A Ramble About My Deepest Desires

 I don’t remember if I’ve ever talked about this before. That isn’t so much a surprise. I’m having trouble remembering what was said to me five minute previous lately, so if I’ve said this before, please forgive my redundancy. It’s come up again recently, and I feel the need to share it now. 

In a way, it started with Disney’s Hercules animated movie. 

I still remember the first time I saw this movie. My wife and I were both still in college at Prairie Bible College, and we were over at a house rented by a group of friends and classmates. We were still dating at the time, and weren’t yet married. I hadn’t seen the movie in theaters, which, for me, was unusual in and of itself as I grew up going to the theaters regularly to see new releases, and Disney animated films  were frequently high on the list along with science fiction and action films. But, we were over there to watch a movie and the choice of the night was, I believe, a VHS of Hercules.

So, we’re over there watching this movie, and as it goes further into it, I become emotional and my eyes start tearing up to the point where I have to leave the room to recover myself in private. Mind you, it’s not the first Disney movie I’ve teared up at (yes, I’m one of those guys), but it is the first time I’ve had an emotional reaction so strong.

So, what were the scenes which provoked such a powerful response in me?

The first was when Hercules sings “Go the Distance.” The second, where I couldn’t control it any further and had to leave the room, was when Hercules is welcomed onto Olympus with cheering crowds. I was sobbing in the bathroom trying to rein it in and failing miserably.

That was over twenty two, almost twenty three years ago, and I’ve had that much time to try and understand my reaction to that and to other similar things, like why Annie Lennox’s “Into the West” affects me so much. I realized then, and have reflected on it since, that I reacted so emotionally to this because it was the deepest, most profound desire of my heart, more than anything else possible.

It was the desire to go home, to a people and a place where I belonged, where I would be welcomed and loved with open arms. Perhaps even a place where I would feel safe.

Especially up to that point when I was twenty two years old, I had never felt that from anyone. 

Now, whether or not they tried is another matter entirely as my brain could not process what other people were feeling towards me. Not in real time anyway. It would take weeks if not months or years for my brain to work through that kind of information, and, of course, by that point in time it would be too late. So, this is not to put blame on anyone, or shame anyone in my life, this is just to explain where I have been at emotionally.

This has come up again internally for me in the past few days, even as recently as this morning as I was watching another video of something entirely different on Youtube. It was an interview with a man who is now a pastor who had a Near Death Experience thirty five years ago where being an avowed atheist at the time he had a hellish experience of dark creatures trying to tear him apart. In the middle of this experience he heard a voice telling him to pray to Jesus, a figure in which he had not believed in any capacity since he was a child. Reaching down into this part of his disembodied psyche he crudely and awkwardly cried out to Jesus, and the response was immediate as the dark creature fled cursing and swearing at him, and Jesus showed up in full, luminous glory and rescued him from the torment. It was his description of what happened then that really opened this up again for me. He said that Jesus scooped him up in his arms like a child and held him, rubbing his back in a soothing manner. He said he felt not only that He loved him, but that He really liked him as well.

And I realized once again that, more than anything, that is my deepest desire. To feel unconditionally loved and liked. It’s one thing to know someone loves you, it’s an entirely different thing to feel it. Folks with my condition (ASD, Asperger’s) can’t mirror what someone else is feeling and so have to go on what they say and whether their actions appear positive or negative towards them. Eventually, enough people take advantage of this, and you learn the hard way not to trust anything anyone says even as you try to be as honest as you can be even when it costs you.

And then, as I’ve had time over the years between the movie and this video, I’ve had time to also realize that, the truth is, I’m afraid to trust someone like that. I’m afraid to trust that someone loves me and will never turn away from me, even if I know it as an absolute certainty. I’ve always got my “shields up” in some way to keep myself from being emotionally hurt any more than I have been.

This has never precluded me from loving and caring about other people. That was a choice I made a long time ago. I still remember actually making that choice. I was in High School and it was the lunch period. I decided, in whatever capacity I had, that I was going to care about people regardless of how they made me feel or regardless of whether they cared about me. At that point in time, from my perspective, I didn’t feel like anyone did, but I didn’t want to be that person and I wanted to follow Christ and what He taught. I can’t say I knew what that meant at that point in time, or that I did it perfectly or even mediocrely from then on, but it was a choice I made then and there.

