Existentials Over Eggs

I've landed in the middle of existential crises - not my own, thankfully. Over the course of the past week, I've been engaged in conversations with my roommate and one of my best friends here at Candler about the import of faith in some pretty big decisions in their lives.

It started with a drug-induced (prescribed of course) blast about radical discipleship and comfortable living and came to a crescendo this morning. I discussed one of Wesley's famous questions - "How can I be assured?" over scrambled eggs and overpriced bacon with one friend and returned home to hear the other, taking a respite from devouring Shane Claiborne's The Irresistible Revolution, announcing that he was going to write a book, The Gospel in the Suburbs. The book, of course, has already been written, but I hope he writes it or at least thinks more about it.

I couldn't help but walk back to my room with a smile on my face as I began to procrastinate from writing my CPE application. Not because I was enjoying their plight, but because I thought that these are the questions we should have been asking the last two years. Not the questions about whether a theologian had credibility if they used masculine language for God or whether you could be a republican and a Christian at the same time.

But the real ones, the ones about, "How can I know that God is God and not my own imagination" and "If I believe that God is, how do I live into that? How do I live into that in the inner city? How do I live into that in the ivory tower of the academy? How do I live into it in the suburbs? How do I live into it in the ordination process? How do I live into that in my relationships? How do I live into it in my life?

I came to seminary in part hoping to find a community that would allow me to ask these types of questions with like-passioned people all struggling with what it means to be the body of Christ, redeemed by his blood. I have been having these conversations more and more of late, about how to follow Jesus and not ourselves.

I will be really disappointed if I don't have more of them. This week has contained some of the deepest theological reflection of my life here in Atlanta. Existential crisis...a mark of the church? Maybe not, but not far away I think.