A short Testimony: Jeremy Taylor

Now I would remind you, brothers of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you - unless you believed in vain. For I delivered unto you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures." 1 Cor 15:4 It is easy to gather here and many other places throughout Scripture that the gospel must have a primary place in the life of a believer. For when Christ died, he made an accomplishment, namely the atonement of sins. That accomplishment is offered freely to whosoever. When whosoever places faith in Christ's accomplishment, that accomplishment is then applied to them, forgiving them their sins. And not only are their sins forgiven but they are also counted as righteous, only for the righteousness of Christ credited to them that he would bring them to God (1 Peter 3:18). This is the gospel in summary. There is a remarkably small possibility that I will be remembering this when I wake up tomorrow. My head will lift off my pillow and my universe will begin to orbit around myself. In the way I judge my neighbor's and my own actions, in the things I desire to do, my strongest tendency will be to forget that Christ died for these. He has died for both my good and bad deeds. We cannot preach this to ourselves and to each other enough. We must continuously preach it for no one can be too gospel centered. Martin Luther even emphasized that, "The gospel must not be written it must be screamed!" Myself being raised as a minister's kid, I have spent little time in my life away from church both the institution and its subculture. Through my teenage years I was involved in most all church activities and even through college served as a youth intern, lead music, and knew very few people who were not familiar faces at my local church. I experienced many ridiculous, awkward, and beautiful stories you may find familiar regarding suburban American church life if youve spent much time in it. I spent much of my childhood in a church in south Alabama during the late 80s and early 90s. My family and I have life-long friends from this community. For part of my high school and all of my college life, I lived in the next town only thirty minutes from this church and took advantage of continuing to enjoy these relationships while in such close proximity. During this time, the church from my childhood asked me to help with incorporating contemporary music (here meaning something other than the choir and organ) into their Sunday morning worship. I was flattered by their offer and for several months made trips to chunk away on my guitar leading songs commonly heard on inspirational radio. I remember a particular moment of leading a song that about 20 out of 70 seated people were singing along with and two people at the very front standing with hands raised. Well into the song, the music minister began to flail his arms encouraging the congregation to now stand. Unprepared for this and beginning to feel a sense of panic, I struggled to focus on where I was in the song while I watched about half of the people slowly stand up with discomfort for the end of the song. This was one of the more awkward experiences. After a few months of this I realized that I was being used as a desperate attempt to draw new faces into their dwindling congregation. I cannot say this enough: I was a DESPERATE attempt! As I began to see how not just futile but man-centered those efforts were I became confused by the leadership and felt heartache for the congregation. I recently saw an advertisement online for a church in that same small town which read: Not Your Typical Church: You wont need Red Bull to stay awake here! Church shouldnt be equated with a trip to the dentist. Dont endure church, EXPERIENCE IT! Out of college and having moved to Atlanta for a job, I began attending a large church as a stranger in search of community and got mixed in with their different crowds. I joined one of their weekly dinner groups and even shared an apartment with my small group Bible study leader. They did all the church things that I was so familiar with. They even spoke of God as though he was interesting. But the truth is God is not interesting. He is deeply upsetting. And as time crept passed, I felt that my faith was becoming lifeless and existing to please

itself. I became restless and began to wonder what was missing. Why did I feel like I was no further ahead? Why was I not feeling either offended or liberated? I now know it was because I had forgotten the Gospel and was not believing that my sin is real and that my Savior is too. From close and frequent involvement within churches, I have witnessed many activities, some in which man was exalted, some in which Christ was merely absent, and what seemed the least common - Christ exalting. And what I observed to be unique in the rare events where Christ was exalted were the times when I, at the same time, felt both rebuked and overjoyed. Many Christian churches often post detailed statements of their theological distinctives; however, if you spend enough time listening, you might observe in the attention of their preaching and practice are things that are at best secondary or peripheral to the Gospel. As A.W. Tozer has said, "It is not so much what a church believes that matters so much as what a church believes with sufficient urgency to emphasize. Like a woman who thinks she needs plastic surgery to be loved, many churches are in a mid-life crisis chasing after lovers less wild than Christ. I have learned that it is nothing new to easily find numbers of churches compromising their worship service styles, methods of discipleship, and the message that is of most importance in hopes of growing their numbers of attendees, therefore measuring the church as "successful. In retrospect, I am especially in awe not only of God directing me to a Christ-centered church, but also for giving me so many opportunities to serve and grow here. When moving to this community earlier this year, it was an overwhelming blessing to have everyone help from carrying furniture, cleaning the kitchen, dremeling holes, to driving up with a hot casserole! After explaining my frustrations to a brother of not having air conditioning for two weeks, trying to sound all wise, I said something about common graces and how my problems are small. He reminded me that our problem has indeed been solved. Gospel community - local works and words of grace and mercy are being underscored in these and many other forms. All because our problem has been solved. Through the amazing grace of God, I have met people and been directed to resources that have guided and encouraged me to wrestle out my faith with humility and most importantly to prioritize the Gospel. They have shown me just a glimpse of the value of a Gospel centered church; they have challenged my desire for Gods word, and have convicted my indifference toward prayer. The sins of flippancy, slothfulness, false modesty, and many others are no stranger to my life and they are not small. But neither is our great Savior. Though my flesh desires approval of man, the power of the Spirit in the remembering of the work of Christ on the cross and his resurrection stirs my heart to believe that he pleads my pardon with his blood that God would look with favor on me. It was no difficult decision to join this fellowship. There is no church apart from Christ.