I mentioned in an earlier post that there is a word that, if used in place of the word “church” in the bible, would clarify my position on what church was meant to be.  I in no way mean to say we shouldn’t use the word church.  I do in every way say that we should use the word church more accurately.  I’ve copied and pasted a search from biblegateway.com below.  There’s some 50 or so instances, in order, unedited, where “church” is used in the New International Version (NIV).  Substitute this one word.  Skim through the verses reading it with this word.  Realize that you can no longer “go to church” because you are the church.

The word is –

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What are you doing to strengthen the relationships in your life?

Workout: Think about your relationships and list ways you can strengthen them.

Muscles don’t grow accidentally.  They get stronger when they’re used.  You don’t get strong sitting on the couch.  Squats, bench press, deadlifts, pushups and pullups all work to increase a specific muscle group’s capacity to work – to move, to lift, to carry.  An exercise like the squat will improve  a large muscle group (I’ve heard that it works more muscles collectively than any other exercise.).  The bicep curl will target a very specific area.  In fact, if I do a variation called the “concentration curl” I can, theoretically, apply more focus and targeted stress to that muscle. Then when I go to the beach…

Now, think about what activities or exercises you will do to strengthen your relationships.  If you want to grow your leg muscles you would ______.  If you want to grow the relationship with your spouse you would __________

Take the following “muscles” and make a list of ways to strengthen them. 

• Family: Consider your family relationships, your spouse, children, parents, siblings, uncles, cousins, etc.

• Friends: Not all 724 of your Facebook friends but those who you know you can count on, who have been there and will be there for you .

• ?? – Shucks.  I was going for three categories but can’t think of relationships outside of my family and friends should be at this level of prioritization.  If you have some I missed put them in the comments below.

I do have one other muscle that you should work on that will, like the squat, affect ALL your other relationships and it’s called YOU.

If you improve the personal, emotional, physical and spiritual YOU ALL your relationships, all of them, will improve; I firmly believe this.  As you grow in maturity you are no longer fickle, blown here and there or whimsical.  YOU are stronger.  This type of development requires an exercise like the squat that makes your whole body develop.  Attending church, prayer, or meditation would fall into this type of exercise.  Also, deliberately and consciously “being in the Presence,” regardless of where you are (walking, exercising, working) will contribute to overall YOU development.  One way to start is to look at obvious areas of improvement.  It is often easier to address physical weaknesses or health areas than emotional ones.  I do think, though, that the things you learn in the gym are transferable to other areas of your life.

People sometimes criticize this approach as being too humanistic or Robbin-ist (Tony Robbins-like, i.e. self-help) but where the ends are the same – personal transformation – the means are distinctly different.  How you get there really does matter.

I’m posting up an article by Henry Rollins (Black Flag singer) that I read a long time ago.  It’s a little long but fascinating read.  If anything else read the last 3 or 4 paragraphs.  Then go workout.

Iron and the Soul

Henry Rollins

I believe that the definition of definition is reinvention. To not be like you parents. To not be like your friends. To be yourself. Completely.

When I was young I had no sense of myself. All I was, was a product of all the fear and humiliation I suffered. Fear of my parents. The humiliation of teachers calling me “garbage can” and telling me I’d be mowing lawns for a living. And the very real terror of my fellow students. I was threatened and beaten up for the color of my skin and my size. I was skinny and clumsy, and when others would tease me I didn’t run home crying, wondering why. I knew all too well. I was there to be antagonized. In sports I was laughed at. A spaz. I was pretty good at boxing but only because the rage that filled my every waking moment made me wild and unpredictable. I fought with some strange fury. The other boys thought I was crazy.

I hated myself all the time. As stupid at it seems now, I wanted to talk like them, dress like them, carry myself with the ease of knowing that I wasn’t going to get pounded in the hallway between classes.

Years passed and I learned to keep it all inside. I only talked to a few boys in my grade. Other losers. Some of them are to this day the greatest people I have ever known. Hang out with a guy who has had his head flushed down a toilet a few times, treat him with respect, and you’ll find a faithful friend forever. But even with friends, school sucked. Teachers gave me hard time. I didn’t think much of them either.

