Off the Deep End

The following is taken from my latest book, Developing a Significant Church.

As a child, I remember going to church every Sunday. My father had a policy. The only valid reason for missing Sunday school and church was a death in the family… yours. Since I survived childhood, I attended church a lot.

Some adults who were forced to attend church as children resent that and refuse to

attend as adults. That wasn’t my response. Attending church was a generally good experience for me. The church I grew up in was a positive, loving place. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a place where I experienced the reality of God. Nice… but more like a club than a church. I sense that my home church wasn’t all that different than most other mainline denominational churches of the time.

At our church we practiced religion. A nice, comfortable, socially acceptable, not terribly spiritual, let’s not get carried away with being Christian style of religion. It was understood that if one got too religious, too excited about God, he or she was to be viewed with suspicion and some degree of disdain. Getting too religious could immediately call one’s credibility into question. Such a person was said to have “Gone off the deep end.” God forbid that I, or anyone I know, should go off the deep end.

This concept made absolutely complete sense to me. It is my natural inclination to be cautious, to live life close to the vest, and to stay in the shallow end. Perhaps that inclination comes from my introverted, shy nature. Perhaps it comes from an incident from my early childhood. My family was on an outing to Cox’s Lake for a day of fun in the sun and water. Our good time was interrupted when I, at the time a preschooler, decided to follow my older brother out into the deep water. This idea would have had a more successful outcome if I had either been using a flotation device like he was or had known how to swim. Since I did neither, I casually strolled in over my head… and drowned. You know, like suck in a bunch of water and stop breathing drown. Fortunately someone noticed. A lifeguard dragged me out of the lake, pumped the water out and replaced it with some air. Needless to say, since that day I haven’t really enjoyed being in the deep end.

After my jaunt to the deep waters at Cox’s Lake, I spent most of my growing up years in the shallow end of any pool I entered. I was a shallow end person when it came to swimming and when it came to practicing my religion. I felt safe and comfortable in the shallow end. Unfortunately, as I got older and my contemporaries moved on to deeper waters, it also became lonely and boring in the shallow end. As I entered young adulthood, neither swimming nor practicing my religion was much fun. So I quit doing both. Most of us can stand anything except boring.

Then one day I was challenged to get into the deep end. For swimming it came when I took a job as a program director at a Boy Scout camp. Like every other Scout camp in America, ours had an aquatics area. The Camp Director, Don Craig, expected me, like every other staff member, to take and pass a swimming test. That test required me to swim several laps in the pool. A friend coaxed me into the deep end and off I went. I passed the test. I could now enjoy going into the deep end.

It was my older brother who challenged me to enter the spiritual deep end of Christianity. He was the one who explained the difference between being religious and having a relationship with the Living God. And that made all the difference in the world. As I grew in this new found relationship, Christianity became exciting and fulfilling… anything but boring. Occasionally it has been a little frightening. I am constantly aware that I am in over my head, just a little out of control. Instead of experiencing my faith as soothing and safe, it is now challenging and unsettling.

Before I could get into the deep end I was forced to answer an important question. Why was I confining myself to the shallow end of life? What kept me in the places I considered safe? Fear, mainly. I was afraid. I was afraid and too lazy to learn how to swim. I sense that my motivation or lack of it is not unusual. Those are probably the same reasons most people doom themselves to lives lived in the shallows of life.

May I encourage you to consider, as I did, the differences between living in the shallow and deep ends. What happens in the shallow end? Not much. People wade around and splash around and play silly little repetitious games. In the shallow end one is surrounded by the immature – children. And we all know what children are known for doing in the pool. Is that where we want to be? I think not. In the shallows I perceive myself to be totally in control. But not much of any consequence is happening. It is safe but boring.

What happens in the deep end? The deep end is for those serious about swimming and diving. It is where the purposes of being in the pool really happen. One is surrounded by others who are going for it and one can be challenged to grow and develop. Being in over one’s head tends to give opportunities for one to grow and develop new skills and competencies. Spiritually speaking, the deep end is where God is. So, if you want to hang out with God, you have to get into the deep end. That’s where I want to be.

I really don’t see how any adult Christian could take being accused of splashing around in the shallow end as a compliment. So, if anyone ever accuses me of being off the deep end, and unfortunately no one, as yet, has, I will certainly take it as a compliment.