A few months ago I was wasting my life away reading blogs. For those of you who have discovered this secret world on the Internet, you know what I mean. You sit down to check on your “friends” and before you know it, the house is falling down around you three days later. I don’t know how I stumbled across Matthew Paul Turner’s website http://www.blogger.com/www.matthewpaulturner.com, but the day I did his wife was in labor and he was blogging about it! I remember thinking that I wish we could have done that when our children were born. Turner was so excited and cute about the whole thing and you could literally see him change in the blog right after his son was born. A father had been born in an instant.
As I returned to his blog to check on this new little family, I discovered that he was a writer. I tracked down a couple of his books and enjoyed Turner’s sense of humor and his way of looking at pretty serious issues in the world. He made me laugh and he made me think. So when I heard that he had a new book coming out, I was happy. I couldn't wait to get a copy. I was actually able to get an advanced copy of this new book, Churched, and we’ve been passing it around the house reading it. The first thing I need to tell you about Churched is this: You need to read this book!
The description from the back of the book says, "Churched details an American boy’s experiences growing up in a culture where men weren’t allowed to let their hair grow to touch their ears (“an abomination”), women wouldn’t have been caught dead in a pair of pants (unless swimming), and the pastor couldn’t preach a sermon without a healthy dose of hellfire and brimstone. Matthew grapples with the absurdity of a Sunday School Barbie burning, the passionate annual boxing match between the pastor and Satan, and the terror rapture movies – while growing into a young man, who amidst the chaotic mess of religion, falls in love with Jesus."
I think this is the religion that many people I know grew up with….the religion of scaring you to Jesus. I’ve never really understood this very well because I grew up just the opposite. I grew up knowing a loving, unconditional, very few rules about him-Jesus. Of course my understanding of His love and His grace and His gift of salvation changed and grew as I did, but I’ve NEVER been afraid of him.
There were parts of this book that made me sad but I usually laughed, as well. Turner tells about the age he officially became eligible for hell.
“The church started holding us accountable for our actions on our twelfth birthdays—and that was the age we officially because eligible for hell. It wasn’t exactly a bar mitzvah, but it was just as important. Eleven-year-olds had it made at our church. They could be skateboarding drug addicts who robbed grocery stores and killed bald eagles every other Tuesday and God would have still accepted them into heaven. But twelve-year-olds were toast.”
Is scaring someone to Jesus the best way to have them accept a free gift of Salvation from their heavenly Father? I have a hard time reconciling this in my mind. He wrote about going door to door every Thursday for almost two years, trying to get people to accept Jesus. Those kids who “won the most hearts” were the lucky winners of a prize. It was during this time that he met Mrs. Johnson. She invited him into her home and told the kids there to “win her heart for Jesus,” that she’d “invited Jesus to be part of my life several thousand times. In fact, on certain days, I probably ask him two or three times.”
Turner asked her, “What’s the assurance in that? What good is salvation if you have to keep asking for it?”
“Well, Matthew, I don’t think there’s a formula for getting to know God,” said Mrs. Johnson. “I knew a lady about twenty-five years ago. She thought she knew everything there was to know about God. She had him all figured out. She’d prance into the cafeteria at work almost every day and tell me what her God thought about my life. ‘You shouldn’t be doing things this way, Ms. Edie,’ she’d say to me. ‘God would bless your life if you’d do things this particular way.’ One day, when I’d heard all that I could stand, I looked at her and said, ‘Ruthie, you might very well have God all figured out in your head, but you’re far too judgmental to have him figured out in your heart.’ Being a Christian is about constantly learning how to figure Jesus out in your heart and not just in your head.
“That’s why I ask Jesus to be part of my life, because I’m a wretched old woman when he’s not.”
He then went on to ask her if she was scared to not know completely for sure that she would go to Heaven when she died. I LOVE her explanation!
“Scare me?” she chuckled. “Not in the least, child. Besides, how can anybody—except those who have already died—really, beyond a shadow of doubt, know for sure? They can’t. Nobody can. They can scream as loud as they want to, but that don’t change the truth. You see, Matthew, I don’t believe God gives us fear. God gives us hope. I am His child. Now if I’m His child, why would he want me being fearful and scared all the time? That would be like a baby being frightened of her daddy. Think about how you would feel if you were scared of your father all the time.”
“God loves you, children. He loves you more than you will ever know. Believe that, and you will grow up to do beautiful things.”
Mrs. Johnson didn’t ask Jesus into her heart, so we lost the contest. One of the other teams went to a house with four kids and a baby-sitter. All five of them asked Jesus into their hearts and each member of the team won a packet of sea monkeys. You haven’t truly witnessed about Jesus until you’ve done it in hopes of winning a packet of sea monkeys.
I didn’t care that we had lost. Not being afraid on the bus ride back to the church was the best prize anyone could have given me.
In the last chapter of the book, Turner writes about the different churches that he’s belonged to as an adult. I loved the story about the pastor that could never remember his name, but always knew that it started with T after he was told “it’s Turner.” I can relate to his description of the worship light show some Sundays as “the aurora borealis on steroids and a timer”. And I can most relate to his complete appreciation of a pastor who uses the word Dude, can talk about hair highlights and one who tells you that you are normal. It’s OK to be comfortable in church. And it’s good to not be afraid!
I can’t help but think about Mrs. Johnson’s words to Turner, in regards to this book. “You will grow to do beautiful things.” Matthew Paul Turner’s new book, Churched, is a great read and yet another way to grow your faith personally, no matter what the church of your childhood told you. I recommend this book and hope you’ll read it.
Churched At Amazon
Churched at Barnes and Noble
Churched at Lifeway
Matthew Paul Turner is a blogger, speaker and author of The Coffeehouse Gospel, Provocative Faith, Beatitude: Relearning Jesus, the What You Didn’t Learn from Your Parents About… series, and several other popular books. He has written for Relevant, HomeLife, Christian Single magazines and was the former editor of CCM magazine. Matthew and his wife, Jessica, live in Nashville, Tennessee. He can be found online at http://www.matthewpaulturner.com/.
Matthew Paul Turner is a blogger, speaker and author of The Coffeehouse Gospel, Provocative Faith, Beatitude: Relearning Jesus, the What You Didn’t Learn from Your Parents About… series, and several other popular books. He has written for Relevant, HomeLife, Christian Single magazines and was the former editor of CCM magazine. Matthew and his wife, Jessica, live in Nashville, Tennessee. He can be found online at www.matthewpaulturner.com.
