As I mentioned, it’s two years since we began the journey out of Egypt institutional church into what we deeply find a more free expression of church. In the movie The Lake House (which I talked about in the earlier post), the Sandra Bullock character is in 2006, and has the opportunity to tell something about the future to the Keanu Reeves character in 2004 (don’t worry, it’s not a major theme, so that isn’t a spoiler).

So after my earlier post, I’ve got to thinking… what would the 2006 me want to tell the 2004 me? If it were in my power, what would I say to the of 2004 that would have helped me most over the past two years? What perspectives have I gained in the past two years that would have been most helpful to have known two years ago?

Maybe I’d tell my 2004 self that when I got to a family gathering in a year and a half, I should go downstairs and put away the scissors so our youngest daughter wouldn’t cut her leg. I confess I would certainly want to tell my 2004 self which stocks to buy to gain huge returns so I’d be better off financially today than I was then. I’d probably want to tell myself which business deals were unwinnable and which ones I could have won with a slightly different response. And now that the money stuff and whatnot is out of the way, what else would I want to say?

Probably the biggest thing would be that there’s a short-term crisis event right at that time, and despite what it looks like, it’s a God-moment, and something to be embraced. It will eventually drive me out of the church, but that’s okay, because it’ll be an eye-opening blinder-removing experience that will make my faith stronger, not weaker. It’ll lead to a lot of rethinking, reimagining, and relearning. It’ll also lead to a freedom that the 2004 me can’t imagine and even the 2006 me isn’t fully comprehending. I would tell myself not to worry quite so much about my family in the change, as they’ll take to it as well as I do. I would give myself a couple of books to get started on reading right away, starting to better explain and understand the concepts of postmodernism, post-christendom, and missional living as quickly as possible. I would give myself some names of people, old friends to look up and new ones to get to know. But most of all, I think I would tell myself about detox. I would explain what it is and how to approach it, not to try and rush it or resent the fact that it’s needed… just enjoy it, and let it start to get the “Egypt” out of me.