Chocolate Milk, Erector Sets, and the 23rd Psalm

Moving From Religion to Relationship

The Journey Back To Eden — An Introduction

Chocolate Milk, Erector Sets, and the 23rd Psalm

I wish I could remember her name. Even her face has slipped into the closet of foggy childhood memories. But the sight of chalk board dust on my fingers or the smell of well-worn carpet cuts through my brain haze and beams me back to that cramped, upstairs classroom in Pampa, Texas, in 1974.

Dixie cups filled with chocolate milk and tiny sugar cookies greeted us each Sunday morning, and with wide-eyed anticipation we hurried up the stairs to claim our goodies. After all, cookies and chocolate milk at church, during church, for crying out loud, was an enticement so alluring that we literally raced down those long, narrow hallways to get to class, bumping each other as we went.

She must’ve had a heart of gold. Week after week in her sweet, soft spoken manner, my third grade Sunday school teacher prodded a dozen of us hyperactive brats to memorize the most cherished of King David’s songs, good ole’ number twenty three. It had to be memorized, mind you, from the Mother of All Versions, The King James. The words sounded strange and made little sense to me at the time, but the stakes were much too high to worry about all that. The game was on!

Did I memorize Psalm 23? You better believe it! So did every other young man in that room. Why were we so determined to quote a passage of Scripture we did not even understand? That's easy. Long before doctors debated A.D.D. and the pros and cons of Ritalin, this mild-mannered teacher understood perfectly well how to captivate and motivate the boys in her class: she gave Erector Sets as prizes.

Nintendo can’t hold a candle to the Erector Set. Back then, the recipe for fun was straightforward and simple: start with narrow strips of metal, add nuts and bolts, plastic gears and wheels, a ton of rubber bands, and mix with one good crescent wrench. Now stir in an eight year old boy’s imagination and mom’s got her own baby-sitter in a box. I literally played for hours on end with that Erector Set.

First I memorized the 23rd Psalm, then I constructed cars that really zoomed and helicopters that really twirled.

And a new desire was born.

From chocolate milk and Erector Sets emerged a child’s love for God. An Invisible Deity that rewarded kids with sweet treats and cool toys for reciting stuff about green pastures and still waters was worth investigating. This emotion, this stirring within my chest, was it like, puppy love? A curiosity for the Unseen? Or was my desire to memorize Scripture only driven by that general sense of satisfaction we all relish when a task is accomplished and a prize is awarded...like a good grade on a test, or a much deserved raise at work, or the fine work of a taxidermist that hangs on the wall in the sports room?

A spiritual longing? Kiddie curiosity? A sense of accomplishment? To be honest, I don’t really remember which it was, and furthermore, I don’t really care. That gentle woman whose name and face I cannot recall instilled a desire in me to “come to church,” nothing more, nothing less. She understood that children aren’t nearly as interested in the “shadows of death” and “cups running over” as they are sugar cookies and chocolate milk. And she wanted her students, rambunctious troublemakers that we were, to want to be there, in bible class, memorizing God’s Word. My teacher had the wisdom and foresight to see that getting us there was 90% of the battle. In case you were wondering, m’am, wherever you are, it worked like a charm.

Somewhere along the way, though, I lost the innocence and purity of quoting Hebrew poetry in third grade Sunday school. The inner drive that had me repeating those verses over and over in my mind until I knew them thoroughly and confidently seemed to vanish with age. The want to went out of me and I settled into the tedium of have to. The desire to be part of my church family was fueled by the teaching of “never forsake the assembly of the saints” lest you risk hell’s flames. And then I died. A slow, painful demise as I recall, occurring some time in my mid-teens.

My death was the sort that allows you to continue breathing in and out, but of course, that’s not true living. It is not the abundant life that Jesus promises. It is simply existing in a shell while the spirit withers away. And anyone reading this book who’s languishing into spiritual anorexia assembly-to-assembly, year-to-year, dead-on-the-vine in a church building, knows this is true.

“Christ in you, the hope of glory” wrote Paul of Tarsus. I, however, did not feel that Christ was in me, and I hadn’t a clue about glory. So I fossilized into my pew and became part of the decor, much like a song book in the rack or the river scene backdrop behind the baptistry.

