Taking off My Comfortable Clothes: Removing Religion to Find Relationship

By James Thornber

A life of faith isn't lived in a neat, clean, stain-free environment; it's lived outside the familiar, in the center of the adventurous, untamed call of God on our lives. This intimate, soul-searching account describes Jim Thornber's remarkable journey to a living, loving God. It started with a search for something spiritually higher yet soulishly comfortable; something that would make him feel relevant and reasonable, giving him a purpose for living and a sense of calling. His search finally led him to remove the comfortable, religious misconceptions of who he thought he was (and who he thought God wanted him to be) and put on the clothes of Christ to find true relationship.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HigherLife Publishing
• Release date: Mar 19, 2021
• ISBN: 9781935245988

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

You may not agree with everything I write here, but it is an accurate recounting of my heart at those moments in time. It is transparent, real, gritty, and at times embarrassing to me even now. But a life of faith isn’t lived in a neat, clean, stain-free environment. Instead, it is lived in the deserts, the clay-pits, the rocky roads, and the thorny hedges of life. The Bible says we will come out victorious on the other side—we weren’t guaranteed we wouldn’t have scars and bruises after it was all over.

So I invite you to join me on my journey, and I hope in some small way it is an encouragement to you as you travel your own road towards God’s special purpose for your life.

Chapter One

SAYING YES TO GOD

(Commitment)

For four years, I was the world’s only Assemblies of God monk. Originally, a monk was a person who lived alone in the Egyptian desert. Later, these monks were organized by the hermit St. Anthony of Egypt (251–356), but they still lived alone in the desert. Only later is the word applied to those who lived together in a monastery, which is formally known as a cenobium (from the Greek words koinos and bios, meaning common and life), whose lifestyle was founded by St. Pachomius (c. 290-349). The word monk comes from the Greek word monos meaning alone, single, or one. A monk, therefore, is a person who leaves the normal life in the world to live alone for religious reasons.

The Assemblies of God is the world’s largest Pentecostal denomination, whose roots go back to the Pentecostal revival of the early twentieth century. I attended Bethany Bible College (now called Bethany University), an Assemblies of God college in Scotts Valley, California, and graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in Ministry.

Let’s just say I raised a few eyebrows when I moved from Thousand Oaks, California, to Eureka Springs, Arkansas, to join the Brothers and Sisters of Charity at the Little Portion Hermitage. Founded by singer and songwriter John Michael Talbot, the Brothers and Sisters of Charity is a Catholic-based, ecumenical, monastic community consisting of celibate brothers, celibate sisters, single men and women, and families. Since I was a minister with the Assemblies of God at the time I joined the community, I became the world’s only Assemblies of God monk.

After graduating from Bethany, I was a youth minister in Thousand Oaks and later became a college/career pastor in Simi Valley, California. It was during my time in Simi Valley, for reasons I don’t really remember, I starting writing a journal I called My Mind on Paper. I didn’t know it at the time, but this journal would chronicle my life and thought processes before, during, and up to the point I left the Little Portion in Arkansas.

Help Understanding My Meandering Mind

Because I jump around chronologically in the book, I want to explain a few things so I don’t confuse you more than is necessary. The Brothers and Sisters of Charity are their own community. They started out Franciscan but later became their own canonical community while continuing to recognize their Franciscan heritage. Without this understanding, my jumping back and forth in the book between The Brothers and Sisters of Charity (the community) at the Little Portion Hermitage (where they live) and the Franciscans can get a bit confusing.

Furthermore, when I arrived at the Little Portion, Viola Pratka was a Sister visiting from another community who later received dispensation from her vows from the Pope. She later married John Michael in February, 1989. Even after she was married, we sometimes addressed her as Sister Viola, an old habit that was hard to break saying or writing. This is an accepted tradition within lay or secular communities.

Conversation on a Beach

I suppose I should explain why a boy who grew up around the beaches of Southern California would embrace a life of poverty (no money of my own), chastity (no wife of my own), and obedience (my life was not my own) at a monastic community in Northwest Arkansas.

It all started with a promise. A simple, sincere, shortsighted promise I made to God while I was in college. The inspiration for the promise came from a guest missionary I heard my freshman year, who shared that when he was in college he promised God that he would not get into a serious relationship until his senior year in order to put God first in his life.

I thought that was a fine thing to promise God. It struck me as a very honest, sacrificial, and mostly spiritual thing to do, and as a freshman in Bible College, I was keen to do almost anything that seemed spiritual. Therefore, I told the Lord that I too would not get into a serious relationship with a girl until my senior year— and it was a promise I intended to keep. That promise in no way prevented me from dating, of course (I did not view dating as being a relationship—an error I have since rejected), but I really did not intend to get into a serious relationship until my senior year. The hopeful relationship I did get into came at the end of my junior year, but it was close enough for me.

