By: Ian McKerracher

I didn’t grow up in a Christian home—the title is a deliberate fooler—but once I was born again I did grow up as a Christian. I was 21 when I was baptised and entered Christ’s church, an outsider who came in from the cold carrying enough baggage to sink a battleship. My troubles were largely self-inflicted. I had thought of myself as a transient hippie; today I would be dismissed as a homeless man. Then I heard that Christ had died for my sins and I entered into the overwhelming joy of salvation based upon a personal relationship with the God of the Universe.

This was the 1970s, the Jesus People movement was in full swing, and I was glad to be counted among droves of young people coming to Him. The day I was baptised there were six of us, all young adults, in the line-up! And at the People’s Church in Edmonton, my church to this day, that scene was being repeated week after week! It continued all through the 70s and 80s, until a multitude of teenagers and 20-somethings had come to Christ.

Most of us weren’t just saved; we were transformed. From wandering down an endless road, I went straight into a “Boy’s House.” There were several of these half-way houses sprinkled around Edmonton under the ministry of my church. They provided a re-entry point into adulthood, an off-ramp to sanity for the army of travelling hippies who, like me, were ready to be trained as soldiers of Christ. My stint on the Road had been relatively short, just a little over a year. And it ended, mercifully, when I moved into Gideon’s Band Boy’s House and joined a fellowship of like-minded Christian men under the oversight of a house leader tasked with the job of directing us into habits of prayer, Bible reading, and the various duties that made communal living bearable.

In those first years of walking with Jesus, the School of the Holy Spirit led to a wholesale change in my worldview—aka, the suite of ideas that formed the basis for how I viewed reality. When I came into the Church, I had a worldview constructed from the scattered Lego pieces of my upbringing: haphazard experiences, public education, the influence of friends and enemies, and a bunch of things I had unconsciously picked up along the way.

My new worldview was different. It was Bible-based, and for that reason could only take shape as I sledge-hammered the poorly constructed Lego-block walls of my former beliefs and intentionally built better structures out of real bricks of truth. I found these bricks through regular Bible reading, consistent prayer, and faithful worship attendance. And I learned they were held together by the mortar of a spiritual desire that could only come from the Holy Spirit. I was being built, together with others, into the very “Temple of God” (Ephesians 2:19-22). Heady times!

One item in that litany of changes was a certain progression that started with contemplation on the nature of my relationship with God. It was almost impossible to believe, at first, that God even knew I existed! I suppose I wasn’t fully aware of God’s omniscience. Nevertheless, there we were, God and me. And that was how I saw Christianity. God knew ME. God saved ME. God listened to ME. God blessed ME. God loved ME. (you get the idea…)

The whole connection was characterised by my limited understanding of God’s purpose for me. Everything orbited around what was going on in my personal life and how God was making it better. When I look back on that time, as life-changing it was, I am a little ashamed that I was so self-centred. My spiritual life swirled around my four favourite words, I, My, Me, and Mine.

GIVE TODAY!

As I matured, this me-centred approach to life in the Spirit lost some of its lustre. First, God brought me a wife, and that meant I had to take someone else’s interests into consideration. Then, strangely enough, I began to notice, and dislike self-centeredness in others. Friends and family members were dismissive of my newfound life in Christ, and that annoyed me. I had to learn emotional and spiritual strategies to remain sanctified when I was around them.

But as my education in the Spirit continued, it included a growing awareness that I was equally self-centred.And so, the “God and me” relationship subtly changed. It was no longer just God and me. It was God and US! God and the circle of Christians living His life together. The greatest joy came from close fellowship with the people I met in worship and Bible study, or as we served together in various ministries. Everything was perfect as just God and us…until…it wasn’t.

The end came in the early 90s when the only church family I had ever known experienced a church split. I had no idea such a thing could even happen! I was outside the inner circle of church leadership at the time, so I never really found out what happened. But I was devastated as beloved leaders walked away, taking many saints with them. For a time my connectedness with God was crushed. The unfathomable rebellion of those leaving, and the inexplicable intransigence of the senior pastor, undermined the social order that I had so highly valued. Much spiritual trust I had placed in human beings melted away under the heat of that experience.

In a short time our Sr. Pastor found only a small cadre of saints rattling around in a big, now mostly empty, church. And when he noticed my wife and I were still there, he asked us to run some programs. He had no choice. We were what he had left. Funny how God works this stuff out. “God and us,” my description of Christianity before the split, had stopped serving me very well. It was time for a significant shift in worldview.

Ever so slowly, a new understanding of my relationship with God took shape. It wasn’t about me. It wasn’t even about us. It was about Him! It had always been about Him. I finally got it. Maybe leadership does that to you. Or, hopefully, the Spirit’s maturing process. I have found that when I approach God with the attitude that everything is about Him, I get the other two thrown in. I get God and me. I get God and us. I get God! The shock I felt as people left my church, however difficult to endure at the crisis’ midpoint, was completely worth it.

Learning through trial has twigged me into seeing what others may be experiencing in their Christian walk. Perhaps some of my readers are still pursuing God-and-me or God-and-us level of maturity. What does that look like? In truth, you know what it looks like. The “God and Me” mindset means you are not very committed to anyone else in the church, if you even have a church. Or perhaps you are centred on the “us” in the equation, whether the “us” of a local church or a denomination, or even a parachurch organisation like FBB.

Some people can live their whole lives and never grow beyond these notions of an individual relationship with God. It is my goal to pursue God to the best of my ability. I love Him with all my heart, and I enjoy the magic of fellowship with like-minded people even now. But that fellowship must not be about me or even us. It must be about Him. I encourage you, Dear Reader, to check out this growth progression in your own life. Ask God to show you how you stack up. If your commitment is focused on the Lord, I know it will end well.

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