For me, Christianity is the belief in a loving, compassionate God who realizes that my mistakes are simply growing pains. It is lack of judgment and unconditional forgiveness. It is universal acceptance and love, regardless of how many times you abuse it or take it for granted or leave it for last or forget about it. It replaces the old covenant of the Law and Penance with a new one of forgiveness, of penance paid by Jesus instead of by you. It sounds to me that like hundreds of millions of others in the world who grew up in a "Christian" church, your church and religious environment focused almost exclusively on unimportant (and often false/fabricated) aspects of Christianity. Religious institutions are driving people away from Christianity by the millions. It's really sad. I'm glad you're leaving Religion rather than leaving God. All too often people mistake them for the same thing. I just want you to know that Christianity as it is described in the New Testament is drastically different from what the Church or Religion says it is. I pretty much stopped going to church when I came to college, but I still consider myself a Christian. I find it much easier to experience, learn about, and communicate with God just by praying by myself, by experiencing and pondering the world and the universe, and by reading hymns, poetry, and the Bible by myself. I'm glad you're dissociating God from 'judgement and guilt' and from the ridiculous mainstream Christian communities within which one must walk on eggshells. It's ridiculous, and I don't believe those have anything to do with God. Good luck with your spiritual journey! God is good. Out of curiosity, which particular sect did you grow up in?
I wouldn't say my church focused on the unimportant things. I grew up in a Baptist church, but nothing like the Westboro Baptist Church (they really shouldn't call themselves that). My pastor always gave great sermons about how to live a compassionate life. I'm currently in college and haven't attended a church regularly since I've been in school and I've come to realize that church isn't a necessity of believing in God.It is universal acceptance and love, regardless of how many times you abuse it or take it for granted or leave it for last or forget about it.
I thoroughly believe this. I don't believe there's a need to go to church or subscribe to a certain religion in order to find this though. From what I've gathered, it seems to be that at their cores, most religions do preach peace and love. But it gets to the point where one form believes their form of love is greater than the other that everything goes to hell. I believe that if we open up our eyes and see God in everything, then the same core values preached in religious institutions will instill themselves within individuals.
I grew up in a Baptist church too. I've been going it alone spiritually for a while now, and while I certainly agree church and a relationship with God are not mutually inclusive, I also think that it's a lot harder to nurture a relationship with God by myself. I'm trying to find a good community here at school that can play the role church used to. I didn't realize how important community was until I left mine. It's surprisingly hard to find any friends who take God seriously outside of one. Are you involved in some non-church God-oriented community?
I've found that meditation helps with that. But yeah, having a community does help with growth in every respect I've noticed. I do have my girlfriend who has similar views so at least that's another person. I haven't really thought to look for a group. How do even search for that? "Seeking Spiritual People to Pursue Personal Growth" That could work...
Yeah no problem. I'd try calm.com as a good starting point. It's guided, but it'll definitely get you into the right mind frame. There are different ways of going about meditation I've noticed. You can either try and clear your mind (what I typically do), or focus on God. Either way, it's very soothing and gets you into the present. That's the hardest thing I've found, is to clear my mind so much that I'm not focusing on anything but meditating, but it's good practice. Yeah, the only thing about those though is that you might get into too much Christian dogma that could potentially bog down the actual message. But it's definitely worth a shot.