It’s Good to Change
This past season of life has been quite a time. From exploring different avenues of Christian traditions, I stood in humble awe of what Christians of old have said and how they lived their lives. It was beautiful, new to me, and just different from the circles that I typically ran into in my church experience. I’ve seen the beauties of what a church that loves liturgy can look like from the Anglican tradition, what a slowed life filled with deep prayer and union with God can look like from the Monastic tradition, what a deeply rooted faith in a community of people can become in the Jewish tradition, and while I don’t agree or hold to many of the groups I’ve read or spoken with, they’ve all taught something about God that enriched my life for the better. It challenged the ways I thought I knew God and gave me an appreciation for others and the way they drew near to God as best as they knew how. There’s beauty in growing, even if it means leaving the place you’ve always felt at home and comfortable in. If your growth means that you’ll grow in your love for God and service to others, run full sprint after it and trust that God is with you in the process.
While this blog is a place where I hope to encourage you and provide insight/wisdom, it’s also a place of vulnerability from me towards you. I share stories, what I go through life, and what I think in the hopes that you would never have to feel alone or like you’re the only person to go through whatever situation you find yourself in. This post isn’t a particular touch point for me as far as emotions go, but it is me revealing my upbringing when it comes to the church environments I was raised in. I’ve kept some of what I’ve grown up in, but who I am right now is vastly different from much of what I’ve known or ever heard of. Even during my short time while writing for this blog this past year, the influences on my spiritual life have changed and shaped me into someone new.
MY UPBRINGING
I grew up in a sort of hodge podge of church environments. The first twelve years of my life were formed by the black Pentecostal church. Filled with loud praise, running up and down the aisles, eccentric preaching that shook you to your core, and an environment that pointed me back to the history of a people through their worship to God. This experience of church enlightened me to know that our worship of God was a thing of excitement and communal in nature and allowed me to see people who looked like me worshiping God freely and beautifully.
From middle school through high school I grew up in the typical evangelical Southern Baptist church. Exciting youth groups every week, vibrant pastors, free food, messages that were meant to make you weep and want to follow Christ, and it was honestly what I needed for that point in my life. The main difference being that my pastors and volunteers cared for me and got to know me more than I suspect the average pastor would, and for that I’m forever grateful. I went to youth groups, led on Sundays, went on mission trips most summers, and learned that God was a person who understood me and accepted me exactly where I was and not where I should be. This wasn’t necessarily something new to me, but it definitely began to round my view of who God was and how He related to me and my soul.
My next experience was through another evangelical church who highly valued the authority of scripture, theology, and community that was committed to growing one another well. The vision that was casted during my time in this church was primarily knowledge-based and this drew me in. I began to memorize scripture, read theology books for fun, and engage in the life of the mind and it felt like I finally had answers to the things I wondered about for so long. Despite my mind growing in knowledge seemingly everyday, what I learned wasn’t seeping down into my bones and forming me into a person who looked more like Jesus. It was just making me a smarter sinner. While at this church I attended throughout my time in college, I learned that what I knew was just as important as what I felt.
All of the people and spaces I participated in have formed into the person I am today. I know that every single one of these groups have done their best with where they were at and acted in ways they believed to lead to the flourishing of everyone they encountered. I left each space feeling loved, cared for, and served in a way that honored Christ well.
NEW EXPERIENCES
HE TRULY CARES
Slowly after I had left college, I began to visit churches that I had always heard of, but never actually seen or visited. So I voyaged on to visit an Anglican Church (ACNA denomination) and a Presbyterian Church (PCA Denomination). They were all VERY different than what I was accustomed to. I had never kneeled, said prayers communally, had communion with real wine, or seen a people rooted in history as much as these three had been. It was beautiful. I didn’t agree with every group's theological stances, but I appreciated their devotion to God in their unique ways.
The Anglican Church had a faith that was embodied from the second you walked into their sanctuary. As I walked in, there was baptismal fountain that I had never seen before. I didn’t ask anyone what it was because I wanted to seem like I was just like everyone else and fit in. But by sheer coincidence, I was reading the book Liturgy of the Ordinary by Tish Harrison Warren, and she had explained what the purpose of the fountain was, “As worshippers enter the sanctuary and pass the font, they dip their finger in it and make the sign of the cross. They do this as an act of recollection—remembering their own baptism and recalling that they are loved and approved of because of Jesus’ work.” This passage made me weep (side note: In the Anglican tradition, they baptize their infants as a sign of God keeping a covenant with the family and being a member of the family of God prior to any decision to believe in God is made).
