“Here is the church,” I laced my fingers together and hid them between closed palms. “Here is the steeple,” I shot my pointer fingers up and touched the tips together. “Open the door and see all the people,” I swung apart my thumbs and wiggled my entwined fingers. And this last was always my favorite part, the funny church members all wobbly and stuck together.

My fingers have grown since those days, but I still like to use them to remind myself of what makes up the Church. For all the division and frustration, for all the disillusionment and hurt, for all the damage that by rights should have razed the building long ago, still here is the Church. And still my favorite part is the people.

I wrote once of needing audacious grace, the kind I first found in my Savior. And, emboldened by the security of His foundational grace, I dared enough to ask it of the people who called themselves His Body. I laid out a few of my best sins because they were just ugly enough to serve as warning: This was clearly one slutty, manipulative bitch. And then I made the big ask: Could I be a part of their lives in the most communal, personal ways? And the people in the Church said Yes.

I love all sorts of people, but the only ones I have ever known to hear a woman say, “I slept with your husband” and then invite her to dinner are the ones who have also found themselves needing and caught up securely in that first Audacious Grace.

That any one of us should have been so mysteriously, magnificently rescued seems miracle enough; it is almost too good to be true that there are others– who breathe the same air, who inhabit the same time, who walk right into each other– who have experienced the very same thing. And yet, the too-good is true: That same grace that has caught up all us wobbly-willed people has also entwined us.

So when I asked them to open the Church door, they rushed to fling it wide. They invited me in to pen my question marks, to sing my faltering tunes, to pass my dirty dishes, to help carry my babies and my burdens.

So here is the Church made of messes like me, and it’s no wonder it’s so tattered and broken. But I cannot despair: I open the door and see all the people, and the One to whom the steeple points has hid us between closed palms where we are all wobbly and stuck together.

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read the post before this one, here.

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Tamara Lunardo

Tamara is a collector of fine tattoos, an imbiber of cheap wine, and a singer of eclectic music. She works out her thoughts on life and faith at TamaraOutLoud.com, occasionally with adult language, frequently with attempted humor, and hopefully with God’s blessing. Editor of “What a Woman is Worth” through Civitas Press, she holds a BA in English and her five children, when they let her; she almost never holds her tongue.

Tamara’s Blog |  Tamara on Twitter

© 2012, Preston. All rights reserved.

Being excluded is tough – too young to go to kindergarten with your best friend, too short to go on the rides at the fair, not being chosen for the team, the rejection letter from the job you’d already decided at the interview you wouldn’t take if they offered it to you – the list goes on. It never really occurred to me that non-Catholics would find exclusion from Communion in the Catholic Church hurtful. It had never occurred to me to feel that way about communion in another denomination’s communion service. I wasn’t “in communion” with all of their beliefs, so it would have made a travesty of what we each believed to share communion with them. My logic made perfect sense to me. I was blind-sided when I first learned from some of my friends how excluded they felt at not being able to receive communion when they were at Mass. Some are merely confused or mildly offended and chalk it up to a Catholic “us and them” mentality, but others are hurt to the point of tears.

Their pain was palpable. Worse, I had no idea how to ease it. I’m not and never have been an apologist; even if I were, I instinctively knew nothing I could say would explain or ease the sense of exclusion. I’ve struggled with the inadequacy of explanation. How do you bridge a gap between a reality and its emotional impact? I’ve never really found a comfortable solution to this dilemma. Then this year on the Second Sunday in Ordinary Time I heard the reading from 1 Samuel 3:3b – 10 in a way that I think may help me live in the gap. Homilies and expositions of this text usually focus on Samuel’s listening skills and ready response. What I came upon instead that day was a valuable revelation on Eli. It struck me that there isn’t an indication in the OT text that Eli gets irritated at Samuel for coming back to wake him up all the time. It is stereotypical that parents lose their patience with a child who comes to them because of monsters under the bed, a frightening thunderstorm, or to ask for a glass of water. It’s almost illogical that Eli doesn’t get annoyed. I could see Eli telling young Samuel , “Stop bothering me and let me get some rest. The next time you think I’m calling you, just roll over and go back to sleep, but don’t disturb me again.”