But this fear to trust in someone else’s unconditional love for me has cost me, and continues to cost me.  The older I get, the more I contemplate the call homewards and what that means. It’s like spending hours building up your character on an MMORPG only to have your account disconnected and you have to rejoin reality. All the progress you’ve made in the game is suddenly and permanently gone.

The irony of it all is, I do know what that pastor with the NDE was talking about. I have, at certain seemingly random moments, experienced that unconditional, infinite love of God for myself as well as His love for others through me. It is indescribably overpowering and relentless. There have been several times in my life when He has broken through the defects in my brain to reveal that to me. I didn’t need to have an NDE to experience it. I know what awaits me. I know all of it, and yet there is still this fear within me. This irrational “what if” based on those years of being “indoctrinated” not to trust that someone who professes to care about me isn’t going to turn on me in some way.

And here’s the truth of all of it, God knows I struggle with this. He loves me, and even likes me anyway. He knows I reach out to Him in spite of my struggles, and He cheers me when I do. He knows the deepest desires of my heart, and they’re His desires for me too. Every time I fight past this is a victory, and every time I break down because of it, He’s right there just like He always is.

I know that welcome is waiting for me, and every day brings me closer to going home where I belong.

Thoughts on MMORPGS and Impermanence

I've been playing World of Warcraft today, and it got me to thinking as I was playing it. One spends their time, hundreds of hours possibly, playing one character. They advance them from level to level, gaining experience, knowledge, power, and wealth. They gain greater and greater gear until they are nearly unstoppable and are smashing everything in their path. they are very near, forgive the term, gods on the server on which they play.

What happens then when that server is shut down? What happens when they no longer have access to their account either because it no longer exists or because, perhaps, they've been banned for bad behavior? The answer is that they lose everything they've worked for. Their wealth, their abilities, their extraordinary reputation. It's all gone. It all exists only as a memory.

It struck me today that this is an analogy of life. We spend years striving to accumulate new experiences, reputation, power, wealth, possessions, and then "poof." It's all irretrievably gone. The truth is that in order to really enjoy a game like WoW, you have to play it with the truth of the impermanence of everything you do in it in mind, and the ability to accept that what you're working for is merely an illusion that feels good in the moment but is intangible and unable to be held onto.

This is a truth of real life as well. In order to really enjoy real life, you must live it on the understanding that nothing you accumulate, no power, no wealth, no ability, no possession is permanent or retainable. As soon as you are "disconnected," it's all gone. Everything you worked so hard to achieve, for you, is up in smoke like it never existed. And then you are surrounded by Existence Himself, naked and without anything you thought was so important.

Fundamentally, this is why the practice of detachment is so important in living this life. You have to be willing and able to let go of those things you've worked so hard for, because you will lose them. You have to be willing and able to let go of those relationships you've developed, because, generally speaking, once you're "disconnected," you're disconnected from them too just like losing all connection with your guild mates once a server shuts down. We can talk about meeting again when there's nothing to blind us to the presence of God, but it's clear those relationships will be changed and different from anything we experience in life.

In fact, if a person has their entire life wrapped up in an MMORPG, when real life hits, they will find themselves powerless, unable to cope, poor, friendless, and in torment. The only way to successfully separate from an MMORPG is to keep the real world in view; that is, to keep one's attentions and living centered and grounded in the real world so that when the inevitable shutdown happens, one can move on with relative ease because they recognized the game was merely a diversion and an illusion.

So it is with life.

For all of us, we must play the game because the "character" we play was born into it, but we must play it recognizing that it is neither permanent nor can we keep any achievement or any possession we have striven for. Like an MMORPG, life is not about "winning" the game, it's about enjoying your time there until you must return to the real world.

A Ramble About Galaxy Quest

I was watching Galaxy Quest again last night. This has to be one of my all-time favorite movies. In short, it is a parody of Star Trek starring Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, the late and inestimable Alan Rickman, and Tony Shalhoub of Monk fame. In it, the actors who play the bridge crew of the titular television show are transported into space onto a full scale working replica of their fictional starship by aliens, the Thermians, who believe them to be the actual people depicted on the show, which of course they are not, and are nothing like.

