Everywhere I turn I hear the term “deconstruction.” Do you know about this? It refers to someone taking apart their faith and the things they have believed for a long time – particularly those who grew up in church, particularly those in Evangelical circles. They are deconstructing their faith and finding another way to live or something else to believe.

On one hand, I encourage the process, especially for anyone who grows up in the church. If your faith is a matter of your family tradition or culture, it’s vital that you get down to the heart of it and find out what you really believe for yourself.

On the other hand, I have yet to hear a story of deconstruction that isn’t informed by a wound that the person has experienced in the church. They have been hurt or been taught something that doesn’t work or isn’t loving or merciful or they have seen a leader fall morally, ethically or spiritually, or they have seen hypocrisy in their home growing up. All of these are real hurts and need to be reckoned with, to be certain… but I haven’t heard of someone looking for Jesus and finding him wanting. The story is that they couldn’t find Jesus in the middle of the rest of it.

So we're starting the year with a series called Reconstruction. I’m not trying to be cheeky (though, you know, don’t put it past me), I wanted to address some of the main objections to the Christian faith and hope to accomplish a couple of things:

Answer some of the most common questions about Christianity.
Give believers who are struggling a solid foundation to build on.
Equip the church with a basic understanding of apologetics (defending the faith) so that we will know how to talk about our faith in a non-defensive, relevant, informed way to the people in our lives.

It doesn’t matter what category you put yourself in, I want you to know something… I don’t know all the answers but I invite the questions and have seen faith in Jesus stand up to every question I’ve asked so far. I encourage you to take that same posture: hearts open, ears listening, minds active.

I've been using Tim Keller's book Reason for God and it's companion study guide to give us an outline for this series. Sunday's message, "Truth or Fiction" is based off of session one of the guide and chapter seven of the book. I encourage you to watch the session (here's a link for you) and pick up a copy of the book if you can.

I'm looking forward to starting this new season with you... see you on Sunday!

Happy New Year!
Pastor Tracy

Read the whole bible with us in 2022! (click for youverion link)