Instead, Eli seems very patient and not at all ill-tempered. Eli’s gift in this story was to listen less to himself and more to what was going on around him, all around him. Drowsy and even, perhaps, irritated as he was, he still listened closely enough to hear the Spirit moving. Am I to be like Eli? Since having this gap between reality and its emotional fall-out present itself to me, I’ve focused on my discomfort or the discomfort of my friends. Their pain and my discomfort are no less real but I’ve broadened my view: when something bothers us in our mangled churches perhaps it is a call to ask if we are listening more to ourselves than to the promptings of the Spirit waiting to reveal God to us? I don’t have any answer to the pain of exclusion and the hurt I feel for my friends; I can’t explain away that gap between heavenly and earthly realities. I just keep trying to listen in patience and in humility.

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read the post before this one, here.

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Eileen Bentsen

Eileen Bentsen is an Associate Librarian at Baylor University.  As a digital immigrant, Eileen doesn’t blog but prefers to have long, rambling conversations concerning just about anything except politics.  Preferably with a group of friends over a pot of tea, or, better yet, the dinner table.

© 2012, Preston. All rights reserved.

“The church is not an institution, the church is not a building, the church is not a programme, the church is people”.

It is often said in various forms, in different contexts, with different intentions. People however are a problem, a problem for which Christ is the solution, but that solution is very much a work in progress.

My own faith journey could be read in a number of ways. Baptised in secret as a baby (something I discovered in my twenties), grew up in a non-practicing home but in English Christian Schools where we prayed and worshiped every day, a vocational call at 13 (although I had no idea then what it meant), commitment and adult baptism at 16, five years in a Reformed Charismatic congregation, then a few more in something more Pentecostal.

And then people happened. I had seen it before, the church I was part of in my teens had a break down in relationships between the eldership, but by then I wasn’t involved enough to be hurt by it. In my mid-twenties it was different, I was involved. What happened isn’t so important, the why maybe more so.

I suspect that often in church we get caught up in an unhealthy Paternalism (and Maternalism). Expectations are placed on those in positions of responsibility that are unrealistic and in turn unrealistic demands are placed on others by those in positions of responsibility. Relationships become parent-infant, and when one party falls short the relationship can become toxic. Children rage at their pastors, parents emotionally discipline their congregation, pastoral colleagues fight over the children’s love. Sadly I have had folks tell me they want to be treated like children at church, I have heard ministers describe their flock as children, and I have seen congregations mercilessly turn on pastors when they admitted their mistakes – breaking the illusion of parental perfection.

I wish I could say that it was a problem only in churches with strong leadership, a charismatic spirituality, or an evangelical theology, yet although more hierarchical church groups can sometimes be insulated against it, they are not exempt. Jesus confidently said to his disciples ‘I have called you friends’, we find these words a far greater challenge.

So in my twenties I found myself hurting and cast adrift from the church that had sustained me for years. I wandered into somewhere very different, an ancient building, one with pews, robes, bells, smoke, standing and sitting, ritual and liturgy. I slowly fell in love with the richness of ancient shapes and forms of worship. At the time I hadn’t read the early Fathers of the Church hadn’t had the change of perception to see the liturgy of the ancient church crying out in the pages of the New Testament, and I hadn’t come to any theological conclusions. It was very much a shift of experience.

The table was at the centre of this new experience, this new way of worshiping. Holy Communion, the Offering, the Lord’s Supper, the Eucharist, call it what you will. It was Jesus’ table that he shared with his friends. The depth of this was brought home to me one night in the Garden of Gethsemane, the garden of betrayal and pain.

