I googled images of "Church Vans" and found this interesting picture. Church is often very confusing, but not just for people outside the church, who may see this photo of a church van parked outside an adult book store. Church confuses me as well. I had my first sexual encounter on a church van at age 15. Turned onto marijuana at age 17 by someone in my church youth group. Now, you may be asking, "Where the heck is this church?"
Well... that was many moons ago in a very average, status quo, ultra-conservative, Southern Baptist church. This church strongly emphasized that us kids grasp a foundational "belief system" about God. They worked to ensure we were prepared if challenged by any sort of spiritual terrorist that could attack and steal our dogma. In other words, we were taught to major on our doctrine or beliefs. Maybe instead, they should have majored on chaperoning and doing more "hand checks" on the van.
What makes more sense to me now, than in my teenage years, is that maybe there is more to this life with Christ than just "believing" certain precepts about God. I have grown to understand that there is a long van-ride between what is "belief" and what is "faith." It could be argued that faith is believing in something with very little evidence. And, it seems the less evidence, the stronger the faith can and must be. In terms of religion, faith has come to mean having assertions of doctrine that evidence alone could not allow us to affirm.
The apostle Paul asserts that faith is more like participating in a different kind of reality altogether. A reality that has nothing to do with our beliefs about God, yet a reality, that can in fact exist without all our beliefs about God. Isaiah 55:9 says what God thinks about our thoughts on Him, "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."
Paul writes of this new reality, the "Life with Christ" as something I participate in, where my confusion about God and Church may even deepen further still. We can only join in this cosmic dance together with a triune God, as it has been through the ages. A dance, not reliant upon my understanding everything. It's like "throwing down" or "breaking off some moves" (or whatever the kids call it these days) without caring if there are particular steps to this dance.
I write all of this to say, the life with Christ really isn't about clearing up all the confusing stuff about God. It's about having faith in God in spite of the confusion. In spite of our beliefs. It is dancing with this cosmic stranger, who already knows we have a long and bumpy history of confusing matters and missing the point. Life with Christ is embracing our doubts and disbelief while tucking in our shirt for one more ride. It's having faith that God already knows how confused we are, yet he refuses to let us sit this ride out. No matter what van we've been riding in.