I did my ministerial internship in Hayward, California, during the second semester of my junior year. Before I left on this internship, I started to get close to a wonderful girl named Cheri. Cheri was a joy to look at, a woman in love with God, and the daughter of a pastor who was also my homiletics professor at Bethany. Although we spent a good amount of time together talking, we never really dated. Still, I just knew there was a mutual attraction, and I looked forward to pursuing this relationship. When I returned to Bethany in May after my internship, Cheri and I went to the beach in Santa Cruz. While we were sitting on the sand, I brought up the subject of us. Cheri said that she was now seeing Jeff.

Jeff? I said. What about us?

Well, he was here and you were gone, was her simple explanation.

Great. And I really liked Jeff too. He was a tall, good-looking young man who was quiet but carried himself with an air of leadership. I pondered whether to go back to the campus and hug him or hit him. There was nothing more I could say, so I got up and prepared to go back to the campus.

As I was walking back to the car—feeling alone, depressed, hurt and angry, thank you for asking—I felt the Lord speak to my heart.

Jim, will you remain single for Me?

I thought about that for a few seconds, which was the time it took me to search the Scriptures and remember Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac (Gen. 22:1-13). I recalled how Abraham went up the mountain prepared to sacrifice his son, only to have God spare Isaac and provide a ram for the sacrifice. I figured if Abraham obeyed God and got his son back, maybe I could obey God and keep what I wanted too.

Sure, Lord, I responded. But if I sacrifice marriage, can I have it back?

(Quick lesson number one: Never try to use Scripture as an advantage against God in order to get your own way. Believe me. It doesn’t work.)

The Lord responded to my answer with silence. I responded to the Lord’s silence with my own silence. In fact, I wouldn’t answer that question for ten months. And a terrible ten months they were.

Finally, I was walking alone through the middle of campus one evening in March when I saw a girl named Michelle. Like Cheri, she was a pastor’s kid and a girl I felt comfortable talking to. I suppose the stress I felt for not answering God’s question was showing all over my face, because she stopped and asked me how I was doing. Not very well, actually. Last May I was walking to the car after spending time at the beach with Cheri, and the Lord asked me if I would remain single for Him. Michelle, I haven’t answered Him yet. I don’t have the nerve to tell Him yes. I’m afraid God will accept my sacrifice of marriage and I will never get married.

Michelle just looked at me and said, But Jim, you know what you have to do!

And I did know. I thanked her and headed straight for the chapel.

A Dream of Death

The chapel at Bethany was open twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. I guess the administration knew that Bible college students would not only keep strange hours but also might actually find time to pray and may want to do so in the chapel. Naturally, those who desired to pray had to share space with those newly dating couples who wanted to be together—to pray, of course.

It was around ten-thirty at night when I walked toward the front of the chapel and got down on my face under the second pew from the altar—a position we called sucking carpet. I pictured in my mind an Old Testament altar, or at least what I thought an Old Testament altar should look like. Upon this altar, I placed the idea of marriage, set it on fire, and imagined the smoke rising toward God. Then I said to God, There. I hope that is a pleasing fragrance to You, because I didn’t like having to do it. With that done, I left the chapel about ten minutes after I arrived and headed back to my room. I knew at the time that my attitude wasn’t even close to being Christ-like, but it was the only attitude I could muster under the circumstances.

That night I dreamed I was putting my dorm room in order, stacking books and getting things neat. Then I walked out the door and down the hall. The dorm that I was staying in was in a series of rooms down a long hallway, and its only exit came out near the front of the library. I walked towards the library, knelt down on the grass in front of the entrance, and died. In the dream, I knew I was dead for four days, and a ministering angel of God brought me back to life. Then I woke up.

Of course, the first thing I did was to question God about the dream. "OK, God, what did that all mean?"

The Lord said, I accept your sacrifice.

That was a surprise, I thought. In spite of my bad attitude, God’s grace took my sacrifice and found it acceptable.

Then I asked the Lord, What about the four days? What do the four days mean?

Once again, however, God remained silent.

OK, I thought. I’ll just wait four days and see what happens. So I waited the four days, anticipating a spiritual understanding of universal proportions.

On day four, nothing happened.

So I thought about it again. Maybe the days represented weeks. So I waited four weeks for an answer. Nothing. Four months, maybe? No, not four months.

It would be another eight years before I understood the complete significance of that dream, and the revelation would come as I was finishing my time at the Little Portion Hermitage.

