My eight-year-old son Henry isn't a big fan of church. It feels too crowded and pushy and like he'll get ambushed. He loves road trips and oceans where he can see vast distances. He says the open space makes him feel safe. So for the past few months my wife and daughter go to church, where my daughter loves working in the nursery and my wife either helps or finds great joy in meeting and blessing new people, and Henry and I take drives and talk. Sometimes we listen to books like Wild at Heart, or we go shooting. We talk about the importance of being the right kind of dangerous, like being dangerous to a bad guy who bursts into the house, or being someone who's trustworthy with a rifle. The last couple of Sundays we've gone squirrel hunting on a friend's property an hour north of town. Henry and I get to have these great conversations during the drive, and then long periods of silent companionship as we stalk the woods.
One of my hopes is to find a way for him to feel good about church. I think it's important, but I know too many people who don't go to church because they've been to church ... too much, and against their will. I want to help Henry find his own relationship with God and with the church.
Yesterday I explained that there are two parts to the connection with God. The first part is a person's personal connection. Henry has a remarkably deep personal prayer life. He says his prayers are mostly thank yous and requests, and that his requests are rarely answered the way he asks, but they're almost always answered better than he asks, the way a road trip is a better adventure than a planned trip.
The second part of the connection with God is partnering with God in His agenda, which is to reconnect with all of His children. Henry's comment was, "all people are connected to God, but only Christians know it." I admit, I love the generosity of that statement, and the childlike innocence of it, but I am confused about whether he's being innocently generous to the non-Christians or to the Christians.
When I brought up the second part, I could feel his guard start to rise. He could see church coming. I asked, "What if the second part looks like you showing other people the stuff you love doing with God, and once in a while you might point God out in it if that seemed right to do?" Then I shut up, because I knew I was crowding him. He sat with the thought for a couple of minutes before he spoke again.
"You know my favorite kind of stories, Dad?"
"No, what?"
"I call them O.S. stories." Then he looked at me as he made his choice about saying the words. "Oh shit stories. Like when a person does something that goes wrong and they say, 'Oh shit.' Those stories are always funny, at least when men tell them, because everyone knows what O.S. feels like, and usually it takes a pretty dumb mistake to get there. Like when you drove your truck into the pond at Badlands."
"Oh, I remember."
"What I like about O.S. stories is how people are ready for God to do something right after their O.S. moment. I think most people ignore God most of the time, but not right then. They say, 'oh shit,' and then they're willing to have Him help them. And it seems like most of the good God stories are really O.S. stories where God shows up. I wish church could be a few men telling O.S. stories. Sometimes the stories would be funny and sometimes scary. Sometimes they'd be old stories, and sometimes the person would be waiting for God to come help after their O.S. moment. I think a group like that would be fun, and that it would help men make better choices, and look for God when they made bad choices. I think it would be cool if as soon as a person said, 'Oh shit,' they realized they'd just prayed to God."
It would be cool if as soon as a person said, "Oh shit," they realized they'd just prayed to God.
Come on. I promise, if I've done anything right as a father, it's been staying out of the way so God can talk to Henry directly.
So we spent the next half hour telling O.S. stories. They were hilarious. And it's amazing how often that moment really is a prayer, and how often God does show up. I wasn't sure I was coaching the profanity part well, but I can totally picture a group of men sharing a story and the storyteller getting to the point where he holds up conductor hands and the whole group yells, "Oh shit!" at the right moment. That's where the story shifts into high gear.
Talk about an easy Bible study to put together, btw.
Our church is moving into a YMCA at the beginning of the year, and Henry and I are signed up to do set-up and tear-down of the chairs and such. But our current plan is to play hookie during the service, to see who wants to join us as part of H.O.S.T. – Henry's Oh Shit Team.