What I really like about this movie is the change which occurs in the main characters. They go from being squabbling, has been actors, some of which with apparent substance dependency issues and self doubts, to being the competent heroes the Thermians believe them to be by the end.

What effects this change?

The Thermians believed in them. They believed, not in who they were, but in who they believed them to be and could be. They believed in this better version of them so strongly and so innocently that, through failure, struggle, and loss the crew became who the Thermians always knew they were. 

Jason Nesmith, the Captain Kirk like actor, especially undergoes a transformation from an irresponsible alcoholic to the responsible and competent Commander Peter Quincy Taggert and the change is visible in his eyes and manner. In a way, Jason Nesmith is made to endure his own Kobayashi Maru test, and through this test he becomes the real leader he was always meant to be.

Another thing that stands out is the first person to really accept her role on the ship is the person with the arguably laughable job of repeating the computer. As she says, "I have one job on this lousy ship. It's stupid, but I'm going to do it, okay?" I find a poetic irony that she becomes one of the most important members of the crew. You see, the computer had been keyed to her voice by the Thermians. It wouldn't answer anyone else when they made an inquiry. They wouldn't have been able to locate a new power source for the damaged ship without her.

The more you tell someone who they are, the more they will mold themselves to that expectation. Never underestimate the sheer power of believing in who someone can be. Likewise, never underestimate the position which seems laughable. It could become the most critical of all.

Another Ramble about the Matrix

 I was rewatching Matrix yesterday. Among others, this movie and its sequels have a prominent place in my Science Fiction video collection. This time around, what caught my attention was when Agent Smith, the main antagonist of the movie, was interrogating Morpheus, one of the main protagonists, and he was telling him about the first incarnation of the titular Matrix itself.

For those not in the know, within the movie, the "matrix" is a massively multiplayer virtual reality system to which all human beings are connected from birth. Human beings in this dystopian future are grown by machines and implanted with cybernetics so that their brains are linked to the matrix from gestation onwards. The machines do this to use the electrical energy produced by the human body as a power source after all other power sources were destroyed. The human beings connected to the matrix are completely unaware of any of this. They are born, age, live their lives, and die thinking that it is the late nineties. They go to school, go to work, pay taxes, raise families, and retire all blissfully ignorant of what the reality of the situation is. The main protagonists of the movie are those humans who have been disconnected from the matrix and who are trying to free others from it as well. The whole scenario is very much a modern take on Plato's allegory of the cave, and an intentional one at that.

As horrifying as the reality of this world appears, the machines were not intentionally cruel to those human beings they grew as Agent Smith, himself a machine program, explains. The first incarnation of the matrix, he tells us, was meant to be a utopian paradise for humans to experience where no one was unhappy or in need of anything. He then tells us that it was a failure. Whole fields of human beings were lost. Millions dead. Why? Because the human mind couldn't accept the program. It couldn't accept that everything could be perfect. As a result, the machines recalculated and tried again. This time, the world they created was a representation of what they considered to be the height of human civilization, an urban landscape in the late nineties. Imperfect, but the best possible situation the human mind would accept without danger of rejection.

The reason why the machines in the movie are the antagonists and the humans trying to free those still connected are the protagonists is because the machines demand absolute control over the human beings, and those who do not submit to their control are considered a threat which must be eliminated.

There sometimes occurs the question as to why God, if He is all good and all powerful, does not just fix everyone and everything in the world. As I was thinking about this short piece of dialogue, it came to me that He would be no better than those machines if He did. If He just simply rewrote everything to where it would be a utopian paradise, and forced everyone into it, it would be just as artificial and untenable as the matrix.

God respects our free will more than that. He does not hide reality from us, but shows it to us both about the world and about ourselves in all its ugly glory, and He lets us make our own choices as to how to respond. If there is a matrix-like fictional reality in existence, it is one which the collective human mind has created for itself to protect itself from a reality it does not want to face. Human beings want to bury our heads in a fictional world of our own creation rather than face the reality God shows us. The hardest, ugliest truth about the reality we live in which we do not want to face is that we ourselves, human beings collectively, are the architects of the problems we face, and not Him. Our failures and our selfish actions are what has brought the world to the brink of catastrophe in which it finds itself.

