I'm sorry.

Dear Friend,

I had a conversation with another friend of mine today. We met for some tea and got to catch up. It was so good to see my friend but it was also very sad. He told me that he has taken a brake from Christianity and the church. I was pretty surprised considering the last couple times we had talked he was really thinking about getting into the ministry full time. My friend is very intelligent. He thinks very well for his age. He is only 17.

His decision to take a brake from Christianity and the church was due to the fact that he didn’t feel like Jesus loved him. His reasoning was due in large to his sexual choice. My friend is gay.

When I asked him what has changed since the last time we had talked (and by the way he was gay the last time we talked, he has been gay for as long as he can remember). He thought that it would be better for him to walk away than to remain a Christian who was gay. He thought it very hypocritical (hence the whole feeling that Jesus doesn’t love him, or better yet how can Jesus love him, or so he thought). He also said there was a point when he finally said to himself that he could not think of any good reasons anymore why he shouldn’t or couldn’t be in a relationship…or why he shouldn’t be able to get married. It is so fascinating to me that he thinks this because he could also tell you all the scriptures that say that being homosexual is wrong according to the bible. It was these feelings that caused him to walk away and remove himself from Christianity and the church because certainly there was no room for someone who thought like this. Right? He even said at one point that he liked Jesus, just not the church.

I was so sad to hear him talk about not feeling like Jesus loved him anymore. This was difficult because normally a Christian would explain some different verses or passages in the bible, but because of his background in the church he knew all the right verses and passages. With both of these ideas it was interesting because homosexuality and the lack of feeling love from God are both themes to which if you hang around the church long enough you learn the right verses to these problems. Almost like a prescription that a doctor would give you for a cold or a sickness. For instance,

Person: I am really struggling with my desires for people of the same sex.
Christian: Well, in Romans chapter one verses twenty-six through twenty-seven says…

Person: I don’t really feel like Jesus loves me…I don’t know why, I just feel it.
Christian: Well, have you ever read Psalm 139? Well let me read it to you then…see (persons name) God loves you this much.

This just goes to show that we need to do more than prescribe verses or passages as Christians. When dealing with Supernatural questions, prescriptions don’t always work. We need to explain through the way we live, and love, and use the bible verses as evidence to why we love that way. Or why we live a certain way.

I think that the reason why my friend does not want to go to church or be apart of Christianity right now is because he honestly does not feel any love from Christ. I really believe this. I also think that the reason why he doesn’t feel any love from Jesus is because he doesn’t interact with anyone in the church that loves him like Jesus. Don’t you see? My friend is not interacting with any Christ-like humans. And so he naturally is left only to think that Jesus doesn’t love him anymore. This is not true. Jesus does love him. A lot.

At this point all I could think of while listening to my friend was…I’m sorry.

I’m so sorry (I don’t think that Christians say sorry enough).

To be completely honest, I hate be a Christian sometimes. It is these moments when being a Christian does not bring any hope to anyone, but rather it just brings pain. Out of all the different places that my friend can spend time and feel loved I would have hoped it would have been around his church. Not the building church. The people church. Dang it! He should have felt comfortable in his own skin. Even if it is gay skin. It makes me so sad, and mad, that I have a friend who is gay and he doesn’t want to go to church anymore because he doesn’t feel like people love him. That to me is unacceptable.

We (the church) need to make a decision. We need to decide if we are going to love gay people or not (not just my friend, I know my friend is not the only gay person in the world). This way there is no confusion. We can send out the largest mass e-mail ever and let people know. Because as of right now people are assuming that we have chosen to love them. I am not asking for Christians to condone homosexuality…love has nothing to do with condoning. It has everything to do with the unconditional moments in life. At this moment being gay is very real.

The disciple whom Jesus loved once said something about things to which Jesus did that are not written down. He even said that if all of them would have been written down the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. Part of me wonders if one of those things that Jesus did that were not written down was interact with and love a homosexual. I wonder how we would treat gay people then?

It is just frustrating. I know that my friend is not the only one.

My favorite apostle is John. He is the Disciple whom Jesus loved. By most accounts he died around a.d. 98, it was during the reign of Emperor Trajan. Jerome says in his commentary on Galatians that the aged apostle was so frail in his final days at Ephesus that he had to be carried into the church. One phrase was constantly on his lips: “My little children, love one another.” Asked why he always said this, he replied, “It is the Lord’s command, and if this alone be done, it is enough.”


heart.soul.mind.
kyle diroberts

Battle of the bands...

Dear Friend,

So I was at Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf just yesterday. I was drinking one of my favorite teas there just relaxing. I was sitting in my usual seat right by the door. There is this table that seats 4 people but I always take it anyways even if it is just me. I like the extra room. I sit in the same chair every time. This is mainly because it is right by the plug-in so that I can charge my PowerBook.

It was a great day for tea yesterday…it was raining. I love rainy days. They are so special. They completely change the mood of everything and everyone (I wonder sometimes if a rainy day to us is like a Sunny day to people who live in Seattle?).

