I was once told Christians are the main reason more people don’t want to be Christian as well. This makes sense. For instance, when I was in my 20s and had serious workaholism problems, that’s not exactly a great sales pitch for God: “Be a Christian and have depression like me; it’s great!” Fortunately, I have since learned the best thing I can do for God is to be the best version of me I can be, which includes enjoying life. Unfortunately, it’s been a long road to get here, and I’ve hurt people along the way, which is an even bigger reason people are Christians – Christians can be mean. What’s crazy is you’ll never hear someone say, “I won’t be atheist because I’ve met some mean atheists,” yet that’s what happens to Christians. It’s like the world wants us to be better and they hold us to a higher standard (which suggests the value of Christianity). Either way, it’s like any negative behavior a Christian does gives people a reason (or excuse) not to care about God, which is tragic because we’re guaranteed to screw up like anyone else. I certainly have…
Bonus: In the Book of Acts, it describes the formation of the early church after Jesus’ death. In one story, a husband and wife lied about their generosity. They essentially stole from God and lied to look good, and how did God handle it? He killed them; they both dropped dead. That’s pretty extreme. The early church was so protected by God to make sure it had a solid foundation for future generations, that He killed these two manipulators and put it in the Bible for everyone to read as a strong warning to take your relationship with Him and the Church seriously. God hasn’t killed people like that in a long time (that I know of), so the people that suck at being Christian get away with it. This is good news for people like me who have had some terrible moments – I’m still alive! And being alive means I’ve had a chance to grow. It just sucks for the people I’ve hurt.
I have 10 things that are a goal for what I want said at my funeral (5-10 things you want said at your funeral is an excellent exercise for figuring out how to live your life), and one of those things is “Chad walked with God in an inspiring way.” I want to be someone who helps others see that having a relationship with God can make life better and more importantly, prepares them for what comes next. Unfortunately, I’ve screwed up hard with at least two people and a handful of others who I’m not sure hate God because of me or just hate me. When I was a teenager, I did the whole “argue people into heaven” idea – that was dumb – but that’s not what I’m talking about here. That just made me a bit of a jerk at times. When my brain wants to beat me up for that time, I remind myself that I was a teenager and everyone at that age has really dumb moments. At least mine didn’t involve getting arrested. I also reframe it to be proud of how fearless I was and that having passion is admirable – look at me trying to be healthy.
When I say that I hurt two people, I mean they felt full-on betrayal. I have experienced this kind of hurt four times and it was by Christians (three were pastors), but I was lucky enough to see that it was them and not God. These two people I hurt, however, didn’t have the same Christian foundation and because of that there’s a good chance I scared them away from God, which means I’d be a major reason they go to hell. (This post just took a dark turn). The way I explain hell is God doesn’t bring everyone to heaven because He gives people what they want. Why would He bring you to be with Him in heaven forever if you don’t want to spend time with Him now? That’d be like a controlling parent forcing their kids who don’t like them to visit… for eternity. That wouldn’t be very loving. Some people make hell sound like God is spiteful, but that isn’t the case. He is described as love, so that can’t be the case.
The first person I really damaged was my wife’s cousin. She was 16 and became a valued member of my youth group when I first started. She regularly came out and the guys followed, which was a huge blessing as I was trying to grow the group. She ended up joining two of my Frisbee teams (outside of youth), and when she started dating a really athletic guy, she brought him out – score. This was great… for a year. Over the fall, things went the way of many high school relationships and there was a lot of anger at him from her. This guy had been coming out to youth events and became someone I really liked, but he chose not to continue after the break up because that was her thing first. The following spring when Frisbee started, however, that was different; he was going to play. Stupid me picked her up for our first game and on the way there I sheepishly mentioned that he was still on the team and he would be there that night. Yup, I was a full-blown idiot. Who waits that long to say something? A scared piece of garbage because that’s what I was. I had been too scared to say anything sooner and I kept procrastinating until the last possible minute – so stupid! That made a bad situation waaayyyyyy worse. I was garbage at conflict, which was a major reason why I was so scared of it. The situation was on rocky ground and I threw in an earthquake. Part of me must have assumed she’d get over him being there – nope. The conclusion was I thought it was only fair that if I had two teams, he should be allowed to play on one of them – nope. She wanted both teams because I was supposed to be on her side, and like her dad who had abandoned her when she was young, she had put her faith in me for two years only to be betrayed. What made it worse is I didn’t know how to properly communicate with good questions back then and like a typical person I used statements and logic – bad choice.
What really made things worse was my wife’s cousin and her mom met with me and the pastor of the church I worked for, and he was also garbage at conflict. I was 28, and in church leadership for two years with lots to learn, so being garbage was a little more excusable. This pastor was in his mid 50s with 30 plus years experience; he had no excuse. No surprise, two years later he betrayed and stomped on me, which shouldn’t have been too surprising after seeing how bad he was at conflict.
This experience was such a big deal, the cousin’s family, including her grandma, aunt, and uncle, stopped inviting my wife, her sister, and her mom to holidays. That’s right. I ruined Christmas… or made it better because that was one toxic family. Seven years later, this cousin was open to coming to my wedding, but her mom and grandma weren’t – their blood was part vinegar and I was Baking Soda.
Since learning how to properly handle conflict and the steps to reconciling, I have several times reached out to apologize and take ownership for sucking at conflict and for appearing to betray her, but I never heard back. On the positive side, I am very good friends with her ex and he became one of the most valuable players on my Frisbee team for ten years. More importantly, he gave his heart to God shortly after that family implosion and continues to be connected to God, so at least my weakness didn’t ruin everything. It’s just unfortunate I was so damaging to someone about whom I really cared.
The other person I could be accused of betraying I can now look back and see that he likely had borderline personality disorder (or he was demon possessed), so he was a ticking time bomb. Unfortunately, my lack of realizing what I was dealing with led him to creating a situation that helped him connect with a few others who wanted to hate me – leadership can be fun. The problem of being in leadership is you get a target on your back. Meanwhile, the problem with following leaders is not many leaders are actually emotionally healthy and good with conflict. Some are too aggressive (bulldozers), others are manipulative (wolves in sheep’s clothing), or they’re like I was, weak and afraid of conflict.
The good news is I now have very high social understanding and I’m much better at handling conflict and difficult people. God has raised me from my training ground (being a youth pastor was far better than any schooling I had) and now I’m able to help others heal relationships and know how to limit the chances of being hurt and hurting others (aka I can help them not be weak pieces of garbage like I was). What’s sad (and scary) is people in leadership are the least likely to see me, but if nothing else, at least I can be the best version of myself I can be and reduce the ammo for others hating Christianity.
This week may you consider how you can be strong in a healthy way in order to reduce conflict.
Rev. Chad David, ChadDavid.ca, learning to love dumb people (like me)