Week in and week out they embody with their hands what God has done and think back to the work of Christ and His loving them before they ever even acknowledged Him. Even the architecture of the building of biblical passages like the disciple John laying on Jesus was a work of art that drew me in and reminded me of the humanity of Jesus who befriends us and loves us well.
Before the service began, we would all in harmony read aloud certain passages of scripture and an old creed written out between the third and fourth century called The Apostles Creed. Followed by reading from a prayer book called The Book of Common Prayer written during the mid sixteenth century by the Church of England, and it is one of the most captivating things I’ve ever heard. All of these things we did as people were all rooted in history by the saints of the past. It gave me a sense of ease because I didn’t have to conjure some prayer that I thought of on the spot. Prayers from others rooted me in truth and beauty and gave words the ways in which my heart was speaking. It was totally different than what I could have imagined but it captivated me nonetheless.
HE FEEDS OUR SOULS
While visiting the Presbyterian church, much of it was similar while also different. They had their own prayers that they would read aloud as a body of people, read passages of scripture, but the best part was the singing. The service started out with singing from a hymnal (which I had never done), from songs I had never heard of. Next was the preaching that was saturated in scripture. From beginning to end was a relay of explaining verse after verse with commentary and explanations that informed the mind and pierced the heart. It was stunning.
Lastly was communion. The elders of the church went row by row calling believers to participate in communion. The priest at the front prayed a blessing over me and I ate of the bread, drank the wine (which was real, that was the biggest shock of it all), and the elders explained the meaning of communion. They proclaimed that this is the invitation of Jesus inviting us to His heavenly table and allowing us to feast with Him. It’s the table that feeds us, yet leaves us wanting more. More of His love, His goodness, and His presence that we will one day experience when we see Him face to face. Jesus was indeed spiritually present in the midst of communion and was spiritually nourishing our souls through this shared meal of His people.
WHERE I'M AT NOW
I began to hear of a people who valued a life of slowed living, deep prayer, and a type of union with God that cherishes every aspect of your humanity from a friend that was honestly quite different from me. She listened to different preachers, teachers, read different books, yet had a calmness that I honestly envied and wasn’t afraid of learning from a wide spread of the Christian traditions seen through history. In essence, this is how I began to change and cherish people who were different from me, because to be formed into the image of God means we need to rely and learn from others rather than ourselves. There was one tradition that struck me as counter culture than much of what I had seen.
From your heart, head, and body, the invitation was just to be with God and nothing more and nothing less. Not to learn, not to ask for something, but to be with God and delight in our being with Him and Him being with us was breathtaking to me. Most of my life it was rare for me to pray and not to ask God for something. God was a person I assumed would obey my every wish if I just asked hard enough or did good enough things for. While it’s good to see God as provider, I failed to see God as my friend.
When you’re in the presence of a good friend, because of time well spent and memories made together, sitting in one another’s presence silently doesn’t become a weird or awkward thing. Yet with God, it felt like being with a stranger rather than a loved one. Through the beauty of the Contemplative (or Monastic) tradition, I began to see the value of a slowly lived life that’s aim was to be with God and witness His goodness in our ordinary moments.
Every tradition has it’s triumphs and pitfalls, goodness and shortcomings, areas of strength and areas that they’re blind in, and that’s normal. No group or tradition is perfect, but there’s something to be learned from brothers and sisters that are different from us.
Whether you’ve been at the same church all your life or are accustomed to change, rest assured that God is near. It’s good to learn from others and a part of what it means to cherish the body of Christ well. You won’t always agree with others but learning what it means to maintain unity among non-essential differences is an essential key in our divided world we live in. It’s been one of the best things I’ve done in my walk with Christ and I know it can be for you too. Blessings as you continue on in your journey towards greater truth of God,
PRAYER
Father, thank You for giving us eyes to see and ears to hear. Thank You for giving us Your Word so that we could know You, read the story You’ve written, and enter into the mission of loving You and loving others. May we be a people who love to learn not for the sake of acquiring new knowledge, but for the sake of growing in deeper joy with You. The saints in every point in history all have one cry, to know and be known by You. May we in our lives, be a people who echo the same prayer that desires nothing else than to know You, love You, and share You with others. It is through Your Spirit that we come to understand that grace that we’ve experienced and the love found in who You are. The best thing You’ve ever given us is Yourself, may we be a people who remember that for all of our days. Amen.