The 5% - Double-dunked

The church has this big, fancy word called sanctification, which is different from salvation. In layman's terms, salvation is the point where you accept Jesus as your savior, decide to follow him, and repent of your sins.

Sanctification is giving Jesus the dreaded last 5%. That 5% you cling to, that Dale gave an awesome message on yesterday at Assembly. In the words of a song by Meatloaf, "You would do anything for love... but you wouldn't do that." Sanctification is praying for those people that are the hardest for you to pray for - the ones you get a little nauseated after you pray for them (is that just me?). Sanctification is accepting that you'll never be comfortable again because God will use you, work through you, and generally not let you settle into comfortable stagnation.

I am a pretty awesome 95% Christian. I give weekly to the church, I volunteer for student ministry and other outreaches, I live fiscally responsible, I don't drink... I'm pretty sure Jesus is somewhere in heaven gagging right now at that statement. But when it comes to being a 100% Christian though, I struggle. Jesus, I want to serve you, but there's no way you can expect me to do that without a solid 401K and health insurance. And I want to stay in the Peoria area. And I only eat the green M&Ms. The next few blog entries I write are going to be the story of giving up the 5%... beginning with the double-dunk baptism of 2005.

An unfortunate illustration of my struggle with the 5% was my baptism in 2005. I was so ready. I had prayerfully considered it, decided it was my next step, and was ready to go that day. The water was surprisingly warmer than I had hoped, and Dale was surprisingly nicer than I had hoped. ;-) Here's where the problem starts... I'm in the water, the words are said, Dale grabs my hand leans my head back... and with my nose, mouth, and forehead still slightly above water, I panicked and tensed my entire body and began to pull myself back up out of the water. Dale, being the compassionate Pastor he is, pushed me down for the "double-dunk" to make sure I was good and baptized. The video below is a dramatic representation of how the events unfolded.



I'm still not sure why I tensed up that day. I wasn't scared of water... or baptism... I didn't doubt that it was the right choice... or even that I'd come back up. I think I just wanted to keep my 5%. Over the next few blog entries, I'm going to talk about my journey to give up the last 5%...which unfortunately took a rather unprecedented six and a half years from that point.