I'm a follower of the Christ path, and that opens a huge discussion about what we even mean by words like "Christian."

I didn't want to be a priest. I wanted to do the work that priests do, and that required becoming a priest.

When someone asks us where we want to be in our lives, the last thing that occurs to us is to look down at our feet and say, 'Here, I guess, since this is where I am.'

The boundaries became constrictive in what I was doing, and if my faith grew, it was because I pressed some of the boundaries in ways I hadn't felt comfortable or responsible doing that before.

If churches saw their mission in the same way, there is no telling what might happen. What if people were invited to come tell what they already know of God instead of to learn what they are supposed to believe? What if they were blessed for what they are doing in the world instead of chastened for not doing more at church? What if church felt more like a way station than a destination? What if the church’s job were to move people out the door instead of trying to keep them in, by convincing them that God needed them more in the world than in the church?

I found myself in a maze where I'd taken the wrong turn. In my wish to do well for that congregation I wasn't doing particularly well for myself or my friends or my family, and I even found that the work for God was taking me away from God.

Prayer is happening, and it is not necessarily something that I am doing. God is happening, and I am lucky enough to know that I am in The Midst.