Needing to Prove Myself

In my search for a deeper and more significant spiritual life, I read Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster.* Although it had been highly recommended by Dick Foth, the president of Bethany Bible College while I was there, I was finally getting around to reading it four years after graduation. That book had a profound effect upon me, introducing me to a level of spiritual thinking of which I was previously unaware. Foster often quotes early Christian writers— and I’m not talking about writers from the early in the twentieth century. I’m talking about writers who lived many hundreds of years ago. I was enthralled with the deep level of commitment made by these men and women, and at the same time, a bit ashamed that my own life with God did not even come close to emulating theirs. They were, and remain, historical mentors who have challenged my life in dramatic ways. These men and women showed that one could live a fully engaged, completely sold out life for God in ways that went beyond the acceptable and status-quo, yet still stay firmly rooted in their religious traditions. In addition, these were normal, historical men and women who were not Jesus or the Apostles. I figured since Jesus is the Son of God, He has an advantage in living a holy life, so it is hard to compare your life with His. And the Apostles, of course, got to walk around with Jesus for three years and watch Him firsthand. All I get to do is watch my pastor and denominational leaders struggle to keep themselves afloat in the religious boat of unreal expectations. Celebration of Discipline introduced me to men and women who actually lived the radical life I read about in the book of Acts. Now I too wanted to live that radical life.

Celebration of Discipline also gave me a hunger for a deeper sense of God than I ever had before and showed me that my own Pente-costal tradition was woefully lacking when it came to teaching me the spiritual disciplines that helped create some of the giants of our faith. And yes, I wanted to be a giant of the faith. In a selfish way, I wanted to prove to God that I was faithful to His calling, worthy of His love and as dedicated to Him as He was to me.

And that was really the issue—proving to God I was worthy of His love, and a viable player on His team.

I’ve never been the best at anything in a world that worships its number ones. I was always a tad too small to be the best in sports and could never get straight As in school until my senior year of college. I can play a decent piano but can’t sing, don’t have the mind to become an engineer or doctor, and although I’ve memorized Romans chapter twelve three different times over the years, I still couldn’t quote it this morning if you put a million dollars at my feet. So why would God want me?

Somehow, in my warped sense of needing to be needed and proving myself needable, I was looking for something I could do that was spectacular and obtainable, something that other Christians would notice and admire and make them want to be my friend because I had reached a goal of deep spirituality that others would envy. I wanted to show God and others that I was a valuable contributor to life on the planet, and every time I looked at myself, all I saw was a guy who kept coming up short. Literally.

It didn’t help that I also sensed something was lacking in my own religious upbringing. I was saved in a Baptist church when I was twelve, baptized in a Foursquare church, spent most of my teenage years in a Christian and Missionary Alliance church, and went to an Assemblies of God Bible College. Where is the religious tradition in that? Eventually, this search for my place in life led me to a talk with the famous songwriter and singer John Michael Talbot, whom I met at the wedding of his brother Terry shortly after I graduated from college.

I was the photography editor at Bethany for three years and made some money shooting weddings and various campus events. When I got out of school and returned to Thousand Oaks, I still shot photographs when requested. Cece, a good friend of mine, knew that Terry needed a photographer and gave him my number, and so I ended up photographing their wedding at Church on the Way, in Van Nuys, California. It was there that I met John Michael Talbot for the first time. I knew who he was (a musician), what he was (a monk), and where he lived (in a monastery in Arkansas). But my first encounter with him took me by a very pleasant surprise.

We were all at the church on the day of the wedding, and John and Terry had just come back from seeing the movie Ghostbusters. John told Terry, Well, I guess it’s time to change clothes, and he left the room to put on his habit. He went into the chapel for a sound check since he was singing in the wedding. Imagine my surprise when John started picking out the theme to Ghostbusters on his guitar! That was the first time I had ever heard John play. Not a bad introduction to monastic spirituality if you ask me!

Invitation to a Monastery

A few years later I found myself reading Celebration of Discipline and wondering what I was going to do with the rest of my life. My mind kept going to John Michael, and somehow I knew that he could answer some of my deepest questions, which, although I wouldn’t have said it and hadn’t yet put it into words, included this deep sense of wanting to be accepted. I had heard that John was at Terry’s house for the Christmas holidays, and so I made an appointment to visit John.

We sat down in Terry’s living room, and I told John about the things God was doing in my life. We talked about my dream of death and singleness, my reading habits, and my search for something deeper in my spiritual life. John recommended some more books for me to read, and then he did something I didn’t see coming. He invited me to visit the Little Portion Hermitage in Eureka Springs, Arkansas. I thanked him, said I’d think about it, and left.

Naturally, I was a bit skeptical about going to a monastic community, but the more I thought about it, the more intrigued I became. Therefore, on my twenty-seventh birthday, I took my first-ever paid vacation and flew out to Arkansas to visit the Brothers and Sisters of Charity at the Little Portion Hermitage.

I stayed there a week, spent hours talking with John and members of the community, and finally returned home. I was working in a cabinet shop in Newberry Park at the time, and though I was putting cabinets together with my hands, my mind was back in Arkansas. I simply could not get the community off my mind and out of my heart, and I finally made the