Anna has been spending a good amount of time purging our house and garage. In fact she has been purging regularly for years now. The truth that keeps her going is that any thing we are holding on to because we “think” we are going to “wear it,” “do it” or “get to it” is likely false, and if it becomes true we can always buy it or get it again later. It is not worth holding on to just to see if you true-self makes the decision to honour your false selfs ideals. Does that make sense?

I am starting to see how hoarding is a great example of living in the false-self. It is generally the case that people who hoard believe that they will have some need for the stuff that they hold onto. Of course then it ramps up from there.

For myself I am trying to adopt this true-behaviour from Anna. Am I going to use it now or do I use it/ wear it/ need it regularly. Otherwise my false-self is living in my garage, and I do not have time and space for things I am never going to do.

I am finding that the best way to identify the false-self is to “reverse-question” yourself.

I know that sounds confusing, but let me use a personal example.

Anna and I were talking about fashion, and likely about how I have none and how Anna has trouble helping me out (probably because I find it hard work, yet hers is brilliant and free). I had mentioned how I didn’t want to be “hipster” in my style. Of course only a guy who wears jeans, t-shirts, baseball caps most of the day explains it this way (its called ignorance). Anyway, I said that I didn’t want to end up wearing skinny jeans, skinny shoes and deep V-necks. My body and my self-esteem couldn’t handle the tightness factor, not too mention that I would look ridiculous, in my opinion.

As we dove deeper into my fight against this “style,” and Anna opened me up to this style and its connectedness to your personal body type and personal style and I realized that I actually had a prejudice of sorts to this hipster crowd and certain people I know to be hipsters. I was shocked that truly it wasn’t the clothes but the image and all the stereotypes I had collected about this “group” of people that lead to my fashion dilemma.

So then instead of making the statement, “I am not a hipster” I decided to ask a question of myself, “Do I feel the need to be a hipster?” “Is it true that I will become a hipster (and all its baggage that I have added on to it) if I wear certain clothes?” All of a sudden all this “stuff” came up. Everything from my prejudices, my insecurities, ignorance and expectations on myself.

My false-self believed it was a fashion issue, my real-self revealed to me my prejudices.

Because heaven forbid that I would ever have any problems with anyone (especially us religious types, who usually tend to make it always a God issue and nothing personal).

So what have I concluded on the issue?

My false-self has held me back (in this case the surface topic “style”) in order to uphold a belief that my true-self identified as a preconceived idea about hipsters.

And believe me, there is more where this came from…

…but there will also always be more questions to ask that can move me closer to freedom.

To those following me, I might just keep with the “Sabbatical” theme as I post over the next few weeks, so bare with me as I unload all the wonderful insights I gleaned over my 6 months off. (Tongue firmly planted in cheek)

Not sure where I am going with this thought, so I will try to be brief and concise. (okay maybe just concise)

Recently, I received a number of emails (a sort of spam I suppose), inviting me to new church/ christian events/ church plants and the sort and something shocked me about all of these emails/ facebook invites and so on. Nothing has changed since I first arrived here 5 years ago! All of the invites are exactly the same as they were then, with the names and dates changed. To be honest it depressed me. All had the same focus, theology and purpose. I suddenly realized how slow christians progress in this world, and how slow we are to learn from what we’ve done.

This has made me approach entering back into ministry a lot more slowly. I don’t want to jump back in and keep doing the same old stuff over and over again. (And in my opinion it’s that “stuff” that has lead to much of our impotence over the past year). Again, this thought is incomplete, but I am hoping to work it out with everyone this Sunday as we engage and try to address our real needs in community and not our made up fake ones.

I guess what I am saying is that there is a huge disconnect between who we think we are and who we actually are. And this false living is what keeps our churches from progressing. We keep doing the same stuff because no one is being honest (or perhaps they can’t) about what they really need. Therefore all that changes (over 5 years) is the model and none of the heart stuff. And seriously who would blame ABC church, especially when their “people” tell them they still need Worship music, Preaching and more information concerning apologetics.

But it’s my guess they (I) don’t really need this.

But they think they (I) do.

Or rather, they (I) believe they (I) do.

Please people, let us be honest with ourselves and try to be more self aware. If you say that preaching is really important to your life and you haven’t listened to a sermon, read a book on the topic or attended a church, then you’re lying to yourself.

If you think worship music is the key to your growth and haven’t gone to a worship event, listened to worship music or “again’ attended a church that provides this, then you are lying to yourself.

And I am pretty sure I can repeat these statements for a number of items… including “care for the poor,” homelessness, diseases, physical fitness, healthy eating, any outreach, or generous giving of finances.

And just so you know, it’s not my job to convince you that you do believe these things and should do them. You need to realize that you don’t believe them, so that you can build it back in a healthy way and start to realize what it means to truly believe something.

All I can do is journey with you. We can struggle together. Be honest together. And support each other as we remove all our beliefs in order to truly believe again.