Yes, God has the power to just make a paradaisical utopia right here and right now and ignore the consequences of our actions, but it wouldn't be the truth. And because it wouldn't be the truth, it wouldn't be who He is.

A Ramble About the Shadowlands

 Recently, Blizzard released four animation shorts to promote their upcoming expansion for World of Warcraft, Shadowlands. For those who don't know, this expansion takes place in WoW's realm of the dead, divided into four subrealms. These realms are Bastion, Maldraxxus, Ardenweald, and Revendreth and where a soul is sent after death, within this mythology, depends largely on who they were in life and how they lived (like most mythologies). Bastion is the subrealm of those who lived their life in service to the Light (the WoW metaphor for God or the good divinity), Maldraxxus is the subrealm of those who lived and died as warriors, Ardenweald is for those who lived in service to and connected to nature, while Revendreth is a kind of purgatory subrealm for those who lived in pride, cruelty, and evil to be given a last chance. There is a fifth subrealm called the Maw to which go those who are considered completely irredeemable, and most closely equates to Tartarus or the traditional understanding of hell.

One of these animated shorts focuses on a character from WoW lore called Draka. She was, and is in the short, an Orc warrior, the wife of Durotan who was chieftain of the Frostwolf clan, and mother of Ge'ol, also known as Thrall, who would become one of the most important heroes in the lore and arguably the most important warchief of the Horde in WoW history. Draka was sent to Maldraxxus after her death. What struck me about this short was, as one commentator described it, that in spite of all she had been in life and all she had loved in life, she had completely let go of who she was in life to become what she needed to be in the Shadowlands. There was no looking back, no pining over what was lost. The last she had seen of her son, he was a baby in a basket floating down the river while she lay dying from an ambush. Even this, she had let go. When she entered the Shadowlands, she accepted where she was and that everything she had been was now gone, and she moved on, rising in the ranks of Maldraxxus to become it's most important asset.

This was in contrast to the short with Uther the Lightbringer who was sent to Bastion, and rightfully so. He was, in life, a good and compassionate man, and a faithful servant of the Light in life. In Bastion, the expectation too was to let go of one's old life and move on in order to truly ascend. But because of a wound Uther had received to his very soul, he couldn't. No matter how much time had passed he couldn't forget, let go of the wrong which had been done to him, which was very deep and grievous, and move on. As one commentator observed, his very soul had been split in two by the way he died and he could not let that go.

In Matthew 22 (WEB), there is an exchange between Jesus and the Sadducees as once more the Sanhedrin attempts to trap him with a Rabbinical argument:

On that day Sadducees (those who say that there is no resurrection) came to him. They asked him, saying, “Teacher, Moses said, ‘If a man dies, having no children, his brother shall marry his wife, and raise up seed for his brother.’ Now there were with us seven brothers. The first married and died, and having no seed left his wife to his brother. In the same way, the second also, and the third, to the seventh. After them all, the woman died. In the resurrection therefore, whose wife will she be of the seven? For they all had her.”

But Jesus answered them, "“You are mistaken, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God. " "For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are like God’s angels in heaven. " "But concerning the resurrection of the dead, haven’t you read that which was spoken to you by God, saying, " "‘I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob?’" "God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.”"

Death means a total letting go of those attachments and relationships which we form in life. Whoever and whatever we are in life does not translate to who and what we will be in death. As it is said, we brought nothing with us into this life, and we can take nothing out of it with us. All marital attachments, all parental attachments, and all familial relationships are dissolved upon death. Just as we can take no material possessions with us, neither can we take those relationships with us. Clinging to them, clinging to loves lost, clinging to hurts done us, clinging to those things in this life, no matter how righteous a life might be lived, will only trap us and thrust us into a torment of our own making even though, like Uther, we might be surrounded by the Divine Light. There is no greater hell than that we make for ourselves.

Jesus taught those who followed Him, if they wanted to follow Him, that they had to disown themselves, and pick up the method of their own executions. They had to destroy their psyches in order to save them. Everything He taught was about letting go of something to which one might be attached, whether it be relationships, material possessions, ideas, wrongs and hurts done to you, your own self-identity, everything which might hold you here and hold you back from fully surrendering to His Eternal Life and union with God through Him. Living as though having died means just that. Just as St. Paul wrote, "Be mindful of the things above, not the things on the earth, because you died and your life is now hidden with Christ in God" (Colossians 3:3-4).

