Who am I?

I am a 33 year old Christian. I was baptized at 8 years old, and am the grandson of an elder of the congregation I worship with. Before two near death experiences, I didn’t take my faith as I should have. I had this idea that preachers were older, because that’s all I’ve seen. Thanks to the urging of my family and a younger preacher working with us at the time, I did preach my first sermon, which I’ll post later.

That sermon was barely 6 minutes of staring at a card and rushing through words I scribbled prior. I say this to state that I am not some special orator, nor do I have an amazing memory or other such gift for preaching. I have to work hard in each one.

I do it for my own spiritual growth and for the encouragement of my hearers. I’ve preached hits and misses as I figure every preacher has.

Those two instances of my life being in peril  put my life and faith into perspective. I was in my early 20s and what did I have to show for it? Was I as strong a christian as I should have been? I’d certainly say not. Was I saved just because I was a good person? That couldn’t have been it.  Since then, however, I’ve preached many times when requested, taught bible classes, even occasionally lead singing.

Family is very important to me and I try to do my best to make those who know me and love me proud. No pressure, right?

What message should new viewers take from my messages?

I’m no one special. The reasons I preach are two-fold. First, God gave me my talents and desire to help people. I’m simply returning to God what is His the best way I can. Second is more selfish. My own spiritual growth. I’m challenging myself to study each topic more in depth, and bugging my loved ones more often so each sermon makes as much sense as it can.

However, I do take this very seriously. My focus on preaching is more dogmatic. I do this for a reason. I feel we, and I say this in generalities, focus too much on the love of God and less on His righteous judgment. This lead to weaker christians who are afraid to teach others as often as they should, which is one reason America has experienced the moral decline that it has. I’m just as guilty of this as anyone else.

Not only that, but because Christians don’t respect the bible as we should, we, ourselves, have become weaker too. We bear Christ’s name, we shouldn’t fall into traps of believing people just because they’re on tv, or wrote a book, or has more members in their congregation than we might.

So if you want feel good stories and baseless self-validation, you won’t find it here. What you will find is God’s word spoken plainly, which should be the basis for our lives inside and outside of the building’s walls that you worship in.

What denomination do I belong to?

I don’t, actually. I worship regularly in a Church of Christ, but we wear that name knowing full well the connotations it carries. Claiming to be a Christian, or worse, godly without understanding what that means and living accordingly is a blasphemous contradiction, and one we face daily.

Falling into the trap of “denominations” pigeonholes you into the beliefs of other beliefs which can and almost always does contradict your own. Even if multiple belief systems come together to try to do some good, what you’re implying is their belief is just as valid as yours. That’s completely untrue. There are those that worship God acceptably and those who do not.

So can I call myself a “Church of Christ Christian”? Not in the way man sees a Church of Christ Christian and here’s why. I belong to a group that’s about as conservative and fundamental as you can be. However not all Churches of Christ are.

More liberal Churches of Christ may use church funds for benevolence or other activities that are unscriptural and if we say we are in the same group, those we speak to may very well assume we’re the same.

Even the multiple versions of Baptist, for example, are still Baptist. Because of this, I believe the accurate answer to that question is "God did not make denominations so neither should we."

So who is the Bought Spot?

Me and only me. All too often groups get co-opted and endeavors become weakened to the point of irrelevance. This project, my mission to save souls with this avenue is and will be updated by me. The website, social media, messages, articles will be added by me. That does not mean there are less capable men, that’s completely untrue. The preachers I worship with I feel are far more qualified and scripturally wiser than I am, but I have the tools and desire so here I am.

Why the Bought Spot?

Because on two occasions, my life has been saved in a manner unexplained by man. I had a reaction quite similar to exercise induced anaphylaxis which left me unconscious. I wake up in the ER with doctors all around me. They have no clue what to do and my blood pressure was 45 over nothing. I was considered medically dead until I wasn’t. Eventually I just… got better. I still had attacks, and still might, but none near that bad.

Second was with my mother and I returning home from church. Tornado sirens sound and we were told the storm was 15 miles away. It wasn’t. We try to beat it home, but make it about ⅓ of the way home when it hits. We couldn’t see the front end of the car, there was large hail and we nearly jumped a curb, but finally found a place to stop. We hide under a very slim corner with an outcropping and then… nothing. What I think was a tornado itself actually shifted course and hit the very church we left 5 minutes before. Those that remained in the building were fine, they were in the basement.  

I certainly didn’t deserve to have my life saved, nor do I know why it was, but here I am.

Details

Written by David Bushnaq

Category: Uncategorized

Published: 19 July 2018