The Evolution of the Integral Church
Part Three

I was a Southern Baptist before I was born. My mother enrolled me in the nursery of her Southern Baptist Church while she was pregnant, and I worked in Southern Baptist churches for the next 60 years until the Southern Baptists kicked me out.

My journey away from traditional Christianity started early when, as a young teenager, I kept asking my Sunday School teachers why we only studied about the mystical experiences of Jesus, Paul, and the early church—instead of having those same experiences ourselves. I was told those things didn’t happen anymore now that we had the right doctrines and rules.

I went to seminary looking for that kind of Christianity but did not find it there. More things to believe and behaviors to do or not do — but little depth of a more profound experience of God. After seminary, at the Southern Baptist Church in Kansas City that called me to pastor for the next 49 years, I slowly evolved in what I would later call stages or worldviews in my understanding of the Christian path. I didn’t seem to grow much into the mystical experience of God, or what I would later call states of consciousness.