Before we go any further, I feel compelled to state that this epic saga is about a young boy being completely outmatched.

Not by ideology. Not by doctrine. Not even by original sin. But by something of such disproportionate scale that, in my mind at least, it belongs in the same general category as David and Goliath.

On one side: an undersized youth with naïvely good intentions, limited physical strength, and absolutely no grasp of the rules of engagement.

On the other: a challenge of biblical proportions.

What followed was less a religious experience than a one-sided personal debacle conducted in full view of a very attentive congregation.

There are formative moments in childhood that gently shape your character. And then there are the ones that publicly sandblast it.

My Early Adventures with Christianity is not a meditation on doctrine. It is a chronicle of spiritual humiliation delivered beneath vaulted ceilings and preserved forever in the memory of a five-year-old who suddenly discovered that faith sometimes comes with an audience.

This is the story of disproportion. Of being very small in a very large room. Of confronting something very large while being very small. Of realizing, mid-effort, that what seemed manageable in theory has become a slow, unfolding spectacle in practice.

There is a particular species of embarrassment reserved for childhood — the kind where you can feel every pair of eyes recalibrating toward you. Where silence thickens. Where amusement begins as a tremor and then ripples outward. Where you sense, long before you fully understand, that you have become the morning’s unintended entertainment.

You begin with determination.

You transition to strain.

You graduate to visible struggle.

And then — worst of all — you become aware that people are enjoying it.

Giggles. Titters. Neck-craning curiosity. The unmistakable sound of restrained laughter losing restraint.

It is in that moment you begin to conduct rapid theological assessment.

Is this character-building?
Is this divine testing?
Is this what they mean by carrying one’s burden?
Or is this simply what happens when scale, optimism, and red church carpet collide?

Humiliation has weight. It slows time. It amplifies sound. It magnifies effort. It makes a short distance feel endless and an ordinary action feel epic.

And when you are five, there is no irony to shield you. No self-awareness to soften the blow. There is only heat in the cheeks, sweat on the brow, and the dawning suspicion that dignity may not survive the morning.

Yet memory, as it ages, becomes generous.

What once felt catastrophic now reveals itself as comic.
What once felt like public exposure now reads as small-town theatre.
What once threatened faith now simply deepened perspective.

This is not a crisis-of-belief story.

It is a story about being very earnest, very determined, and very outmatched — all at once.

About discovering that religion, like childhood, can involve more exertion than expected.

And about learning, many decades later, that the most spiritually instructive moments are sometimes the ones that leave scuff marks behind you.

Warm. Unsparing. Deeply self-mocking.

Old-fashioned storytelling. Best heard out loud.

I bring a new Clarence Mills misadventure most Thursdays. If this one struck a chord, follow along — and let me know you’re out there listening.