The following is a guest blog post from Hunter Taylor a summer staff from the past 2 summers. You can see more of his posts at http://straightupchristianblog.wordpress.com/
Big Transition
Alright, this is my transition from living the life of first, to living the good life of Second!!
Lets back up to my childhood.
I grew up in the church. Small city, actually classified as a village, small time church.
I was what I call “born into” Christianity.
I never understood much of why I believed except its what my mom believes it and she wants me to.
That went on until about middle school. I was a victim of society. I was classified as a “nerd” and that had a big impact on my teenage years. I was bullied, didn’t have many friends, and I was a teachers pet. Being a teachers pet is a great way to be a “loser” in society’s mind.
On a Christian standpoint, I was going to church, going to youth group and I was apart of a puppet ministry.
Fast forward to 8th grade year.
I had the idea of worldly manhood pounded into my head for 4 years and I wanted to achieve that.
So I joined football, started working out, and started hanging out with the “cool” people.
They partied, drank, did lots of things that my mom would be upset with me typing in a “Christian” blog. They were “cool” and I wanted that. The thing was, I was a good kid at heart and didn’t actually want to do those things, so I told people I did. I lied to all my “friends” about a lot of things. I told them I partied, I drank, I frequently got into fights. I told them I went out of town for the weekend so they couldn’t back track my stories. I had quite the elaboration going on. It was tough keeping up with everything but people thought I was cool.
Throughout high school, I still went to church, slowly stopped that puppet group, and completely stopped going to youth group. I wasn’t quite the Christian I should have been.
The summer before my senior year I got a job at a church camp as a maintenance worker. This was probably the best thing that could have ever happened. That got my life on track. I soon learned that sometimes you need to lose something to gain something better, and that’s what happened to me.
I went back to school and lost pretty much all of the worldly popularity and worldly friends that I worked so hard for…but I was surprisingly alright with it. I was genuinely happy with life.
The following summer I went to camp as a counselor and grew closer to God more that summer than ever before.
Since then I have been continuing to grow.
It’s an everyday thing.
Not just a Sunday thing.
Not just an “At Home” thing.
This is fairly broad in comparison to the details I could get into, so if you have questions just ask.
If I have learned anything, it’s that trust God, He is in control.
Lets back up to my childhood.
I grew up in the church. Small city, actually classified as a village, small time church.
I was what I call “born into” Christianity.
I never understood much of why I believed except its what my mom believes it and she wants me to.
That went on until about middle school. I was a victim of society. I was classified as a “nerd” and that had a big impact on my teenage years. I was bullied, didn’t have many friends, and I was a teachers pet. Being a teachers pet is a great way to be a “loser” in society’s mind.
On a Christian standpoint, I was going to church, going to youth group and I was apart of a puppet ministry.
Fast forward to 8th grade year.
I had the idea of worldly manhood pounded into my head for 4 years and I wanted to achieve that.
So I joined football, started working out, and started hanging out with the “cool” people.
They partied, drank, did lots of things that my mom would be upset with me typing in a “Christian” blog. They were “cool” and I wanted that. The thing was, I was a good kid at heart and didn’t actually want to do those things, so I told people I did. I lied to all my “friends” about a lot of things. I told them I partied, I drank, I frequently got into fights. I told them I went out of town for the weekend so they couldn’t back track my stories. I had quite the elaboration going on. It was tough keeping up with everything but people thought I was cool.
Throughout high school, I still went to church, slowly stopped that puppet group, and completely stopped going to youth group. I wasn’t quite the Christian I should have been.
The summer before my senior year I got a job at a church camp as a maintenance worker. This was probably the best thing that could have ever happened. That got my life on track. I soon learned that sometimes you need to lose something to gain something better, and that’s what happened to me.
I went back to school and lost pretty much all of the worldly popularity and worldly friends that I worked so hard for…but I was surprisingly alright with it. I was genuinely happy with life.
The following summer I went to camp as a counselor and grew closer to God more that summer than ever before.
Since then I have been continuing to grow.
It’s an everyday thing.
Not just a Sunday thing.
Not just an “At Home” thing.
This is fairly broad in comparison to the details I could get into, so if you have questions just ask.
If I have learned anything, it’s that trust God, He is in control.
