Pondering churches...

I was asked recently about my church history and it got me thinking about it a bit differently than I ever have. I suppose, looked at it one way it looks like I've been very inconsistent. I grew up Conservative Baptist, I attended a Grace Covenant in undergrad, I ended up on staff at Scum of the Earth in Denver, and now I'm Anglican. How exactly does that work? (By the way, this post grew rather longer than I expected and I think it's more for my own thoughts than necessarily for reading... Sorry!)

For one answer, I don't really know. I suppose part of my flexibility comes from growing up with a father who himself grew up Egyptian Coptic. Ruling out other denominations as "less Christian" was just not part of the picture. Granted, he came to know Christ personally from the Baptist world, and so obviously felt a tie there. But he always recognized his mother's absolutely genuine faith which was cultivated in the Coptic church, so there could be no pride of denomination. Maybe that's why I'm "flexible" denominationally?

Maybe it just has to do with being raised to be flexible by both my parents. Maybe it has to do with growing up in a very living church and so having a high standard for what I look for in churches each time I move. Maybe it's the after effect of very international parents. Maybe it's just personal curiosity.

In undergrad I started going to Grace Covenant in Charlotte partly because the pastor was father to a fellow IVCF student. Even after he graduated, Darren (the father) was very involved with Davidson's IVCF, bbut by then I was already committed. And once I pick a church it's pretty hard to uproot me! But I loved the mission of upper-middle-class doctors and lawyers who committed to a church on the wrong side of the tracks near their neighborhoods rather than commuting to their comfortable peers. By the time I left I was participating in their mentoring program for the local children, meeting weekly with troubled little 6th-grade too-old-for-herself Adriana. ("I'm half like you" she said one week in disgust, noting that one of her parents was white. "Well," I replied, "I'm half African (cheating a bit and using my Egyptian father!), so does that make us equal?")

I went home for a year and was instantly at home back at my church, helping with the youth group and settling back in.

But then I moved to Denver and had the odd-fortune of sitting next to Mike Sares in my 1 Corinthians class: "You were in Greece last spring? I'm Greek! I think you should come to Scum. When we preach through 1 Corinthians I'll have you do the sermon on women in ministry." Huh? I'd just moved there and had no intention of coming to a place named "Scum." None. Yet some 3 years later that pronouncement of his came true! It was a wildcard church for me - so far outside my comfort zone and yet a place I loved passionately. They took seriously the call to feed the hungry, care for the rejected of society, and remain faithful to the Word of God.

I miss Scum. I have no words for how alive your faith feels when every day you're on the edge like that, when every day you're begging God to give you wisdom, patience, love, understanding, etc., while experiencing intense joy from living outside of yourself. While not fully "fitting in," I had a place and a purpose at Scum, and that's a gift I have to say.

But my life moved me onward, overseas -- and I'd been wanting to live overseas again! But St Andrews is far too small a place to have a place like Scum. Glasgow? Yes. St Andrews? No. =( I thought about going to the town Presbyterian church, but frankly I'm not particularly Presbyterian. There's a bit too much Arminian (not complete, just too much) to be comfortable there. The Baptist church meets a good mile out of town, a logistic that just didn't mesh well with my need to get places by foot here. The *other* Anglican church made me sneeze the first time I visited it with their incense. And Bob, well, Bob was friendly, remembered my name, and I just liked him -- so St Andrews, St Andrews it was. He was the rector who got me involved in acolyting. I told him I wanted to get more involved with the church and he set me up for doing that -- consistently checking in to see how a Baptist felt inside the robes! ("If it feels anathema, then we'll find another option!") I have to admit that, with him leaving nearly 2 years ago and then being gone so much of last year, I've a bit lost my footing in my church, a problem only compounded by knowing I'll be leaving in another year.

But I've loved learning in a higher church. I have found I love the routine of liturgy and appreciate that, even when I'm late I can recite the opening lines as I walk and still enter into the worship as I arrive. I appreciate the candles. I love the weekly Eucharist. I even didn't mind the robes!

But when I go home, well, that's my home church. If someone challenged me now, I've realized, I'd still have to say I'm Conservative Baptist. (I still can't make the jump to infant baptism!) But beyond that, I just am shaped by the church I grew up in and it does inform my theology -- conscious or no. So, perhaps it's fitting that I am still a member of my home church. They supported financially me when I worked for Scum, the people support me now as friends as I work my way through the PhD process. Sometimes it's good to reflect and realize where your roots are -- how you've changed, where your journey has taken you -- but where, at the end of the day, your grounding is.