Friday, November 5, 2010

Southern Baptist Evangelist?

Today my worst fear came true...well actually that is a gross exaggeration but for the sake of humor I will say that...
I have told you our Micah is a rare bird. The boy is sensitive and passionate and loving and spiteful and kind and ugly all in one. The things he says and does really amaze me. Again another picture of our great God and how He knit Micah together to be who He is, no chance or happenstance could have made my little boy.
All this to say this morning we are all sitting around the table for breakfast, a miracle in itself...not Mick but the three of us...and I remind Micah to say the blessing. He says we only bless dinner. Ahhh, can you tell I forget at breakfast alot, so much so that Micah thinks it unacceptable to bless it. So I start to tell him we thank God for every meal and he looks at me and says, "You know if you don't believe in God, you go to he-ell. (it is two syllables for my southern boy)" I told him yes, that I knew this but who told him that? He said Mick did and we moved on I wasn't really sure I wanted to go any further in that conversation. So we keep eating and he looks at me and tells me again..."If people don't believe in Jesus they go to he-eell." I said I know Micah but that is a hard concept for little boys brains, isn't that hard to understand? To which he replies "No it is not, if you don't believe in God you go to hell." Alright. I decided to go towards that "and that is why we tell people about Jesus, so they wont go to hell part" to which he replies "some people already went to hell because they didn't believe..." Ok. I then told him to eat his breakfast because I didn't know where else to go here...
...and inside my head I was cringing because I grew up Presbyterian at a high school with a whole bunch of Southern Baptist's who felt it was their mission to "save me from he-ell" even though I already believed in Jesus and God. Their views were very legalistic, they were very focused on keeping people from hell, rathering than seeing people go to heaven. And now I am raising one of them. Not if I can help it. All these well meaning Baptists are good people, and if you are reading my blog sorry for throwing you under the bus. I happen to attend a Southern Baptist church now (gasp) but still can't bring myself to be put under that label. Personal issues people. So hopefully you wont take this post too seriously, most of it is meant to be humorous. We are not raising our child to be a "Turn and Burn Preacher" but it is interesting what he chooses to focus on learning and what he actually understands and wants to talk about. We want him to know truth and I am glad he wants to hear it and understand it I just pray he gets a complete biblical worldview and isn't swayed to be judgemental or think he is above any body or that he's superior and that he grows up never knowing a day when he didn't believe Jesus was real and that heaven is where he is going when he dies...and not hell....but maybe notsomuch focus on the hell part.
I have thought of a thousand disclaimers to put on this post so please read it knowing it is a small snapshot of what we teach our child and what goes on, please read all my other blogposts to know what I represent, in case this one causes some confusion.

2 comments:

Sarah said...

HAHAHAHAHA! Oh this makes me laugh...out of the mouths of babes :) I also love that Micah turns one syllable words into two+ syllable words!

I would have loved to hear original the convo between Mick and Micah!

Love y'all!

Anonymous said...

Your blog has been changed and now I can't read the old posts.....I only tune in every week or so but I do enjoy the posts. With that said, coming from an X-Baptist background, not ALL Baptist are so judgemental but a lot of them are. You have to just take their comments knowing that in heaven there WILL be some Presbyterians as well as Methodist and Catholics!! You KNOW who posted this!!! Love you.