Hi - I'm new here and glad to have found a place to interact with people who've got an interest in things of faith.
A little (?) about me:
I became a Christian at the age of 18 after spending my life just knowing there was a god out there but having no clue who He was or how to connect with Him. I atttended a Lane Adams crusade in high school, which resulted in confusion on my part more than anything else, but as time passed and I began having to run from God I reached a point of responding to an alter call and getting involved in what became my home church.
I ended up going to the college sponsored by my denomination where I majored in Biblical Literature, and had both healthy and great experiences as well as having my distrust of authority strongly reinforced by the hypocracy and disrespect of many in positions of leadership at that institution.
I served as assistant pastor in my home chirch after graduating, but a number of people in the church decided that God was calling them to undermine and get the pastor out of the church. They succeeded. Meantime, the same thing happened at the church I attended while away at college.
A couple years after graduating from college I went to Fuller Theological Seminary which was one of the high points of my life. As it turned out, though, the folks on one side of the spectrum saw Fuller as a bastion of Bible-thumping ignorance and the folks on the side of the spectrum from where I originated saw Fuller as a stronghold of apostates.
I completed the coursework for a Masters of Divinity degree but gave up on finding an internship - as much due to burnout as the prejudice I encountered as a result of having gone to Fuller (from my old side of the spectrum).
I spent the next 13 years in the business world, dissatisfied with whatever I ended up doing even though some of the things I did were fascinating (investigating medical malpractice claims was one). I finally realized I wasn't going to find a satisfying career unless I went back to school and specialized in something and also at that point realized that pretty much all my adult life I'd been interested in helping people figure out things that were troubling them.
I went to Santa Clara University and graduated with an M.A. in Counseling Psychology. After a very long and "interesting" internship I finally passed the licensing tests for Marriage and Family Therapist.
I believe my exposure to psychology has on a practical level had as much impact on me as my salvation. That may sound like I'm downplaying my faith but I'm not. It's that I now understand things in a way that would have allowed me to weather previous storms with less impact on my life than they actually had. The way I understand human dynamics now lets me understand more clearly what in the past were just vague hunches.
For years I've thought about how to get back into a working faith and I'm strongly considering starting something from the ground up that doesn't follow mainstream worship/church dynamics. I don't know where that will end up going, but it's where I'm at right now.
A little (?) about me:
I became a Christian at the age of 18 after spending my life just knowing there was a god out there but having no clue who He was or how to connect with Him. I atttended a Lane Adams crusade in high school, which resulted in confusion on my part more than anything else, but as time passed and I began having to run from God I reached a point of responding to an alter call and getting involved in what became my home church.
I ended up going to the college sponsored by my denomination where I majored in Biblical Literature, and had both healthy and great experiences as well as having my distrust of authority strongly reinforced by the hypocracy and disrespect of many in positions of leadership at that institution.
I served as assistant pastor in my home chirch after graduating, but a number of people in the church decided that God was calling them to undermine and get the pastor out of the church. They succeeded. Meantime, the same thing happened at the church I attended while away at college.
A couple years after graduating from college I went to Fuller Theological Seminary which was one of the high points of my life. As it turned out, though, the folks on one side of the spectrum saw Fuller as a bastion of Bible-thumping ignorance and the folks on the side of the spectrum from where I originated saw Fuller as a stronghold of apostates.
I completed the coursework for a Masters of Divinity degree but gave up on finding an internship - as much due to burnout as the prejudice I encountered as a result of having gone to Fuller (from my old side of the spectrum).
I spent the next 13 years in the business world, dissatisfied with whatever I ended up doing even though some of the things I did were fascinating (investigating medical malpractice claims was one). I finally realized I wasn't going to find a satisfying career unless I went back to school and specialized in something and also at that point realized that pretty much all my adult life I'd been interested in helping people figure out things that were troubling them.
I went to Santa Clara University and graduated with an M.A. in Counseling Psychology. After a very long and "interesting" internship I finally passed the licensing tests for Marriage and Family Therapist.
I believe my exposure to psychology has on a practical level had as much impact on me as my salvation. That may sound like I'm downplaying my faith but I'm not. It's that I now understand things in a way that would have allowed me to weather previous storms with less impact on my life than they actually had. The way I understand human dynamics now lets me understand more clearly what in the past were just vague hunches.
For years I've thought about how to get back into a working faith and I'm strongly considering starting something from the ground up that doesn't follow mainstream worship/church dynamics. I don't know where that will end up going, but it's where I'm at right now.
