A Life...in Church.

I am a 59 year old man, and for all of that time, I have been in church, the first 20 years by conscription, the last 39 by choice. I was born into Kingsland Baptist Church in Chesterfield County. While my Dad was in seminary, I was a member of the church he pastored on the weekends, Nicholsville Baptist Church in Nicholsville, Alabama. But, I don't remember much about either of these places. The two churches where I spent the majority of my life were Winns Baptist Church in Elmont, Virginia, and Grove Avenue Baptist Church in Richmond.

All of this is on my mind today because Pam and I have spent the last two days in a prospective new members class at Hope Church. There are several unique things about this. First, it's only the second time we have actually joined a church as a new member in 33 years of marriage, second, Hope is a Presbyterian church, and third, Hope is the only church I've ever attended which requires people to go through two days of meetings in order to join, and even then it's very much a take it or leave it proposition. It's like they're saying, Sure, we're really glad you're interested in Hope, but let's not run off half-cocked and do something stupid without knowing what you're getting yourself into, ok? I'll have more to say about Hope a little later on, but right now, I want to write about what my church life, for lack of a better term, has been like. Some of you will identify and relate with what follows. Others may be bewildered by it. But, for better or for worse, being in church all of my life has shaped me. It has been an enormous force for good in my life, while simultaneously being a force of anger and frustration. It's been a complicated relationship, between me and this institution, one that I feel compelled at this stage of my life to write about. For me, it all began when my dad was hired to be the senior pastor at Winns Baptist Church. I was ten years old.

Winns Baptist Church

When you're a preacher's kid, you're not really a member of a church. It's more like you are part of the package, a collateral accoutrement that had to be tolerated. At age ten I got the distinct impression that first Sunday at Winns that I was expected to be seen, often, as in--every single time the church doors were opened, and heard from, never. In addition, they would greatly appreciate it if I was never seen swinging from the chandeliers. My Dad was the pastor at Winns for sixteen years. There were good times and bad times. Some of the sweetest, kindest people I've ever met were there. I had my first kiss there, met and eventually fell in love with my wife there. It was at Winns where I actually came to a personal faith in Christ myself.  But, it was also at Winns where I learned that not everyone claiming faith in Christ was a nice person. In fact, some of those who cried, "Lord, lord!" the loudest were more like the spawn of Satan.

 I experienced my first church fight at Winns, complete with several knock down, drag out business meetings, and anonymous letter writing campaigns, (back before the Internet and social media, character assassination was very much a retail business). When the source of a church fight is the question of whether or not your Dad is competent enough to justify his continued employment, things tend to get personal. At age 16, enduring a church fight did a great job of feeding the growing cynicism already running wild in me and most other 16 year olds I knew. I responded to it by writing a play which was performed by the youth group one Youth Week Sunday. It was a send up of a raucous church business meeting where I put very little effort into hiding the real world identities of most of the characters. It was not well received by it's intended targets, and I was thrilled by their anger. The last service I ever attended at Winns was my wedding. Soon afterwards Dad moved on to a Church in Charlottesville. So, for the first time in my life, I was tasked with finding and joining a church in which My father was not the pastor.

Grove Avenue Baptist Church

The first couple of years of married life saw Pam and I not trying very hard to find a church. We discovered that we very much enjoyed two day weekends, and not having to wake up so early on Sundays. But, once Pam was pregnant with Kaitlin, we began the search in earnest. Since my two sisters had both landed at Grove, post-Winns, we decided to visit one Sunday. Vander Warner was the pastor and I throughly enjoyed his sermon, but hated the church for two reasons...it was too big, and it was broadcast live on television. The presence of TV cameras up and down the aisles was a huge turnoff. But, we were going to soon be parents and thought that we needed to settle on a church home sooner rather than later. A few Sundays later we found an amazing Sunday school class taught by a young architect, filled with other couples our age who were also expecting. The next week we joined. This being a Baptist Church in the mid-80's, joining consisted of us walking down the aisle during the alter call, shaking a minister's hand and then being swept off into a room which was decorated like a funeral home, where some guy asked us ten minutes of questions. That was it. We were in! It's called moving your letter, a process by which the new church contacts your old church to verify your membership there, then presto, the paperwork gets done, you get a fresh box of offering envelopes and it's all good. The procedure is spelled out somewhere in Malachi, I'm told.

