The word ‘church’ often brings a negative vibe to my mind.  I am anti-religion, anti-legalism, anti-church-in-a-box.

The word ‘punk’ brings to mind things like rebellion, change, transformation, and freedom.

Churchpunk = A follower of Jesus rebelling against religious legalism in favor of transformation and freedom.

Why Blog?

I am not your traditional church guy who fits inside the pretty little church box.  I am an imperfect follower of Jesus desperately trying to be who God created me to be.  This blog is meant to be a reflection of my ongoing quest to be more like Jesus.  This is my raw and authentic story shared so that you might be encouraged to know that you are not alone.

Part of My Story

I was raised in the Catholic church.  I felt that it was boring, pointless, and difficult to understand.  After Confirmation(Catholic tradition of becoming adult in the church) in 8th grade, I had the opportunity to choose whether or not to attend church.  Most of the time, I did not attend church after that.  For the record, I still believed in God and prayed from time to time, but I really disliked going to church.

In 1997, as I was preparing to graduate from high school (Now you know how old I am), some friends of mine convinced me to go to this thing called Young Life.  I went one time and realized that there were a lot of HOTT girls there so I started going every week. Thank you God for your beautiful creation of women that lured me to a group of people that would change my life forever.

So I thought that I was a Christian at the time having grown up going to church.  Being a Christian to me was follow rules ABC and don’t do 123 and life would be good and you get to go to heaven when the game is over.  I had religion in my brain, but I was missing Jesus in my heart.  I went to Young Life camp that summer after graduating and figured that out.  There was something different about my Young Life friends and I wanted what they had.  When we were given time one night to go spend some time alone quietly with God I told God that I wanted to be sure I was doing things the right way.  I wanted to be all in.  I thought I was there, but something was missing.  So I asked God to give me what I was missing and covered my bases by praying the little ABC prayer of Admit I am a Sinner, Believe Jesus died for my sins, and Commit to following Jesus.  I think that was how it went anyway.

At that moment, something changed inside of me.  It is hard to describe, but the world felt different to me.  Suddenly God was really big as I sat there on a rock underneath  a sky full of more stars than I had ever seen before.  I had been there for a week and not noticed how cool the stars were.  I think I began to see and hear things in similar ways that God sees and hears things.  Suddenly things were not so much about me anymore.  I returned home from camp and thought maybe those feelings would wear off, but they didn’t.  Everything was different and has been for me ever since.