Matt Tebbe - Having the Mind of Christ: Eight Axioms to Cultivate a Robust Faith

Like Matt, I had to wrestle with my share of internal doubts and questions about faith while serving as a pastor. But what really disoriented me was seeing the hypocrisy and lack of humility of those who were leading and mentoring me in faith and ministry. There was the youth pastor whose ministry changed my life, who later abandoned his wife and kids to run off with a teenage girl half his age. There was the pastor who preached against gossip but in staff meetings would slander anyone who challenged or disagreed with him. There was the ministry leader who had built an impressive organization that seemed to be helping many churches; behind the scenes he was controlling, arrogant, obsessed with his own image and legacy, and willing to lie at the drop of a hat to preserve his reputation as a godly leader. Im grieved that my participation with and support of these leaders has likely caused harm to people; but when I was working with these leaders, I couldnt see this clearly. Is this just how it is in leadership? I wondered. Am I being naive to think we should be held to a higher standard of integrity? Is this just how the sausage is made, and I need to sear my conscience and get used to it?

In these and other ways, we have been facing this phenomenon some call deconstruction for the better part of twenty years. Deconstruction might not be the perfect metaphor for this process, but it names a very real and painful experience of disorientation and disillusionment that more and more Christians seem to experience. We hear statements like these a lot:

The things that go along with being a Christian in the United Statesthe culture, politics, and entertainmentdidnt used to bother me, but now they do.

When I first became a Christian, I couldnt get enough of church; now, its hard for me to make myself go.

Sayings that used to ring true and bring comfort now seem trite and flimsy.

I used to get so much benefit out of prayer and reading Scripture; now, when I pray and read I have old memories of hurt and betrayal that come to mind. Spiritual disciplines are triggering for me, and I dont know how to be close to God anymore.

However, in facing these sorts of questions, Matt and I havent lost our Christian faith. In fact, we are more committed to Jesus than ever before. When everything else failed us, we came back to the one thing we knew: we wanted to be like Jesus when we grew up. And so, we decided to relearn, again and again, what it meant to be a Christian. This book is the fruit of over twenty years of unlearning and relearning from Jesus how to be a Christian. We are still unlearning and relearning as we go. But the fruit of our twenty years of wrestling is that we now have a way of reconstructing Christian faith as an agile, here and now, moment-by-moment awareness of God in everyday life, centered in the love of Jesus Christ. We want to share with you the shape of this ongoing reconstruction of faith.