during the time of the Jewish exile in Babylon. Hidden away in the large book containing his prophetic words is a revolutionary teaching about a coming time when God would initiate a new way of relating with people.
Part 14 - This Is Me
As you’ve read in these posts, my mind has been freed to explore and seek answers to questions that made my former identification with the evangelical story of Christianity impossible. My soul has found life and joy in the more expansive, more inclusive, more mysterious, more connected and yes, more beautiful story I’ve discovered.
Thoughts on random ideas connecting to the spiritual life.
My favorite books, podcasts, and sermons.