I just watched Jesus Camp, I know, I’m a little late on the whole phenomena. I make it a point not to talk about religion, and often politics because there’s so much emotion entangled with both topics. I personally am a Christian, but I don’t attend church.

The kids were being spoken to on topics they can’t even understand, like abortion, war, and willingness to die for Jesus. They know not how life begins, they only know that their Creator somehow begins it, and they know nothing about the end of life, just that Jesus took their soul up to heaven…or down to hell for eternity. At such a young age, they can’t even fathom ‘eternity’. Eternity is an hour spent in the dentist office’s waiting room. Eternity is that time before Christmas but after Thanksgiving. Eternity is that long sit at your school desk, thighs sticking to the chairs, waiting for that bell to ring and release you to summer vacation. Children are putty in your hands, and whatever you mold them to become, they’ll happily be, and Jesus Camp illustrates that fact clearly.

I used to go to church. I remember crying during worship. I don’t know whether it was God or whether it was the fact that I was in a huge room, surrounded by hundreds of people, all singing the same lines, the air thick with vibrations, and hearing words about someone who will love you forever and is powerful. Looking back on it now, I wonder about those times I raised my hands towards the sky and kept my eyes, brimming with tears, shut so very tightly. Was I just overwhelmed with both my surroundings and my own emotions?

I remember one of the first few times I saw kids my own age “raise their hands to the Lord”. I wondered why the were doing that. Should I be doing that too? How long do I keep my hands up? How high should I raise them? Am I supposed to keep my eyes open? Or should they be closed? Do I keep singing or just do that sort of moaning thing I’d seen several people do?

I was going to a fairly large church in Hendersonville at this time. I attended that church, off and on, from ages nine to thirteen. I don’t remember going every Sunday, or every Wednesday. Often times, it would just be my father and I that went, because my mom was too ill or just didn’t want to go. I never felt I fit in at this church. I lived in Nashville, I didn’t attend every week, I wasn’t “born into” this church as so many of the members were. I felt it was a clique I could never belong to. I wasn’t doing it all right. I never had the right passages memorized, I couldn’t remember who begat whom. Any friends I made were barely friends, they knew very little about me, and we only spent an hour every once in a while with each other.

I also felt like everything was dumbed down. I was older than most of the kids in my “group” (groups were organized by grades, not ages), and I was ready for more mature topics. Despite my feelings about this church, I kept attending with my father. I didn’t want him to be lonely or mad that I didn’t go. I’m glad that I kept going, even though I realize my reasons were just a big indicator of the unhealthy relationship I had with my father, I began really understanding Christianity once I graduated up to the middle school. I was hanging around the “big” kids, middle and high schoolers, and we were talking about real issues. I also really liked the pastor. He was cool, kind, and encouraged me. He remembered my name and let me talk to him about things.

I still wasn’t that close with anyone, but with Dave, the youth minister, I felt much more comfortable and I opened up more. I began going on outings and lockins with the ministry. I even went on a trip to St. Louis with the youth group. I became “saved” on that trip. I loved Dave for showing me how good God was, and mostly I loved him for being so good to me.
I remember him reading my writing and being in awe of such a voice coming from such a small, pre-teen. He encouraged me to read my poems aloud to the youth group on Wednesday nights. He even posted them on the website. He was proud of me, and I felt like he really knew me.

When Dave left with his family to Kentucky and worked at a ministry there. I was hurt, I remember talking with him on the phone, crying. I was angry and hurt and I decided I didn’t want to keep going to the church in Hendersonville. I was growing and I knew that I would never “grow into” that church. It was time to find my own place in this world of religion, to believe what I wanted, not what I was told by my parents and by the church. It was only through leaving a church that I truly found what God meant.

This post really wasn’t supposed to be about me, but like I said, religion and politics are tied with emotion.