08.16.08
About Brett the Lofter
Left of Self Center was a group of words that I felt God press into my heart. I didn’t grow up in church in particular save for the once or twice a year pilgrimage to celebrate Easter or Christmas. I did go to twelve years of parochial to escape the local public schools however but that was a strange experience for a person who had been baptized as a Protestant but lived in a Catholic world. God intrigued me but in some ways I was a stranger in a strange land who was able to participate fully.
I came to true faith and relationship with God when I took the leadership of a small group that was meant to build up Christian families. What I saw was people being cast out and judged even though these were the people who needed to hear what was being said the most. I saw the hypocritical side of Christianity, the one I lived in my own life, face to face. It was not a pleasing sight to me. I stood up to these people saying that Jesus came for the sinner, not for the religious and that these people were being modern day Pharisees. Yet I was a Pharisee of the highest order myself in practice. Disillusioned I left the church.
Soon after, my life fell apart. I found myself in the proverbial pit, crushed by the pressure of the depths like Jonah experienced in Jonah 2. God found me there and he saved me. I began to realize that it wasn’t about the ritual, it was about the relationship. I wish I could say I got it right from there but God has had to continuously work on me, taking away the masks with which I hit myself with and breaking off the rough edges. I have had to learn many lessons that I now realize that many people struggle with: authority, rebelliousness, submission, self-centered versus God-centered life, the nature of relationship, humility, love, and many more.
Though I have always considered myself a Christian, I have only been a true Christian for 4 years. This blog is my attempt to share the lessons I have learned as I come to embrace my relationship with my God through Christ. I do not hold to any particular denomination stance as I believe that most of them have their strengths and weaknesses. I joke that I am a mutt Christian. Despite this you may see evidences of my past experiences in the Roman Catholic, Baptist, Pentacostal, Methodist, Prebyterian, Lutheran, and Non-Denominational style churches. I do embrace a missional stance especially in terms of building relationships with my fellow believer and I do agree with many of the ideas found in the Emergent Church movement as long as it doesn’t devolve into a Christianity Light mentality.
I am married and have 3 children and live in the Houston metropolitan area. Enjoy
