I love Jesus Christ and his example, and I have chosen to be a Christian, despite many years of misgivings.
Even though I was highly attracted to the notion of accepting Christ as my Spiritual Master, I waited for nearly twenty years to become a Christian. For years, these words of Mohanas "Mahatma" Ghandi expressed my feelings about this difficulty. Ghandi said that he would have been a follower of Christ, if it weren't for Christians."
My search for life's meaning and God began when I was a teenager.
When I was sixteen years old, I became a follower of Sri Chinmoy Kumar Ghosh, who leads daily meditations at the United Nations in New York City.
Sri Chinmoy is an amazing athlete, and is the most prolific artist in history. The path of Sri Chinmoy (Love, Devotion, and Surrender to God) moved me forward deeply in my search for God and gave much meaning to my life. However, after four years, I chose to leave it at the age of twenty, primarily due to my own immaturity and ignorance. I continue to admire my old spiritual teacher and value the many ways his path positively helped me in my life. I will not denounce him in any way, just because I am not following him anymore.
I am now a follower of Christ, in part, because of something Sri Chinmoy said. He said that if someone feels an attraction to follow Christ, he should do so, that Christ is a Spiritual Master of the highest order.
I still had to find a way to reconcile myself with my perception that most Christians exhibit, at least, condescension, or, at most, hate for anything other than their concept of worship of the Great Spirit of our Supreme God Most High. Fortunately, since that time, I have learned much and overcome most of this initial disturbance.
The church group that helped me first with this was Harvest Fellowship in Brighton, Colorado.
I was also helped a great deal by the Christian staff of Harvest Farm, a Christian farm in Wellington, north of Fort Collins, Colorado.
Since, I no longer live in Brighton, but live north of Fort Collins, I was attending the Vineyard church in Fort Collins, Colorado for a couple years.
Recently with my wife, Jennifer, I started attending the Church of St. Albert, a Liberal Catholic Church in Greeley, Colorado.
My observation has been that faiths are very personal. I believe that Christianity is the way Jesus leads a person to the Kingdom of Heaven and Salvation.
To me, Christianity is not about condemnation. I believe that it is not my place to judge anyone. This function belongs to God alone. There is always room for my improvement.
I also believe that the Truth stands on its own. So, I have no problem with studying differing faiths and beliefs. Thus far in my spiritual education and search for Truth, I have concluded that Jesus embodies God's Truth.
To get an idea of some of what I have been taught about Christianity and what I believe about it, you can read my Basic Bible Study Final Exam.
So that I can perform some of the functions of clergy, I am an ordtained minister with a certificate.
