30 October 2023
It's exceedingly hard to be pastoral online. I can't reach out and put a hand on your shoulder; I can't bow with you in prayer and let you hear me calling out to God on your behalf. I can't lay hands on you for any kind of healing.
That's the real tragedy of this ministry. Why do you suppose Radix Fidem is all about the meta of religion? Because a religion requires you and I together face-to-face. I can't offer that. We are called to do the impossible.
When I was pushed out of the last church I attended. It wasn't a formal process, and I wasn't told to leave. But by a clear intention, the leadership made it impossible for me to stay. It was critical to their business model to use such backdoor methods, since the whole function of that organization was to give the appearance of a church, to offer religious entertainment, but without any real commitment to the spiritual and moral needs of the people. The organization and business plan came first. I've never once seen a church that didn't approach things that way, to one degree or another.
Do you understand that maintaining a tax-exempt status requires taking all too seriously the viability of the institution as an institution? By definition, that is a compromise in the mission to shepherd the flock. That system restrains you from chasing some lost sheep.
I have always tried to reach out to those who fall between the cracks. Most leaders found that threatening, or at least disruptive. The disruption part is accurate, but only when and where the system wasn't flexible enough, or at least, not in the right places. I ended up rethinking religion itself. I wasn't alone, but the others were remote. That's where we are today with Radix Fidem.
Honestly, dear readers, stay in your church if you can. The community support part is invaluable. There are still some out there who truly walk in faith, and are called to belong to churches that exist. The one thing I miss most is the community fellowship and support. If I could find one organization that wasn't threatened by my gifts and calling, I'd be a part of it. The Lord hasn't led me to one, and it may not exist in my area. (Yes, I am in the place He wants me to reside.)
All of this points back to building a lore of stand-alone religion. How do we proceed in faith when there is little to no community around us? What does a biblical walk look like with no visible body? It limits what we can talk about. The context is not there, so we end up having a somewhat lopsided body of teaching, leaving out a lot of things we simply cannot address.
It makes us eccentric in a certain sense; we can't mount the wheel on the center of mass. Don't try to go too fast with this kind of setup. Still, we can't stay where we are, either. That would be a form of death. We must move on with what we have.
The reason take us back to the original reason for this blog: We are preparing for tribulation, persecution, the shedding of our own blood in resistance against sin. There is plenty of guidance for regular people, but there needs to be something for nonconformists. And we are on the threshold of great sorrow from cascading human folly. It's important that we gather as much preparedness as possible before we are obliged to start using it.
Even if we should arrange in some way to see each other face-to-face, it will be a visit, not the full dream of a community of faith living in each other's armpits. That will have to wait until the Lord brings the situation around to that. There have to be people near us shaken loose from their comforts and forced to actually walk in faith. Those will be hard, hard days.
This document is public domain; spread the message.