As a teenager without hope or happiness, I came to believe that something was terribly wrong with me. “Church Life” was a sequence of events to be tolerated and endured for an hour or two each week, not savored and enjoyed indefinitely. “Discipleship” was a required exercise whereby you pinpoint the doctrinal failings of others and not the freewill pursuit of a loving Master. “Faithful” came to mean the lack of absences from the assembly, which in my congregation was carefully monitored and prominently displayed on a bulletin board spreadsheet in the foyer. The more “X’s” you had by your name, the better shot you had at squeeking into heaven. Just another contest, I mused, minus the cookies and Erector Sets.

“You must develop a personal relationship with Jesus” I once heard someone say. This I contemplated thoughtfully. “Is that accomplished before or after I learn the arguments for church leadership, male headship, and when to withdraw fellowship?” I was bewildered, frustrated, and angry, but mostly I was just deflated. “Why doesn’t it click for me,” I wondered. Heartbroken, I came to believe that my baptism didn’t take. Real life had eluded me.

All the wonder and amazement and mystery born in third grade bible class dissolved by adolescence. I wasn’t living in Christ; I was existing in religion. My milk had soured and my Erector Set had rusted, and I had no idea how or why it happened. This is not an accusation against any person or entity. It is simply what happened.

“I wanna go back,” Eddie Money pines, “and do it all over, but I can’t go back, I know.” Not so long ago I would have agreed with that lyric. But lately I’m experiencing a spiritual resurgence, like the blind man who received back his sight, like the lame man whose new legs allow him to dance again, like the smiling little boy with cookie crumbs on his Sunday best and a metallic creation in his hands.

What then is life as God promises it? The real, true, abundant life, as it relates to this thing we call “church?”

Real Life is that simple, honest, childlike desire to find God. Real Life is when you reach a point where you need your Christian brothers and sisters in the same way you need oxygen. Real Life is being so confident of God’s love and mercy, in spite of your imperfections, that you can go to sleep at night with a clear conscience and without muttering, “Please Lord, don’t come back tonight. I’m not sure I’m ready.”

Religion affects us in this way. Churches that focus on rule keeping and marking off a spiritual checklist may expect one outcome: the spiritual death of her people. “The law kills, but the Spirit gives life” Paul told Corinth. One is written on cold stone, the other on the human heart. Someone has well said that “every day, people are walking away from church and going back to God.” My desire is to see that the two stay inextricably connected to one another.

This book was written for one purpose only: to help you and me move from “doing religion” to “developing a relationship” with God. If you choose to keep reading, exactly what that statement means will be fleshed out in detail later. But for now, consider this:

Only by living in Christ are you enabled to live for Christ, not vice versa. Only then will the God-shaped hole in your soul be filled and the hunger in your spiritual life be satisfied.
Knowing about Him is not the same as knowing Him, and the accumulation of facts does not equate intimacy with God.
The Creator has always wanted, has only wanted, a relationship with His creation. Simply “doing religion” was never part of God's plan for mankind, and anything that is not His plan inevitably disorients, divides, and destroys people.

To have an intimate relationship with God stands in stark contrast to merely existing within a religious body, going through the heart-numbing motions of ritual like a grocery list. “Every man dies, but not every man really lives” is the best line in Braveheart. But it’s also a profound spiritual truth and the seedbed for the work which you now hold in your hands. Real Life is found in a relationship with Jesus.

You will not find any Ph.D’s or pedigrees to back up the ideas on these pages. I’m just an ordinary guy on an extraordinary journey back to a small, upstairs classroom in Pampa, Texas. I invite you to join me on the trip. Our goal is significant. We'll drink chocolate milk out of paper cups and watch our teacher’s face shine with pride when we flawlessly quote, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want...” But most of all, we’ll search out, find, and fall in love again with the God that religion has stolen from so many. Our quest will be to rediscover, and keep forever, the want to.

Perhaps one day I’ll recall my teacher’s name, or see her face in my mind’s eye. Then again, with my memory, it’s doubtful. Either way, I’ll say a prayer of thanks today on her behalf. One thing’s for sure, though. When I get to heaven, I'm going to hug her neck, say “Thank you” in person, and then quote Psalm 23 from the KJV. Even after 28 years I can still recall it as easily as my home address.

And maybe, if God will provide, I’ll give her a new Erector Set.

Revised June 18, 2008
RW Harris, Minister
Crossview Community Church