The Gathering is a complex thought, an idea, a risk. It is born from a multiplicity of beliefs converging to a single point. It is a nexus, and it may be wrong. Like all risks, it attempts to embody what is believed to be true and good in all that has gone before, yet step beyond those boundaries to a new untested perspective. This offers the twin opportunities of unreserved joy and abject failure. But we must attempt it to live with ourselves. If we are to fail, let us do it boldly.

The paths, points and roads that bring us here are too numerous for this document just as the cold calculation of belief statements, theological discourse and value lists feel out of place in this essay Thus, I will concentrate on a different sort of approach. We have the aforementioned statements tight and trim. All "t's" are crossed and "i's" dotted in sublime professionalism. But here I want to speak more in passion and prose. I want to share a vision.

I came late to Christendom. Not being raised in the church, I spent my youth in the pursuit of all things physically gratifying with little sight to God outside of flagrant hostility. I grew up intelligent, aggressive, coarse, and hard. When I entered the church as a young man, I found myself in a foreign world. I had been drawn by hopes of a better future, and the promise of a forgiven past. I carried, I still carry, the zealousness of a convert. Once I became sure of my footing with God, I approached this new world and work with the same reckless abandon and passion I had my secular life. In Christ, I had great success; in the church, I just made people mad.

I did not understand the complex social and cultural rule system employed by churches. It took me time to acclimate to my new culture. I had to learn the vocabulary, the unwritten rules, decorum, ceremony, and proper theology. In professional terms, I was learning the creed, code, and cultis. This was a painful transition, but I made it. Then, fully educated by the church and mostly acceptable in polite society, I took the spoils of this external war (a shiny new young Christian wife) and I trotted off to Bible College where my world was shattered.

The churches had taught me correct theology, right from wrong, the acceptable perspective. They had told me what I could and could not say, think and feel. But, in college, I met two men who disagreed. I will recount one simplistic story, one brief moment that helped to set me on the path where I now stand all these years later.

"How many of you believe the Bible should be taken literally?" The good Dr. asked with an air of disinterest. Each of us good conservative Baptists raised our hands enthusiastically. Someone even proudly ventured, "The Bible says it. I believe it. That settles it!" A general good humored guffaw rippled about the room.

"So, you would read it with absolute literalness?" The Dr. inquired, like a wolf sniffing for some good thing in the wind. We generally agreed this was so.

"Well . . . " continued the Dr. "What about the passage in the book of Joshua, the one that says the sun stood still in the sky for about a whole day?" Well, this was not a difficulty for any of us brave recruits. We would not knowingly deny the existence and "historicity" (a new word I had recently learned in another class) of miracles in the Bible. They were to be believed without question. We said as much in general agreement.

The good Dr. raised his head and said, "Well . . . that's good. You should accept miracles, but that's not what I asked you." We looked about at each other a tad puzzled. He grunted a bit and questioned "what miracle? What is the miracle being done in that passage?" Once again we were at a loss. Someone stammered that the sun had stood still; God had made the sun stand still.
"Yes" the professor agreed, "but do you believe it?" It seemed an odd sort of question for him to ask. We had just told him we accepted these sorts of passages as miracles; of course we believed it.

"I challenge you," he bellowed. "Not one of you accepts the passage, not one!" I was shaken; I had no idea what he was going on about. Judging by the empty expressions elsewhere in the room, neither did any one else. He ventured another clue. "Did the sun really stand still?" Ah, now I understood. Of course not! The sun doesn't move; the Earth moves. The Earth stood still and from the perspective of the Biblical author, it appeared the sun had stood still. Finally, having solved the mystery, I explained this simplistic concept putting all this to rest. "So, Mr. Holt, you don't take the text literally at all? You interpret the text to suit you in light of modern science."

I can't really say when it hit me, but it did. I don't recall if it hit me at that moment, or later in the day. Perhaps it was later in the week. All I know is that it did hit me. It came over me like a wave, sudden and powerful. He was right. I did not take it literally. In fact, I had infused it with all sorts of things, my experiences, modern thought and science, my understanding of history, human nature, anthropology . . . and as I learned only in graduate school, I had filled the text with philosophical notions of knowledge called epistemology. But none of that was the real problem at all. The real problems were twofold. One, I was right in my interpretation. Even given all the stuff I had stuck into it, I was right! The text needed interpretation. (Only in later years did I learn that this text likely refers to a common Hebrew idiom of the day and probably does not refer to a celestial miracle at all.) The second thing that upset me was perhaps more profound than the first. The church had lied to me. Not any one specific individual, but as an organization, my local congregation had lied to me. They had told me that I need only accept what was being said literally; don't put "human" interpretations in it. Don't waste time studying history or philosophy. Just read the words on the page and you will know the truth. To do it any other way would lead me into liberalism and away from the true faith. But they were wrong. It was never that easy.

The Bible is a complex document worthy of more than this pedantic approach. And studying has not made me liberal. I don't think truth is relative and I don't think all religions are equal. I don't like divorce and I think homosexuality is a sin. But! I don't think the world was created in six literal days, yet I do think the Red Sea really was parted. I have become more than a two dimensional Christian. I want to create a church that reflects that.

Christians tend to confuse their culture with their faith. Those who taught me certainly had. They had assumed that if you read the page, you knew the truth. It had never occurred to them that such a belief had nothing to do with their faith or their Bible; it had to do with their culture, a culture they had created, not God and not the Bible. And then we, as the church, burden the new believer with this internal culture of ours. The massive shift from non-Christian to Christian is hard enough without the overwhelming shift from non-churched to churched making it worse by many times. Why set them a road block other than the gospel itself with its demands? And why set it for ourselves?

We want to create a church that holds the culture for what it is, culture, our culture, but also understands that our culture is not our faith. We want to free people to ask the hard questions without fear of reprisal. We want to allow people to question their faith, and our faith, and by doing so, come to understand with a depth that can only come by facing what we fear and doing it together through community. People should not stand alone, so we will stand together. Thus, for these and many other reasons, we are creating The Gathering. Real life, Real People, Real Passion.