Then came Mr. Pepperman, my adviser. He was a powerfully built Vietnam veteran, and he was scary. No one ever talked out of turn in his class. Once one kid did and Mr. P. lifted him off the ground and pinned him to the blackboard.

Mr. P. could see that I was in bad shape, and one Friday in October he asked me if I had ever worked out with weights. I told him no. He told me that I was going to take some of the money that I had saved and buy a hundred-pound set of weights at Sears. As I left his office, I started to think of things I would say to him on Monday when he asked about the weights that I was not going to buy. Still, it made me feel special. My father never really got that close to caring. On Saturday I bought the weights, but I couldn’t even drag them to my mom’s car. An attendant laughed at me as he put them on a dolly.

Monday came and I was called into Mr. P.’s office after school. He said that he was going to show me how to work out. He was going to put me on a program and start hitting me in the solar plexus in the hallway when I wasn’t looking. When I could take the punch we would know that we were getting somewhere. At no time was I to look at myself in the mirror or tell anyone at school what I was doing.

In the gym he showed me ten basic exercises. I paid more attention than I ever did in any of my classes. I didn’t want to blow it. I went home that night and started right in. Weeks passed, and every once in a while Mr. P. would give me a shot and drop me in the hallway, sending my books flying. The other students didn’t know what to think. More weeks passed, and I was steadily adding new weights to the bar. I could sense the power inside my body growing. I could feel it.

Right before Christmas break I was walking to class, and from out of nowhere Mr. Pepperman appeared and gave me a shot in the chest. I laughed and kept going. He said I could look at myself now. I got home and ran to the bathroom and pulled off my shirt. I saw a body, not just the shell that housed my stomach and my heart. My biceps bulged. My chest had definition. I felt strong. It was the first time I can remember having a sense of myself. I had done something and no one could ever take it away. You couldn’t say **** to me.

It took me years to fully appreciate the value of the lessons I have learned from the Iron. I used to think that it was my adversary, that I was trying to lift that which does not want to be lifted. I was wrong. When the Iron doesn’t want to come off the mat, it’s the kindest thing it can do for you. If it flew up and went through the ceiling, it wouldn’t teach you anything. That’s the way the Iron talks to you. It tells you that the material you work with is that which you will come to resemble. That which you work against will always work against you.

It wasn’t until my late twenties that I learned that by working out I had given myself a great gift. I learned that nothing good comes without work and a ceratin amount of pain. When I finish a set that leaves me shaking, I know more about myself. When something gets bad, I know it can’t be as bad as that workout.

I used to fight the pain, but recently this became clear to me: pain is not my enemy; it is my call to greatness. But when dealing with the Iron, one must be careful to interpret the pain correctly. Most injuries involving the Iron come from ego. I once spent a few weeks lifting weight that my body wasn’t ready for and spent a few months not picking up anything heavier than a fork. Try to lift what you’re not prepared to and the Iron will teach you a little lesson in restraint and self-control.

I have never met a truly strong person who didn’t have self-respect. I think a lot of inwardly and outwardly directed contempt passes itself off as self-respect: the idea of raising yourself by stepping on someone’s shoulders instead of doing it yourself. When I see guys working out for cosmetic reasons, I see vanity exposing them in the worst way, as cartoon characters, billboards for imbalance and insecurity. Strength reveals itself through character. It is the difference between bouncers who get off strong-arming people and Mr. Pepperman.

Muscle mass does not always equal strength. Strength is kindness and sensitivity. Strength is understanding that your power is both physical and emotional. That it comes from the body and the mind. And the heart.

Yukio Mishima said that he could not entertain the idea of romance if he was not strong. Romance is such a strong and overwhelming passion, a weakened body cannot sustain it for long. I have some of my most romantic thoughts when I am with the Iron. Once I was in love with a woman. I thought about her the most when the pain from a workout was racing through my body. Everything in me wanted her. So much so that sex was only a fraction of my total desire. It was the single most intense love I have ever felt, but she lived far away and I didn’t see her very often. Working out was a healthy way of dealing with the loneliness. To this day, when I work out I usually listen to ballads.

