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Being Baptist

Being Baptist has never been easy for me. It is mainly doing the best I can in the context of the scriptures and celebrating as people find their own ways to live the life of Christ. These convictions have put me in unusual places where I have been forced to relate with people of different faith and lifestyle understandings.. I share my own testimony about how I found Christ and Christ found me and my own decision to testify to my faith by being baptized.

I have learned some people will never believe the way I do and it is not my job to impose my views on others. The journey is about helping others see for themselves what they are willing to die for. The challenge is being able to be in community with others as and not let it become a situation where one person has to be right and another wrong, because once it gets there we no longer have to learn from one another. You might be in heaven and in your mind I might be going to hell. I will always want to know what purpose does that serve. I am glad you know what you believe and that you clearly know where you are going, I am much more concerned about how we are getting there together in the service of a God that does not want anyone to perish.

My faith context of late is working with intellectually disabled adults. I think a lot of the issue about learning what it means to be Christian hinges on Jesus words that they knew not what they were doing. In a sense I think we are all intellectually disabled in danger of crucifying Christ again and again.simply because we do not have all the facts and let persons become more like objects than the persons that God created them to be.

So one day at a time I hope to find ways to sing in celebration about the love of God that has allowed me to have a voice. And my prayer that as I do it some are inspired to find their own voice. Because my faith began at the point I no longer had to sit down and shut up. That was the message from my family that I received whether they intended to share it or not. It was also about being seen and not heard. I love to sing about how I am no longer a prisoner of the convictions I grew up with and love proving over and over that being somehow less intelligent is not the problem, rather it is the way we learn to be Godly and have man together. I pray over time God shows the way to be connected and different at the same time so that I might hear with others the words of the savior that say indeed your FAITH has saved you.