In elementary school, I remember riding the bus to a local Baptist church. I don’t know how long or how regular, but it couldn’t have been more than a couple of years and only semi-regularly at best.
But the bottom line was that I didn’t really have much of a church background growing up.
That was until my junior year of high school. I started attending the same Baptist church’s youth group because some of the guys from my tennis team attended and it was fun having something to do.
And plus they had a ping pong table (I’m serious, that was one of the reasons I went).
Although I was there for social reasons, I was also indirectly learning about Christianity and what Jesus was all about.
I learned . . .
- Christians have sex.
- Christians do drugs.
- Christians get drunk.
- Christians like to tell you how much Jesus loves you.
After about a half year of being told about the life transforming capabilities of Jesus and how much Jesus loves me by the same people who did the things above, I had learned all I needed to know about Jesus and Christianity.
Christianity was nothing more than a label people gave themselves.
It was no different than me calling myself a jock or a band nerd.
So after about half a year of a lot of hypocrisy, the ping pong table and social venue wasn’t compelling enough for me to keep going. I had learned all I needed to know about Jesus and it wasn’t worth my time.
When Christianity became a label was the first spiritual milestone I can remember.
And it stuck with me for a couple of years.
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