Growing apart

In my late teens I moved for my univerity studies. Moving to a new place meant finding a new church. It was as natural as getting a change of address, landline phone, and home insurance.

But I never really got into it again.

I realized just how much of the whole church business was a social thing for me. Moving from a church where I had a lot of friends, to a much smaller one, it just wasn’t the same.

I also started noticing the internal power struggles. And the conflicts. On every Sunday service there was a constant struggle between the preacher and some of the attendance. I got really sick of it. Every service (disservice?) just brought me down, and I couldn’t see what good it was supposed to make. Why take part of something that only makes you miserable?

It was also about that time I started what most people do around that age, trying to understand who I was, where I was going and all that. Not very deep, and not rebellious in any way. Just started to reevaluating things.

What was taught in the church made less sense to me. Perhaps even worse, church felt much less relevant than ever before.

Starting at the beginning

In the beginning God created. No not that beginning. I was more thinking in terms of me growing up. Church was part of my life from a very young age. The flavor was a pentecostal one.

I quite liked growing up as a churchgoer. I did what most churchgoers around me did. You know, Sunday school, camps, meetings, youth groups, sports, choir. Stuff like that. I didn’t agree with everything that was taught, but I bought into the worldview in general.

At times I was very dedicated, and other times I was merely attending. But it was a big part of my life for sure. It was a big part of my identity.

I was a Christian.