I got to thinking yesterday about my past. I don’t know about you, but one thing rainy days do for me is cause me to think about my past. Maybe cause it doesn’t rain very often and so I naturally think about what I was doing the last time it rained and that just starts the little mice in my head running on their little silver wheels of remembrance. I thought back to this lunch I had with a few guys and we were talking about the church. The church we were discussing was new…I would even call it refreshing. There were a few of us sitting around this table and the topic of experience came up. It was brought up that the church that I have grown to love puts to much emphasis on ‘the experience’ and not enough emphasis on the bible. He was referring to a couple of different churches but one of them that he referred to was Flood the Desert. This was a church that I co-founded in the Valley almost 2 years ago and so since I didn’t feel comfortable commenting on the other churches that he had mentioned I did however welcome the open discussion about Flood…and this ‘experience’ that he spoke of. He mostly referred to the worship services (which by the way he had never been to one) and more specifically the prayer station, and the inclusion of art during our services, and the major emphasis on the band and music.

So he asked if I thought that there was too much attention placed on these various things?

(I should probably mention that our conversation was great…very open…and loving. There was not any arguing, or loud talk. Just healthy discussion)

My answer was no. I didn’t think so at all. I began to name some churches. Actually as many as I could think of. And I not only named the church but also the senior pastors at those churches. I began to name the books that they had written, or the sermons that you could get online. I then began to name some local churches…really big ones and their senior pastors as well.

I told my friend…those guys (senior pastors) are damn good guitar players if you ask me…

I said this because a lot of people say that the type of church I love places to much emphasis on the experience. One of those experiences being the band. And I wanted to make sure that my friend understood that while his church and all the churches that I named might not of had as great of a band as Flood, they still place just as much emphasis on ‘the experience’, theirs just came in the form of a senior pastor.

So while it can be said that the emerging church places to much on the band or the experience, I however think that you could say that the modern church places to much emphasis on their Senior Pastor. Either way you look at it we both have great guitar players, just one has a instrument and the other has a pulpit.

Anyways…I love tea and rainy days. Don’t you?

heart.soul.mind.
kyle diroberts

lets go sailing...

[I wrote this awhile ago...]

Okay so I finished my first ever painting late last week. I painted this photograph that I took of the ocean. So I guess that means I can say it is completely an original (or so Aubrey tells me).







The day that photograph was taken was a beautiful day…it was a blue day. Everything about that day was blue, the ocean was more blue than I had ever seen it before. But it wasn’t just one shade of blue, there must have been hundreds of different shades of blue. The Sky was no different, there was not a cloud to be seen. There was this baby blue tint that filled the backdrop that was the sky. The sky looked like it was made to compliment the ocean that day. In the middle of all this blue was this white sailboat. It moved from right to left along the horizon with such grace. And so I did what anyone would do with a camera...I captured it.

So my friend Aubrey, she taught me how to paint…you could say I was her disciple through this painting process. She was a great teacher. She began with showing me how to hold the paintbrush. Then she helped me mix all the different color blues, which by the way she said that I must have had over 200 different shades of blue in my created ocean. Then she said something that I still think about today, she told me that I would get angry at some point during this painting process (she cautioned me). She said that I would want to give up. But she said I couldn’t. She said that it was just the sign of a great painting coming to life. You know what? She was right. I hated that painting half way through the night. One thing you should know about painting is that it freezes time. Four hours in a studio feels like twenty minutes. But when you get angry those twenty minutes in a studio feels like four hours. It took me two nights to finish that painting. Two nights of Norah Jones, Madeleine Peyroux, Depeche Mode, Paul Simon, and Fat Tire…I am excited to start again.

I think a lot about that painting nevertheless. I think about being a Christian, and how often I just want to give up. Or better yet I think about being a Christian leader and how often I think about all the reason to just walk away. Do you have paintings in your life? I do. But what if I cautioned you. I told you that at some point you would want to give up. But you can’t. Rather this is only a sign of a great painting coming to life.

I want to be apart of that painting process.

heart.soul.mind
kyle diroberts

This is weird...

I don't know about you but I am kind of nervous. This whole blogg idea has been calling my name but for some reason I have been a chicken. There is some idea or thought about posting my thoughts for anyone to see that is just strange to me. Heck, I don't even know if this white box will even post anything. I could easily be writing to myself right now. But I figure since we are about to start a blogging relationship I should introduce myself. Hi! My name is kyle. For a glimpse of my long past...I am a native to Arizona (which by the way it snowed). I used to pastor this church that I co-founded. It is called Flood the Desert. Now I am working on my masters at Phoenix Seminary. I like to take pictures...of nature that is...not people, so don't ask me to take family pictures. I tend to read a lot. I read a lot about peoples opinions about church, or culture (especially the Jewish culture), I also read a lot about the Christian life and how people think it should be lived. I really like the ocean...okay I am bored...and I am beginning to feel like I am posting my profile on some dating site...

I hope that you have a great night.


heart.soul.mind.
kyle diroberts