This Little Light of Mine

Maybe you’ve heard the children’s ditty:

This little light of mine,
I’m gonna let it shine!

Let’s face it, the religion I teach here is frankly weird, if you come at it from any part of mainstream Christianity. Superficially we would probably tell folks it is just generic Christianity. However, it is totally unrelated to mainstream Western Christianity, and it doesn’t bear any resemblance to the common cult groups. Nor could you call it “Eastern Christianity” because that has an established meaning, too, that we can’t claim. I’m even hesitant to call it Christian Mysticism in some contexts because that summons baggage that we don’t carry. There is no good, safe label.

We are at a difficult time in history. Yes, what I wouldn’t give to stand and teach/preach to a congregation of any size, but there is a monopoly on that sort of thing. That is, the only opportunities would require compromises that would disembowel the whole point of our difference here. We do worship in the home here where I live, but in the seven years we’ve done that, we’ve never had more than a handful of folks. I’m not whining, just noting the reality.

So we are reduced to emphasizing the power of God’s Laws by action more than words. In our teaching of His Word and power, we spend most of our time subtly bringing that power to life in the daily context of life. Ours is the ministry of His moral character and authority over Creation. This becomes the ultimate expression of faith in the first place, but in our case, we don’t expect to have a ready spiel to offer should someone start asking questions. I’m not going to compose for my readers any canned speeches. You’ll have to develop your own way of handling that.

Yep, that’s because a critical element in our religion is that it has to be all yours from the start. It’s your little flame of the Spirit, not mine nor anyone else’s.