We have a contrast in these animated shorts between a righteous man who couldn't let go, and a warrior woman who accepted her lot and moved on. In the end, Uther's inability to let go led not only to his own corruption, but also the corruption of another, while Draka's acceptance led to her being the key to Maldraxxus' deliverance. Whether the WoW writers intended it or not, there is a truth here to be understood.

When Bible Christianity Becomes a Cult

      This Ramble is likely going to upset some, but I believe this needs to be said and talked about. 

     I was reading a couple of posts by friends on Facebook earlier today. This, in and of itself, is not unusual. I read Facebook every day, several times a day, and far more than I actually should for my own mental health. But there was something about these two, somewhat contrasting posts that I haven’t been able to just let go of. As I thought more about it, I realized there was a profound and uncomfortable truth which Bible churches in the United States frequently ignore or don’t want to see.

     The first post I read was about “Christian Cults” and how to identify them. Of course, the usual suspects were identified: The Latter Day Saints, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and Seventh Day Adventists. The friend who re-posted the article is a Calvinist and subscribes to Reformed theology so none of this surprised me. The author of the article then went on to define a cult as a group or theology that does not subscribe to one or more of the theological positions so listed:  

1) the full deity and perfect humanity of Christ, 

2) His substitutionary death on the cross for our sins,

3) the Trinity,

4) justification or salvation by faith alone apart from works,

5) the virgin birth of Christ,

6) the Bible as without error,

7) the Bible as the only book that God has given, and

8) the bodily resurrection of Jesus from the dead.

     I couldn’t say I disagreed necessarily with any of these theological positions, but there was something about this article which didn’t sit well with me for the rest of the day. Honestly, I couldn’t put my finger on why, but something within me kept saying this definition of a cult was wrong and incomplete.

     A little bit of scrolling through Facebook later and I came across the very personal and courageous description by a friend of the physical abuse she, her mother, and her siblings suffered at the hands of her father. I had known this friend and her siblings from youth group at the church we both grew up in, and knew nothing about this. Her father was a deacon in the church we attended.

     After a while, another realization hit me. I knew the author was wrong about what really defines a cult, but only then did I understand why. Cults, as we understand them in modern society, aren’t defined by the doctrines and teachings they hold necessarily. They’re defined by the secrecy they keep. They’re defined by the half truths they tell their members which then become outright lies meant to keep them submissive and in line. They’re defined by leaders in the church who abuse their power, and a church system that sweeps everything under the rug to protect them. Do we see this in the aforementioned “cults”? Yes. Not everyone though, and not every local church and chapter. But there is no question that it is present, especially in their historical foundations. Do we see this in many Bible churches? The answer there, unfortunately, is also yes. We see this almost as much in “theologically sound” churches as much as we see it in “heretical” churches.

     Many Bible churches discourage reading anything, watching anything, or ingesting any “media” or information of which they do not approve, or of which they disagree. They also tend to discourage honest questions which arise when either history, science, or even Scripture itself plainly contradicts their approved theological viewpoint or point of practice (and often political alignments as well). The truth is that such questions are threatening to them because, frequently, they themselves do not have the foundation or background to answer them sufficiently. Such questions then become a threat to the established theology or ideology which forms the foundation of the members’ faith. When that theology becomes threatened with reasonable questions, the usual response is to attack the questioner and question their faith. I still remember overhearing a conversation between two teenagers about how one’s mother practically silenced him on influence and pressure from her church when he simply asked why he shouldn’t read a certain author’s book. The name of the church he mentioned is part of a well known Bible church “franchise” in California. The teenager was adamant he would never return to that church.

    Pastors and church leaders are frequently placed on pedestals, and there are more than a few that are willing to take advantage of that for personal and financial gain. This is just as true in Bible churches as it is in any other religious body, and especially with very large “megachurches” with well known “celebrity pastors.” Their writings, and most such do publish books, become a kind of deutero-canon for their churches which is virtually never challenged or questioned any more than the Christian practice or “Christlikeness” of the pastor is questioned or challenged. When the pastor uses his position to his advantage to abuse a congregant, frequently the congregant is too frightened to speak up. If they do, they are disbelieved, shouted down, and excommunicated for daring to accuse such a godly man.

