{"id":12410,"date":"2024-03-03T13:17:19","date_gmt":"2024-03-03T07:47:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/2024\/03\/03\/christianity-without-formulas-imagine-that\/"},"modified":"2024-03-03T13:17:19","modified_gmt":"2024-03-03T07:47:19","slug":"christianity-without-formulas-imagine-that","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/2024\/03\/03\/christianity-without-formulas-imagine-that\/","title":{"rendered":"Christianity without formulas. imagine that."},"content":{"rendered":"


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\"\"<\/a>Today\u2019s post is a short interview with Ryan Miller, author of\u00a0everything breathes<\/a>, which just came out this month.\u00a0Miller spent 10+ years creating video games, including the best sellers Myst<\/em> and Riven<\/em>, before taking his creativity to a different arena: the church world. He eventually started Branches<\/em><\/a> in Spokane, WA in 2010. In addition to being the pastor there, he owns and operates an online stationery boutique with his wife, does some graphic design on the side, and attempts to parent three kids\u2026 all while trying to enjoy the beautiful Pacific Northwest.\u00a0Miller has timely ideas about the life of faith and\u00a0\"\"a great style for getting them\u00a0across to everyday pilgrims. Those looking for helpful paths forward will like this book a lot.<\/em><\/em><\/p>\n

What\u2019s this book about?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t realize as it was happening but I grew up with formulas. I am a pastor\u2019s kid but not one of those who grew up to reject my faith or get angry at everything that had been done to me. At the same time, my faith has evolved immensely over the last 10 years into something very different than what I was raised with and much of it has had to do with the idea of formulas.<\/p>\n

The formulas always seem to start with some kind of \u201cif\u201d: If I accept Jesus; If I read the Bible more; If I find God; If I confess; If I pray more.<\/p>\n

The next word to come into play is \u201cthen\u201d: Then I will be happy; Then I won\u2019t get cancer; Then I will find joy.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t just a \u201cChristian\u201d thing \u2013 it\u2019s everywhere we look. Advertisements are built on it as much as sermons. If I get new body wash, new clothes, or a new phone, then I will get a partner, a new job, more time\u2026. And if I get a partner, a new job, and more time\u2026.then I\u2019ll be happy. That \u201cthen\u201d is hanging out, controlling us, but rarely satisfying us.<\/p>\n

In early 2013 I spoke on Ecclesiastes for a series during Lent at our church. As I looked at the book with some fresh eyes and perspective, I was blown away. It was rejuvenating.<\/p>\n

The book blasts formulas out of the water. It blasts formulas that we get from churches, from pastors, and from the Bible (or our views of it) into oblivion. It says there are no more formulas. There are no ways to get here or there but that there is that which exists right now, right here, and it\u2019s time to start living it. With God.<\/p>\n

It was beautiful for a lot of people, including myself. As the formulas vanished, their chains left as well and people found themselves free to lament, to rejoice and to live wherever they were on the spectrum. I was writing a fiction book at the time and my wife told me I needed to stop writing that fiction book (which probably means it\u2019s not very good) and start writing a book related to the series we had done instead. She\u2019s a smart woman so I listened.<\/p>\n

So your formula is \u201cIf I get rid of the formulas, then\u2026\u201d what?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Right. I\u2019m really trying not to replace one formula with another but it\u2019s so hard given my Western frame of mind. How do I get what I want and not get what I don\u2019t want? So much of our life, or my life, comes to that.<\/p>\n

But, I\u2019m actually starting to believe that the good news of Christianity is that I don\u2019t have to live that way anymore. There are no more \u201cif I just do this enough than this will happen.\u201d Instead, it\u2019s live now. It\u2019s all already happening.<\/p>\n

Even when we look at Jesus who says things like \u201cBlessed are those who mourn\u201d my first inclination is to read it like a formula and find a way to mourn so that I\u2019ll be blessed. But I think what Jesus may have been saying\u2014and I think he did in various ways\u2014is more along the lines of if you\u2019re mourning you\u2019re blessed. Right now. And if you\u2019re persecuted. And if you\u2019re poor. There\u2019s still life to live right now.<\/p>\n

The message seems to be repeated often: start living the life God has for you right now and stop waiting for some kind of life you think will come tomorrow or next week or in Heaven. Live now. You can no matter your circumstance and you can know God is with you in those circumstances.<\/p>\n

I certainly don\u2019t claim to have all the answers. And I don\u2019t think the author of Ecclesiastes does or did either. And I know that there are many who disagree on what the author of Ecclesiastes<\/a>\"\"\u00a0is\u00a0even saying.<\/p>\n

But, I do think there are some ingredients that have impacted me. More mystery. More awe. More wonder. More awareness. More love. More faith in humanity. More faith that God is with us no matter where we\u2019re at and more faith that God is pulling all of humanity to somewhere better.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s your hope for this book?<\/strong><\/p>\n

My daughter begged me to take her to Arby\u2019s one night after a soccer practice so I did. It was late and the only people in the restaurant were the two of us (she\u2019s 8) and another older couple.<\/p>\n

I watched as this older man opened up his sandwich and looked at it with disgust. He then went up to the counter and berated the minimum wage \u201ccook\u201d and the girl behind the counter and the manger because the sandwich was not dripping cheddar like it showed in the picture. He called out corporate America for trying to save money, he called out the millennial generation for being lazy, all because his cheddar melt wasn\u2019t dripping cheddar.<\/p>\n

He got a new sandwich and sat down and ate it in silence with his wife.<\/p>\n

Maybe the guy was just having a bad day or maybe he needs to be freed from stuff. I think the latter, because I think a lot of us are walking around in prisons.<\/p>\n

I know there are people who are going through lots of pain and they have a list of reasons as to why that pain is there. Many of those reasons have to do with formulas and their failure to correctly live them. They need to be freed to live in their pain and not carry the shame they so often have.<\/p>\n

I know there are people who are waiting to start life, after they graduate, or get that job, or see Italy. They have a different set of formulas they are already getting tired of trying to fulfill. They need to be inspired to start living today.<\/p>\n

I know there are people who have found the message of Jesus and the message of Christianity to be more stale and clich\u00e9 than fresh and rejuvenating. I think they need to find a message that makes them fall in love with this faith and gain a new perspective of the world and others again.<\/p>\n

I hope people are able to throw away the formulas and boxes and even many of the answers\u2026 that only fail us most of the time and find something beautiful and optimistic and empower again. I hope people are able to read this and be directed, at least a little, toward the mystical, confusing, vibrant, inspiring God again.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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Today\u2019s post is a short interview with Ryan Miller, author of\u00a0everything breathes, which just came out this month.\u00a0Miller spent 10+ years creating video games, including the best sellers Myst and Riven, before taking his creativity to a different arena: the church world. He eventually started Branches in Spokane, WA in 2010. In addition to being […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12411,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[]},"categories":[44],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12410"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12410"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12410\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12411"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}