Beginning a series of stories written by participants of the March 2010 Redemption Group Immersion, here is Adam Christiansen, Community Group Leadership Director at Mars Hill’s Ballard campus talking about his “Golden Calf Moment”.
Redemption Groups. Those two words have always been loaded with quite a bit of mystery for me. I decided to attend the Redemption Group Immersion because I wanted to find out what was so different between a Redemption Group and a Community Group.
I admit that I have bought into the stigma that if someone goes into a Redemption Group that there was something big in their life that was wrong. In a way, that is true. People walk into Redemption Groups because they are idolatrous sinners. The bucket of cold water to the face, dose of reality for me was that I am an idolatrous sinner, too. So what changed?
My Golden Calf moment. I share this imagery because it struck me in such a vivid way. I coveted relationships with women more than my relationship with God. For more than a dozen years I was never single more than a couple of weeks. The irony was that God worked through one of those relationships to bring me to worship him. By God’s grace I was given an ultimatum, “Become a Christian or we are done.” In the following months I came to Mars Hill, became a Christian and everything from that moment changed. Here is the picture I was given: while I was worshiping my Golden Calf, God used that idol to literally turn to me and say, “I am your God, you will worship me and you will be my son.”