    What good does it do for a church if they have a correct doctrine, but their leadership keeps the people uninformed, ignorant, and at times frightened in order to maintain power and cover up their own abuses?

     Christianity, true “Biblical” Christianity as Jesus Christ, St. Paul, St. John, and the rest of the New Testament authors taught is not a set of theological doctrines but a discipline and a practice of submission to the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ so that His life would express and manifest within and through you. It was seen and on display for the world to see in the Apostolic Church, and in the pre-Nicene Church of the first three centuries C.E. It was defined, not by one’s theology per se, but by the love, compassion, and power of Jesus Christ manifesting within and through the Christian. They didn’t care what a person said he believed, or even what he taught. They wouldn’t call a person a Christian if that person didn’t live, practice, and act like Jesus Christ.

     Cults teach that everything depends on them, and you can’t be saved without them. Christianity teaches that everything depends on Jesus Christ, and that salvation can only be found with union and submission to His death, burial, and resurrection.

If the Church was an MMORPG Raiding Party...

As most of my friends know, one of my hobbies is playing MMORPGs like World of Warcraft (WoW) and Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO). I’ve also dabbled in The Elder Scrolls Online, Dungeons and Dragons Online, and a few others, but I tend to keep coming back to WoW and LOTRO. As I was playing on WoW the other day, some thoughts about the structure of these games and their mechanics struck me about the Church and the roles we play within it.

There are a number of game mechanics within these games, but one of the most basic is the idea of the “party.” or, in LOTRO, the “fellowship.” This is a mechanic where a certain number of players group up and agree to share rewards and experience points in order to take on challenges more difficult than any one player could defeat on their own. These groups are usually five (dungeons and difficult surface bosses), ten, twenty five, or in some cases forty players all at once (extremely difficult raids) depending on the size of the challenge, but what I really want to talk about is most easily illustrated with the basic five person party and that’s the idea of the role each member of the party plays.

No matter the size of the party, there are only three roles filled by the players, Damage or DPS, Tank, and Healer. A standard five person party has three DPS, one Tank, and one Healer. Larger raiding parties tend to double and triple this, but the ratios are almost always kept similar. The Damage player’s role is to inflict as much damage on the boss objective as possible. The Tank player’s role is to draw the fire of the boss objective away from the other party members and onto himself or herself so they can do their jobs. The Healer player’s role is to use spells and even bandages to keep everyone alive under the boss objective’s intense onslaught of damage trying to kill everyone.

In addition there are the different classes of player characters which specialize in each role. Hunters, for example are exclusively damage dealers as are Mages. Priests are the most efficient healers in WoW. Warriors tend to be born tanks. And then there are some classes which can fill two or more roles as needed, though not nearly as effectively. Druids, for example can do everything, but are not the best at anything. Paladins can be used in every role, but they really shine best as tanks or healers. Death Knights can do either tank or DPS well, and at the same time. Each of these classes then also makes use of different kinds of weapons and armor which compliments the roles for which they are intended. Those intended to fight or heal from a distance wear light protection and those intended to fight up close and personal wear heavy protection. Priests and Mages wear cloth armor which does little to protect them from harm. Druids wear leather armor which is a little better, but not by much, but can be augmented when fighting as a tank. Hunters tend to wear either leather or mail. Paladins, Death Knights, and Warriors wear plate armor which offers the best protection as they are intended to be melee combatants and fight exclusively right next to their targets.

There is no one role or class in this system which is unimportant. Without the tank, the really big bad guy will head straight for the lightly armored damage dealers and healers and everyone dies. Without the healer (arguably the most important role in the party), the bad guys will overwhelm the tanks and damage dealers early on and everyone dies. Without the damage dealers, the tanks and healers won’t be able to take down the really big bad guy’s health quickly enough to defeat him before he kills them. Every role is important, and that every person understands their role and is able to do it effectively is vital.

