At the beginning of service, sitting in church, my pastor announced next month he wanted us to focus on getting more people in church. He said there was research to show more people would attend if they were just asked. There were pamphlets to hand out in the front lobby. “Tyler Durden gave better motivation to evangelize,” I thought to myself as the sermon started. I didn’t pay attention.
Tyler’s disciples peeled him off the floor, dragged him to a seat, and lit his cigarette. Shadows danced around his face as blood dripped off of it. The red ember grew bright as he took a drag. “This week, each one of you has a homework assignment.” “You’re gonna go out, you’re gonna start a fight with a total stranger.” “You’re gonna start a fight, and you’re gonna lose.”
Tyler told this to his first, and most faithful, disciples. He had a vision, and it would need people. And he had a golden opportunity. He had just put on a master class demonstration of self-sacrifice. He let the owner of the bar beat him to a bloody pulp for two reasons. First, to secure a place to hold Fight Club; second, and more importantly, to free the owner of the bar (if only for a moment) from the trappings of false identity.
The owner of the bar was angry. Angry at a lifetime of letdowns and disappointments. Tyler knew better than anyone the catharsis of pointless, nameless, violence. Tyler’s thesis was that everything is pointless and nameless, and the most honest thing you can do is to destroy. In this, the highest honor you can pay to someone is to be the object of their pointless violence and lust for destruction. Tyler also knew something else. Tyler freed the owner of the bar of his inhibitions and gave himself the moral standing to give the homework assignment. Also, in giving his disciples this task, they would surely make relationships with like-minded men. And he needed like minded men. As much as he believed in nihilism, he was a pragmatist who knew people only show up on your door step through relationship. A lesson clearly lost on my pastor. That was the last time I went to that church.
There’s a problem with the modern western church. Fundamentally it has sold the living stones from which it is made, in the marketplace of production. Members aren’t encouraged to be fully vitalized, interactive, living members. Their expected to attend and contribute money. They have no voice, just a presence. So much failure here has translated to societal failures. How many out there had parents who were just – there? Where did they get this from? Could it be from a church that was just – there? Where in seminary are future pastors taught that their congregants are fully formed individuals with their own, and glorious, identities? In what year is the class – The People in Your Pews Yearn to Function in Their Purpose? Surprise. They’re not taught this, and there’s no such class. Instead, their taught the – blah, blah, blah points to the something something eschatological arguments against so-and-so’s contention of something…of God.
Don’t get me wrong, good theology is important, but to quote Jesus of Nazareth, “do you love me?” “Then feed my flock.” Today’s church attendants deserve the highest civic honors we could give. They show up, faithfully and dutifully, to pastors who starve them. They aren’t encouraged, equipped, or even shown true relationship. Relationship in Christ is the most fundamental and first food of the Body of Christ. Today’s congregants are told to just be. Fill a seat. Show up and give money. Don’t worry, it’ll go to the missions efforts. And make sure you bring other people to do the same. This is religion. And I quit.
My first inkling there was more to believing in Christ than attending church and trying not to curse or think inappropriate things about girls was when I was seventeen. I grew up in the church, but at about age fifteen, my family stopped attending. I think we had a mutual silent understanding it all seemed empty. I spent two years enjoying one more day to myself on the weekend, then an old friend from childhood came back into my life. I’ll call him Paul.
Paul started inviting me to his church. There was a spark in his eye and a sincerity in his heart. He worked on me for a few months and I eventually agreed. I hadn’t experienced church like this, and before long I was regularly attending. I steadily became aware there was indeed something I was missing out on. I began to pray more. I began to read the Bible. I started to feel more and more at home as I did both. One Wednesday night, I was in a worship service and I heard (or felt…I don’t know) a distinct voice I could only describe as the most real thing I had ever experienced. It said one word. Warrior.
It was years before I came to understand that voice was God’s, and he was telling me who I was in his Kingdom. Shortly after that, I had a radical experience with the Holy Spirit. From then on, there was no going back. I could never deny God was very real. More real than anything else.
As any believer will tell you, experiencing God doesn’t perfect your character or actions. I decided my life would read basically identical to the parable of the prodigal son. I also modeled the less admirable parts of Jonah and Samson’s stories for good measure. I made sure God had every reason to take back his salvation. But he never did. He proved far more faithful than I could ever be. And my identity as a Warrior never went away. As soon as I was done with my fear, shame, guilt, and doubt, God picked me up, brushed me off, and continued on the Warriors path with me.
So here I am, in my early forties, trying to figure out what this Warrior for the Kingdom of Heaven thing is all about. Whatever it is, it’s not about religion. Whatever a Warrior is, this much I know – there’s no place for the false in it. And I would rather go pick a losing fight with a stranger than sit in a pew and be told to invite someone to a place I find no purpose in. At least somewhere in the fight, I might find a real relationship.
Calling All Warriors 