Having been raised in a series of relatively conservative churches and gone to a liberal arts college, I find myself as a Christian in a bit of a paradox. I am thoroughly convinced of the truth of Christianity and well equipped to understand and defend it. I see and affirm the value of the orthodox beliefs and practices that unite Christians across space of time in this thing we call the Body of Christ.

And yet…

And yet, something in my conception of ‘church’ seems missing. I found this at college where I met people who were super active and excited about helping the poor, the needy, the oppressed. I found people who sought deeper meaning and were always questioning and re-examining their beliefs and thoughts, lest they had made some error and invited falshood into their understanding. I encountered a richness and life that paled my high school youth group. This was not limited either to the ‘secular’ part of campus. In fact, my fellowship seemed to be on the forefront of issues of race, oppression, social justice and through them I found a richness in my Christian heritage that I had never seen before.

How did I miss this? How could I have read the Bible cover-to-cover, supposedly under the principle that its existence was intimately tied in with the voice of God, and missed so much? I have begun to feel that there is something missing in the world of church that I had before college. I go back to my church from high school and feel like there is an energy and life that is missing there.

In short, I am emerging. I am caught in the paradox of affirming the incubator that raised me, and yet feeling its gross inadequacies. Apparently, I am not alone. There is an entire community of people like me, coming from all sorts of backgrounds who feel like Christianity has become often stagnant in the modern (or rather postmodern) age and that something must be done. What this ‘something’ is unclear, but a conversation has emerged as to how we must change in order to continue to best strive towards the ideal laid out by Christ.

‘Conversation really seems to be one of the best ways of describing this ‘movement.’ The growth of the ‘social web’ (or to use the buzzword – Web 2.0) has made for an ideal ground for individuals, leaders, theologians, authors, and skeptics to share thoughts, ideas and exercise this conversation. This blog is my own little participation in this endeavor. My prayer is that it will be useful and informative to all who read it (and to its writer) as I attempt to struggle to find understanding, truth and meaning in a complex world.