If a player whose class is intended for healing, for example, tries to focus on damage dealing instead, the tanks won’t have the healing support they need and the party will fail. If the tank doesn’t know how to draw the bad guy’s attention away from everyone else, or tries to be a healer the bad guy will shift its focus and go after what it thinks are the bigger threats, i.e. those that are causing it the most damage. I remember the first time I was in a raid party I played as a tank because my main character at the time was a Paladin. The problem was, I didn’t know what I was doing. This was a twenty five person raid, and so there were two or three tanks that were supposed to be switching off. One drawing the bad guy’s attention while the other two were being healed from the effort. My Paladin was, at the time, ridiculously powerful (I could defeat certain maximum level dungeons and surface bosses on my own) and I thought the mechanics didn’t matter as much. I was wrong. I didn’t know how to keep his attention at first and was just trying to do as much damage as I could up close like I normally would when playing on my own. The raid failed the first time attempted because I didn’t understand the mechanics of how it worked, and every last player died. My not knowing my role and thinking I could handle it solo not only got me killed, it got everyone else killed too. The second time around, after we all respawned and healed to go at it again, the more experienced tanks showed me how to do it, and how to keep the bad guy’s attention, and as we got into the rhythm of taunting him, drawing his wrath, and then switching off,  and everyone did their jobs, we took him down and succeeded. For those WoW players reading this, that was the Kil’jaedan fight in Legion.

So, how does any of this relate to the Church? Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 12,

There are various kinds of service, and the same Lord. There are various kinds of workings, but the same God, who works all things in all. But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the profit of all. For to one is given through the Spirit the word of wisdom, and to another the word of knowledge, according to the same Spirit; to another faith, by the same Spirit; and to another gifts of healings, by the same Spirit; and to another workings of miracles; and to another prophecy; and to another discerning of spirits; to another different kinds of languages; and to another the interpretation of languages. But the one and the same Spirit works all of these, distributing to each one separately as he desires. (WEB)

In Ephesians 4 he also writes,

He gave some to be apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, shepherds and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, to the work of serving, to the building up of the body of Christ; (WEB)

Each of us within the body of Christ, and within each local church, is also built and empowered for specific roles just like in a dungeon or raiding party. Some of us are built for shepherding the church, others are built for evangelizing, still others are built for prophecy, healing, discernment, and so on. We are each of us equipped by God for our role in the group. Pastors aren’t meant to be evangelists, and healers aren’t meant to be teachers. Some people, like Druids, are built to fill any role needed, though are not the best in any one. Some are, like Priests, the best at healing, but not really anything else and putting them in other roles will only cause them pain and suffering. Can Pastors evangelize? Yes, but they’re not really built for it. They’re built for shepherding and guiding Christians, not converting unbelievers. In the same way, evangelists are built for spreading the gospel, not discipling Christians. There is no one role within the church which is unimportant, and no one person who is going to be able to fill all of them. As Paul also observes, if the body were all eyes, where would the sense of hearing be? If the church was only one role and one “class” as it were, how could it succeed in its quest?

As I was reflecting on this, I was thinking about all the churches I have heard of which are total messes. You can probably think of a few yourself. Many times, it boils down to one or more people within the church not understanding their role, what they were built for, and that they can’t solo everything on their own. To use MMORPG terms, the healer thinks she needs to be a tank, the tank thinks he needs to do everything on his own, and one ranged damage dealer is fighting up close like a melee combatant while the other five are at a distance cheering them on and occasionally lobbing an arrow or two just to say they did. And then there’s the odd rogue frequently stabbing the wrong person in the back…

Churches don’t work right unless everyone knows the role they’re supposed to play, how to play it, and how that role supports their fellow members. This last part is key, because the roles we play, we don’t play for ourselves. When you’re soloing something, it really doesn’t matter what your party role is because you’ve got to do it on your own against challenges meant for one person. But when you’re in a group, your role is to support everyone else in some way and keep them alive while their role is to support you and keep you alive. If you’re concentrated on yourself in a party, you’ll get yourself and everyone else killed. In the same way, if you’re only looking out for yourself within the church, you’ll make the entire church unhealthy.

Don’t try and fill a role you’re not suited for, but focus on the role for which God made you. It’s the only way you and the rest of the church will be able to conquer the most difficult challenges.