I Don't Wanna Be Radical Anymore

I’ve slowly been noticing some subconscious beliefs about what I think, or thought, the Christian walk should look like.

The jolt of the IHOPKC scandal in October has caused me to question a lot of the things I thought were required of me to love Jesus. Or more specifically things that made me feel like I loved Jesus more than someone else or that I was inherently better.

Which of course could not be more opposite to the gospel.

But it took such an insane jolt that I got last year to start to ask these questions and let go of some of my less-than-Christlike subconscious beliefs.

Of course, I would have never said these things out loud. No one really did, but we all believed them.

I’ve talked about this a little bit before. There was an undercurrent at IHOP that pushed people towards being “radical”. The more radical you were, the better you were. And Jesus might have even loved you more for it. There was an impossibly high standard of what it really looked like to love Jesus with all your heart. It turned out it really was impossibly high, not even Mike lived up to it. Not even close actually.

The gospel taught at IHOP required outward acts of performance to look the most holy, fast the most, pray the most, and sacrifice the most. People really did say “We are the tip of the arrow” And “We are the navy seals of the body of Christ”, among other things.

Besides the elitism it produced in me, I want to look at a few other things I’ve begun to notice, sift through, and ultimately let go of.

My subconscious beliefs about the Christian walk seeped into how I looked at non-IHOP people and other churches. And how very wrong I was.

I would visit other churches and judge them for not being “wholehearted enough”. They only had one prayer meeting a week, they all had normal jobs. What a bunch of compromisers. They couldn’t hack the fasted lifestyle.

I am embarrassed at many of the ways I looked at “normal people”.

“Those poor people don’t know that Jesus is coming back soon and they should be preparing”

When I was younger I talked with my parents about getting a new Bible, mine must have gotten worn out. My dad said to me, why don’t you get The Message Bible (a more modern, easier-to-understand translation of the Bible).

“Absolutely not! I want to read the real Bible!” was my reply.

The real Bible to me meant the New King James Version. If it’s good enough for Mike Bickle, it’s good enough for me.

Whoops.

I used to look down on people who read other versions of the Bible.

Who cares what version of the Bible someone reads? They’re reading the Bible! That’s the goal!

There are certain passages that I actually really love in the NKJV, but maybe it isn’t a bad thing to branch out a bit. Hearing the gospel with fresh ears and new language is actually amazing.

The Lord has been highlighting many of these subconscious ideas in my heart that really only produced one thing in me: judgment.

I judged my neighbor for not being radical, reading the wrong version of the Bible, for not going to several weekly prayer meetings.

The culture at IHOP caused me to sin. A true, godly church culture should cause me to love my neighbors, not look down on them for being lesser Christians. How sick.

H.P. Kingfisher (a pseudonym) shared a little bit about this in her interview in my Detangling series. She shared about how incredibly narrow life at IHOP was. It was always about the next fast that would bring revival, the “urgency of the hour”, how to get more oil for your lamps in the prayer room, etc.

The radical nature of the culture caused me and others to miss out on a lot of beautiful life that Jesus wanted us to enjoy. And it made me overlook massive parts of the body of Christ.

I don’t want to be radical anymore. I want to live a quiet and peaceable life. I want to love Jesus until I die, not burn hot and fast and then walk away.

I want to read other versions of the Bible, I want to see and love the little church on the corner that is actually doing the gospel well. I want to enjoy my life, and God’s creation around me, and study the books of the Bible that I always overlooked.

I also want to quit judging my neighbor based on the seemingly radical (or not radical) exterior of their Christian life.

Man looks at the outside, God looks at the heart. Help me look at the heart oh God.

P.S. There are only a few more days to sign up for my interview series Detangling with the 20% off discount. You can read Jane Doe’s and H.P. Kingfisher’s interviews now. Another one is coming in a few weeks :)

The discount ends on Monday.

Photo by Karsten Winegeart on Unsplash