Expectations And Cages

The church will hand you its expectations and expect you to trap yourself within them, to never (ever) cross them:

You are expected to BELIEVE certain things.

You are expected to BEHAVE in certain ways.

You are expected to OUTCAST certain people.

You are expected to HOLD to certain doctrines.

Whether it’s hell, believing all roads except Jesus lead to hell, outcasting LGBTQ people, believing the Bible is the inerrant Word of God ... the church has certain expectations that are little more than a cage that might very well prove to be too small for your growing voice.  

This is what happened to me.  

I went to a Christian school from the 4th-12th grades.  I went to Bible college for 4 years.  Seminary for 8 years.  Pastored churches.  Did internships.  Led youth groups.  Read my Bible cover to cover more times than I can count.  

And for most of those years I was a good boy: I knew the expectations and I never crossed them.  In many cases I think I knew the expectations better than those who set them!

Internally, though, in my mind … I had so many questions.  I remember hell coming up one time in a meeting at church and I remember internally struggling to believe in it, but saying that I did anyways.  

Why?

Because that was the expectation.

I remember feeling that outcasting LGBTQ people was wrong.  I remember feeling that I think my Muslim friends and Buddhist friends and Atheist friends will be in heaven.  

I remember thinking things that would have made my evangelical friends go crazy.

BUT.

I kept it all inside.  Like a good boy, I never crossed the line - I knew my place and stayed in the cage that the expectations created around me.

About a year ago, though, I wrote a paper for a class where I pushed up against some of the expectations.  I pushed up against the bar of hell, I pushed back on the bar of LGBTQ inclusion.  I wasn’t really sure what the professor would say, but to my surprise he said, “this is some good stuff.  There is a world of people out there who need your voice.  It’s time you let the things out into the open that you’ve kept to yourself all of these years.”

And so here we are - the What If Project is my attempt to bust out of the prison, break down the cage, and use my voice that has been squashed by the expectations of the church for so long.   It’s my attempt to critique the system that caged me for so long.

And so, I wonder – what prisons do you need to break out of today?  What cages has the church’s expectations build around you?  And are those cages proving to be too small for your growing voice?  

Consider this your permission slip to break free.

Much love to you,