Pam and I both grew to love Grove. We raised both of our children there with the invaluable help of countless people who poured their time and talents into our children. My wife began a 13 year run working and teaching in children's church, while some idiot thought I would make a great chairman of the Finance Committee since I was in the "financial business." It was a disaster. My leadership style is way to heavy on sarcasm and highjinks to make the necessary adjustments to church finance....

Random ministry leader making his pitch to my committee for funds: So, we need a 20% increase in our funding for this year because of all of these great ministry plans we have for the new year.

Me: You're kidding, right? Dude, you didn't even spend the money we allocated you last year. What do we look like, Central Fidelity Bank??

Yeah, so that didn't go well. It didn't take long for the church leadership team to realize that my skill set needed a different outlet for expression. An amazingly humble, godly ex-marine named Gary Stewart soon asked me to consider becoming the Sunday School teacher for a group of ninth grade boys who had scared off three teachers in three months. For reasons that remain a mystery, I said yes. Thus began a ten year run as a leader and volunteer in the youth ministry at Grove. It was easily, the best ten years I've ever had in church. Spent a fortune. Gave up weekends. Quadrupled the wear and tear on my house since nearly every weekend, the place got overrun with a couple dozen hormone-crazed kids. Spent a week every summer with over 200 teenagers at summer camp. But, as crazy and as difficult and demanding as it was, I loved it, primarily because I was making a difference. In all of that time, I was oblivious to what was going on in the rest of the church. I'm sure there were fights and disagreements going on throughout the church at the time, but I never noticed any of it, because I was busy with the kids. It was beautiful.

Then came a three year stint teaching college students. Also fun and satisfying. But after three years there, my time had passed. Then, for the first time in thirteen years I reverted back to just being a regular member, one of those guys who comes every Sunday morning, sits in the same pew, and slowly, quietly starts getting annoyed by church. It's the disease that afflicts most people in church who aren't involved in some sort of ministry. People in church, left at leisure, become critics. That sermon was lame. Could those sopranos possibly be any flatter on that song? Reading the announcements to us right out of the bulletin. Seriously? Who does he think we are, a bunch of illiterate morons?

So, after a few years of this spiritual whining, you look at yourself in the mirror and realize that you need to make a change. It's not the preacher, it's you. Then it occurs to you that you've been at the same church for 30 years. Somewhere during the last few years, you've stopped listening, you are no longer hearing the voices there. You need a new voice, a new season of growth, a time for renewal. 

Hope Church

A year later, you find yourself at a two day prospective member class event at Hope Church. There will be no moving your letter nonsense with this group. These guys are Presbyterians, and if you want to join this church, much will be expected of you. There are slick handouts on glossy paper spelling out what it means to be an owner/operator. One speaker after another tells us, here are the seven essentials of the faith that we believe. This is our mission statement. Here are our plans for the future. Here are the areas of service that you will be expected to move into at some point. If you want to be a member of something, go join Hermitage Country Club, or the YMCA. We don't want members, we want spiritual entrepreneurs who are ready to work, ready to lead and ready to sacrifice for the mission of the Gospel. Oh, and when you give, we take cash, checks, EFT debits, PayPal, and coming soon...pay by text!

There was something invigorating about such an unvarnished airing of expectations. It's good to know that we will not be allowed to sit around being a critic, that something will be required of us. We will be expected to make the church a better place than how we found it. This will not be some cheap, resume stuffing title, Member, Hope Church. Rather, it will be a call to action.

I think, we just might be ready.