I've been in church regularly since my parents put me in nursery as an infant, the church where my father was a deacon. Some of my deepest memories are helping the deacons set up the sanctuary for love feast.
At some point, I started to feel a sense of alienation. I began to realize that I didn't really know what the gospel, the good news, actually was. I had encountered Jesus, I knew this beyond doubt, but I did not believe the explanations. I found myself in the strange place of having times of prayer deeper than I ever had, and believing that I did not know what the gospel was. How could this be?
As I sought answers I was led to a question: How did the early church change the world? What, specifically, did they do? The more I learned about these early Christians, the more I was confronted with a stark fact. Their lives looked nothing like mine, or the churches around me. I could not honestly explain why they lived as they did. Whatever they believed bore fruit that my belief did not. I had pat Sunday school answers, I wanted something that sat like Truth himself in my soul.
I decided I would not be satisfied that I understood the scripture or the gospel unless I could explain how they generate the works of the early church. The apostle James says that we can show our faith by our works (James 2:18). I would follow the works and witness of the early church back into the story of scripture and let them explain it to me.
Many years later, many books, many conversations, much prayer, I have a story that I believe. A story that matches the Jesus who has led me down the path here.
This is my attempt to tell that story. I pray it finds you in love.