Today, one of the teaching pastors at my church is going to teach me how to brew beer.
^That's a sentence I never thought I would say.
Being taught how to make an alcoholic beverage by someone from the church is something I never thought could happen. As a matter of fact, any sort of relation between alcohol and the church is something I never thought could happen. The only relations to alcohol and the church I ever experienced were negative, aside from the occasional mentioning of Jesus turning water into wine. To be quite honest, alcohol was as much of a mystery to me as it was wrong to partake in.
The first drink I ever had came when I was between the ages of seven and ten when I was watching my grandpa cook fried chicken in the back yard. He was drinking a beer, and because I was between the ages of seven and ten, I just assumed it was root beer, so I took a swig. It wasn't root beer.
My mom would have the occasional glass of wine around the house during the holidays, but aside from that, I was never really exposed to any alcohol in my day to day life. A plus to that was that the temptation to drink was never really there because I never really knew anything about it (other than that it tasted terrible (from my one memory)). However, a negative to that was that I really only saw the two extremes of alcohol. I would go to OSU football games on Saturdays and see fans walking around smashed and then go to church on Sundays and hear never to drink alcohol at all because it would ruin my witness for Christ. When someone is exposed to two extremes and two extremes only, the only option really becomes to follow one of those two extremes. I chose the latter of the two.
After I went to college and turned 21, I still chose not to drink, not necessarily because I thought it was wrong, but more because I didn't understand it. I would hear stories of friends going out and getting "black-out" drunk, but I would also hear stories of friends going to grab "a beer," and grabbing "a beer" was a new concept to me; It wasn't an extreme. Not long after that, I had my first real drink and went to grab "a beer" with a roommate of mine who grew up coming from the same background. Guess what. We didn't get drunk. Guess what else. We didn't do anything wrong.
Not long after college, I moved to Seattle, and after I moved to Seattle, I moved to Australia. Both Seattle and Australia are quite different than Oklahoma. Some would say they are more "liberal," and others would say they're "ahead of the times." I'm not sure what I would call it, but I've definitely learned a lot from both, and one thing I've learned is that it's okay to to grab "a beer." It's okay to have a drink and read the Bible at the same time, it's okay to meet a group of guys at the pub for small group and i'm not always going to "lose my witness" or sin by doing any of these things.
It's still weird for me to say that for a long time, I didn't drink because it was a mystery to me, not because I thought it was wrong. I understand that alcohol can be the most addicting drug and that alcohol is the cause of nearly six percent of all deaths, but I also understand that many things can become addictions and that 96 percent of all deaths are caused by other things. Moderation and mystery are the keys. Be responsible and understand that there are right and wrong ways to drink, for Christians and non-Christians.
-Cliff
Cliff's Note: Jesus turned water into wine at a wedding because He came to bring joy. The party is better with Jesus.