During this two month break, I went to fourteen different churches across the eastern United States. About one church every four days. I would sit in the back and I would ask myself, ‘If I had never heard about God or the Bible or Jesus — what would I think about God just from what we do at church? Just from what the pastor says?’ And I recognized that we learn a lot of principles and rules and steps, and it became about, ‘Here’s how you use God so that you can make your life better.’ So I felt like a lot of people were marrying God for the money. I wanted to get closer to the heart of our Father, not just learn how to be a better person.
Where we get messed up is that prayer begins to be a way to clear your mind, Scripture becomes good advice and good habits, worship becomes an emotionally driven moment, and serving becomes this self-fulfilling good-deed checklist. We can become really good at these things, and there’s nothing wrong with those things, and those sermons can be great. I just wonder: When we’re praying, are we just worried about technique and method? Or are we really praying to our Heavenly Father who loves us and created us?
— J.S. from this message
J.S. Park: Hospital Chaplain, Skeptical Christian 
This is a good word J.S. I just came back from a pastor’s convention in CT. We were admonished several times to come away from preaching a Christless Christianity. I would really like to reblog this.
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I was actually struggling with this. My brain keeps telling me, you should not pray like this, cry like this, ask this, think like this, worry like this, and this and this…. as if you don’t know God and as if you think God does not know what you need. It is frustrating for me. And all I want is just to share and pour out my heart to Our Heavenly Father. But all of these technique and method and doctrines and knowledge… ugh. Thanks for sharing this J.S. GBU.
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I do this doctrinally too, always trying to reach “theological perfection.” I remember when a pastor said, “You don’t ever pray to Jesus, only the Father!” — and it made me pretty paranoid about how to pray (I realized later of course that we don’t need to separate God into pieces). While I’m all for doing things “right,” I would only want technique to bring me closer, not further, from Him.
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