Recipe for a curious heart...

Step 1: Take one human being
Step 2: Have them grow up attending Church of England church in a stable, middle-class home in the UK
Step 3: Add a few high school friends who said they were "Christians" but acted very differently from me
Step 4: Stir in a growing desire to follow Jesus radically (NB - a 13 year-old's idea of "radical" may be different to yours)
Step 5: Transfer to 150 year old Baptist congregation with great leaders, a great youth group, where long-lasting friendships are established. Add a good dose of the Holy Spirit
Step 6: Remove from baptist church after 4 years and transfer to central London
Step 7: Join house church - all late teens, early 20's
Step 8: Meet and marry the most beautiful woman in the world when we are both 20
Step 9: Get into leading worship and home groups
Step 10: Move to Kent, have 2 children, continue to do the church thing - realizing that it's possible to do church, without really engaging with God or other people
Step 11: Church group we were a part of implodes - realize that there was sexual immorality happening in some of the national leaders who I knew and respected. Local church congregation continues
Step 12: Become part of the church leadership team - serve for 5+ years, but realize that there is an element of control within the church. As a team we must bear part of the responsibility for this, and eventually we confront the pastor - the man who was my spiritual mentor and closest friend. Over the next few months we decide that we are unable to continue being part of the church - there is too much hurt and confusion inside
Step 13: Leave church - disillusioned that what should have been so good, could actually turn out to hurt so much
Step 14: Attend other churches, still having a desire to follow God, but attending mostly on my own
Step 15: Relocate to Eastern US with my company - a new opportunity to start again
Step 16: Join small house church - stay for a year, but begin to realize that it's just the same - male dominated, middle-class, controlling (that sounds too bleak - I loved the people, which made it hard to leave)
Step 17: Continue to want to follow God, but realize that I don't find an easy fit into mainstream churches - I have questions and doubts that I try to express, but am seen as having "lost my faith..." It's not lost - it's just trying to figure out where everything around me fits in, and how to communicate my love for God and his mission to people who have a very different perspective on life and spirituality
Step 18: Hear about Brian McLaren from somewhere...read A Generous Orthodoxy. Realize that this guy puts into words so much of what I've thought and been feeling! There's hope :-)
Step 19: Start reading A New Kind of Christian
Step 20: Start this blog as a way of thinking through where I am in my faith, my life, and how I can become more engaged in the emergent conversation...

Peace.