I lived as oldest child in a fairly large family in a small
Dutch city. Apparently my home town used
to have the largest Christian Reformed church in the country. However, about ten years before I was born, a
small yet significant group broke away from this church in order to continue as
“the only genuine church in town”. This
was my community. As teenagers we were
all expected to visit the weekly church doctrine classes, join a young people’s
study club, and attend the two Sunday services.
We also had our own schools, so there was hardly any social interaction
outside this safe and sheltered community.
My father was principal of the junior high school; all students belonged
to our church or neighborhood sister churches.
Among our peers we did not talk about God or Jesus; he was
not at the focus of our lives. Most of us
followed the expected code of behavior: we were good kids. We had a strange relationship with outsiders,
whether or not they went to (a different) church. It was an awkward combination of distrust and
fear. Of course we could not totally
avoid to meet other children, for instance in our street. Most of them went to bad churches, yet they
seemed to be very similar to us. They
were also decent and nice; even the godless children did not seem so
different. Except on Sundays. If people had asked us what a Christian is,
we would have replied, “On Sundays, Christians don’t do the weekday things, but
they go twice to church.” ‘Weekday
things’ was a somewhat flexible concept, but for us this included riding our
bicycles or doing any shopping. I remember several preachers proclaiming that
watching TV on Sundays was a serious sin.
We were Christians, for we respected God’s Law: we did not have any
idols in our house, and we did not steal a lot or lie a lot. But this was true for all our neighbors. The only ‘idol’ I could think of was the TV, yet
we were allowed to watch TV on Wednesday afternoons- at a neighbor’s house.
In our community this was the Christian lifestyle. I thought I was a Christian because I tried
hard to live according to the (church) community’s expectations. I did my best to please my parents and the
others in the church so they would praise me as a good boy. I adopted the behavior code to nurture my
personal pride through the praise of others.
I was at the centre of the universe.
Christ was not: I was not a Christian at that time.
My parents were strict and protective, because my father’s
role in the community and because they lost their firstborn daughter at a
precious young age. Therefore, when my
peers began to smoke and ride small motor bikes, my parents would not allow me
to do such things. A few years later my
peers began drinking and going out with girls.
My best friend abandoned me to hang out with the cool guys. I lived in a different reality from my peers,
and I became more proud for not participating in ‘the evil things of the world’. My parents noticed my social awkwardness and
tried to arrange me to spend Sundays with some peers. It did not work; I felt very embarrassed to
have them in our home.
Once a year all our church communities took a holiday. Buses from all over our (small) country would
bring the church people together for something like an annual pride
parade. During the long day the parents
would listen to speeches, while the young people would try to find a girl or
boy who also belonged to the true church.
One year I was old enough to go without my parents. When I got off the bus with my peers, they
said, “Let’s f**k some girls today!” I realize
they were just bragging, but I was appalled.
I spent most of the day just walking by myself. In senior high school I, and these two peers,
got jobs as letter carriers at the local post office. This was a great job: I got up at daybreak (about
5 a.m.) and had a five minute bike ride to the post office. Then I had to sort the mail for my district,
setting everything into the right order for delivery. When that was done, I would load the big
bicycle bags and set out to do my route.
Early afternoon I would be done.
The rest of the day was holiday!
Yet, sometimes the supervisor had some extra jobs to do, and he would
assign it to the person with the least working hours. So, he asked us about our times. My peers were bragging to me how they cheated
on their hours to avoid the extra work.
I was greatly disappointed, for I was ashamed that we, as ‘true
Christians’, would do such things. A few
days later I met another young fellow at the post office. He was a Christian, and over the weeks I got
to know him better. It was obvious that
he did not lie about his hours, and talking about Jesus seemed to come natural
to him. He invited me to his home where
I met his mother. She was on fire about
a missionary story she had just read.
Somehow I had a nagging feeling that I had just found some long lost
family and that “the genuine church of God” might be more elusive than I had
been taught.
In my late teens I finally got a grip on my social
awkwardness. For years I had been tossed
up and down between pride and depression.
I was a perfectionist, so I set high standards for myself and others. For weeks I could live in the clouds, looking
down on others. Then, as soon as I had
messed things up again, I came crashing down to the point of considering
suicide. I was afraid of public
attention; I always thought people were staring at me and talking about
me. To make things worse, in church
services we had to sit in church on the balcony. Large, stable families were encouraged to
have the upstairs pews assigned to them to avoid noisy young people from
creating a nuisance there during the service.
Since we were a family of ten, my father jumped to the opportunity. Now I sat on public display of the presumed critical
eye of half the congregation.
Yet, over time it dawned on me that my fear of criticism was
the natural consequence of my own critical attitudes. With God’s grace I started to accept others, and
I could take part of social life. On
weekends we hung out together with a growing group of young people. I became bold and organized sailing camps. I started drinking beer, and for a while I
even had a girl friend. But Christ was
not yet truly in the centre, even as I wanted him to be.
Today He is the centre of my life – most of the time. Whenever I become proud and push him to the periphery
of my life, I am faced with the crucified Christ. Like Peter, this cuts me to the heart: I have
betrayed my Savior - again! And when I
feel depressed, I also see the cross. I am
reminded of his amazing love: that He, my God, has died for me. As Timothy Keller would say, “I am a worse
sinner than I would ever dare to admit”, and yet “I am more deeply loved than I
could ever fathom.”
A few months ago in Holland I finally met some of my teenage peers again. Over the previous year I had found them on Facebook. I told them my story. They were surprised. I was happy that I am no longer ashamed about my youth, and I am glad that some of my friends have also developed rich spiritual lives, with Christ in the centre.
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