I prefer to work out alone. It enables me to concentrate on the lessons that the Iron has for me. Learning about what you’re made of is always time well spent, and I have found no better teacher. The Iron had taught me how to live.

Life is capable of driving you out of your mind. The way it all comes down these days, it’s some kind of miracle if you’re not insane. People have become separated from their bodies. They are no longer whole. I see them move from their offices to their cars and on to their suburban homes. They stress out constantly, they lose sleep, they eat badly. And they behave badly. Their egos run wild; they become motivated by that which will eventually give them a massive stroke. They need the Iron mind.

Through the years, I have combined meditation, action, and the Iron into a single strength. I believe that when the body is strong, the mind thinks strong thoughts. Time spent away from the Iron makes my mind degenerate. I wallow in a thick depression. My body shuts down my mind. The Iron is the best antidepressant I have ever found. There is no better way to fight weakness than with strength. Once the mind and body have been awakened to their true potential, it’s impossible to turn back.

The Iron never lies to you. You can walk outside and listen to all kinds of talk, get told that you’re a god or a total bastard. The Iron will always kick you the real deal. The Iron is the great reference point, the all-knowing perspective giver. Always there like a beacon in the pitch black. I have found the Iron to be my greatest friend. It never freaks out on me, never runs. Friends may come and go. But two hundred pounds is always two hundred pounds.

-Henry Rollins

Workout:  Give someone money.

However much you want.  Just give.

The “C” word – Church Defined

When I say “I-don’t-go-to-church” I understand “go” and “church” in very specific ways.  It’s a little scary to publish this out there but here’s my head on a platter.

When I say “go” I mean attend, frequent, be present regularly and consistently.  I do occasionally buy a bacon double-cheeseburger from Jack-in-th-Box but I don’t go all the time. I have one of those maybe two or three (ok, maybe four) times a year.  Now, I recognize that there are people who have a JIB attendance kind of record at church (Easters and Christmases) who consider themselves church-goers but that’s not what I’m mean when I say it.

When I use the word “go” as it applies to churches I’m meaning that I participate as a regular attender or even a member.  I’m there most every Sunday. I probably have a regular place to park and to sit and listen to the sermon. I’ve been going to church in this fashion since 1987 – that’s a lot of years!

A Church I don't go to

No Address

I’ve been tossing that “c” word out a lot and when I say I don’t go to “church”, I mean I don’t go to a place (building, house, coffee shop, beach, conference room, stadium, cafeteria) where people meet regularly to hear a bible sermon, sing praise songs, fellowship with other like-minded persons, learn about their faith, be held to certain group determined norms and standards and contribute financially to group projects or goals. I also don’t go to a place that has an identity that can be communicated through bumper stickers, t-shirts, pencils, journals or other swag.  Nine out of 10 times this type of church has an address I can find through a google search.  This is what I don’t go to.   Sort of.

Neither do I (and here I might appear to digress too broadly but bear with me) regularly go to a place that is configured for fitness activities, occasionally offers free weeks or months of access with no sign-up fees, has lots of other people with similar goals, provides expert instruction on the use of the machines/equipment, and…Yes, I don’t go to a gym.  Sort of.

When I get asked what church I’m going to (frequently asked, in fact just yesterday) or what gym I workout at (less frequently asked!  Why is that??) this is what they’re asking.

The “sort of” responses above require some explanation.  First, I do workout.  A lot.  I eat a lot too which is why I don’t get asked what gym I go to very often.   Secondly, I do go to church.  Ughh!!  Even as I write that I shudder because of how I’m using those words!  But I do a sort of “church” thing that will require further explanation.

I’m doing this post in pieces not to build suspense but because I went to the beach today, just me and my wife, and am running short on time.  So, when I get back to my keyboard my plan is to share the “Why” part of “Why I don’t go to Church” along with the problems inherent in my lack of attendance.  And yes, there definitely are problems with not going to church as I’ve defined it above.  I’ll also share the one word that if I do a global find/replace in the New Testament for “church” and replace it with this one word it radically clears up my understanding of where I’m trying to go.

Feel free to post comments, love/hate messages in the space below

Stay tuned.