Questions???????????????????????

I realize that my posts of late have been less than par, at least in my opinion. So I am going to try something new. I was recently at one of America's top ten Christian camps, Camp Orchard Hill (google it - its for real). The place was packed with Senior highers. We set up buckets in the bathrooms (thanks to a brilliant sound man) and I told the group they could anonymously drop any question they had about anything in the buckets and I would try to answer them from up front. Unfortunately church (or at least many churches) are not safe places to ask certain questions. Fortunately camp is a safe place. The kids filled the buckets up with all kinds of questions. So many questions came in that I had to dump my talk for Thursday night and do the students talk. Their topics were much more interesting than mine anyway. Everything from the problem of pain, to sexuality. I spoke for an hour and dismissed everyone, telling them I would stay and answer questions and if they wanted to stay they could. No one left. They wandered to the bathroom and came back. I answered questions for another 45 minutes and again tried to end the night and relieve them of their misery. They wanted more. "Answer them all," someone said and the rest of the crowd roared in agreement. I couldn't believe it. The talk went for 2 1/2 hours and they stood and cheered. It wasn't for me, and it wasn't because it was over. I am pretty sure they were cheering for each other and for God. I wanted to cheer for them too.
What does this have to do with this post? I am going to start telling their questions and then answering them in the blog posts. Everything will be anonymous (except for my answers.) My answers will not be complete, but they will be honest and they will not be simplistic. I will disable comments on those posts so that you theologians don't get in and try to debate with me or each other. The answers will be geared toward the people who asked them. Students...maybe your students...maybe your kids. If you have a question you would like to add to the list send it to me via email. You can also send your hate, love, theological opinions, arguments...whatever to my email as well. ottjgefc@verizon.net is the best one to use.

Church is not (or at least most churches are not) a safe place to ask questions. But the questions are still asked and if they are asked then someone is trying to answer them. Why not here?

ASK AWAY!