Every Holy Week, the 7 days before Easter, the journey of Christ’s Passion was shared. On Maundy Thursday evening we celebrated the Last Supper as if we were there with the disciples, the ministers washed people’s feet and we shared Christ’s presence in bread and wine. Then with Christ we would go to the garden. The garden was just a side chapel, a table with a few flowers and plants. The bread and the wine blessed at communion were placed here and we were invited to watch and pray, just as Jesus had asked his friends to do. In John’s Gospel the Last Supper is described starting with the bread shared with the disciples and ending with the blood and water pouring from Jesus’ side on the cross, the last cup. So the bread and wine set aside in the garden, the body and blood of Christ, would be shared again on Good Friday as we gathered around the cross.

The strangeness of this practice for one whose experience of worship had been worship songs and uplifted hands was significant. But in a spirit of exploration, I gave it a go. I sat in the garden that Maundy Thursday night. ‘Just one hour’ I thought. At the end of the hour I intended to leave.

Over the years I had been in some fairly remarkable meetings. I had seen the Toronto or Father’s Blessing break like waves over the British church. I had experienced laughter, floor time and tears. I had expounded that this was a bursting forth of the Fruit of the Spirit, Love, Joy & Peace. But like others I had also grown suspicious, noticing the similarities between the supposed manifestations of the Spirit and the work of skilled hypnotists, unsure of the evidence of transformed lives. Faith may be emotional, even ecstatic, but we must never confuse a human experience with the Holy Spirit.

There in the garden there was no space for laughter, for shaking, for lying on the floor. There was no-one to blow on us, to lay hands and pray, to cry ‘more Lord’. There was just the table, the bread and the wine, Christ present. After the hour I went to get up and I could not, I am unsure if I could even move. The sense of the intimate presence of Christ was overwhelming in a way I had never touched upon in even the most charismatic of meetings. But it was also simple, free of hype, judgement or expectation. Whilst others came and went, Jesus had me wait and watch.

This was not the end of the story; eventually I was ordained in this small corner of the global church, the Church of England. Here too I have seen people hurt as I saw before, seen people struggle with faith and I almost lost my own. I am still in the Garden of Gethsemane; where we let one another down, betray one another, and tears of blood are wept. Yet at the centre is not building, institution, not even people as we have sometimes understood it, but rather the table.

The table were Jesus met with his friends and shared his body and blood, the table where he meets with us still and shares his body and blood when we gather around Him.

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read the post before this one, here.

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Rev. Edward Green

Edward Green is a rural priest working in diverse communities in the UK. Spiritually at home in the Anglican-catholic tradition with a background in alternative worship and emerging forms of church. Married to a Christian children, youth and families worker. Enjoys blogging at  http://www.future-shape-of-church.org and listening to 80′s post-punk onwards.

© 2012, Preston. All rights reserved.

I respect people who have intellectual reasons for walking away from the church. Not because I agree, but because I can empathize and grapple with questions, too.

But then I dig deeper, and usually the reason people have left the church, faith, or organized religion comes down to one thing…

People. 

But, as my dad always taught me, people in the church can hurt us because it’s often the only place that says, “Welcome, all sinners!” The church attracts people with deep problems whom many other organizations may stiff-arm. Those people get involved as volunteers and end up rubbing their fellow pew-sitters the wrong way. Jesus also warned against wolves in sheep’s clothing. Sadly, some people end up getting bitten by these wolves and then claim the sheep did it. The wounded then leave the church.

Often I hear myself apologizing for the church and how screwed up we are. (And we are.) So instead, I would like to highlight people who come to mind as reasons why I love the church. It will be from a child’s point of view since the people who first came to mind were from my days growing up in Michigan and attending the church my father pastored. Our family lived in the parsonage, which connected via sidewalk to the people who worshiped within the four walls of Trinity Church.

There were many good people at Trinity and a handful of bad. To those listed below, I simply want to say thank-you for living your life in a way that reflected the good and kind Christ whom I love. When I look back one day on the film of my life, I hope as an adult I was as generous with my time as you were with yours and that I care for the people in my church as you did.

Childhood Church Cast

Mr. Smith: He was a janitor at our church, and, for whatever reason, I was fascinated by the large sweeping dry mops. They were as wide as I was tall, and turning them felt like I was moving a dead body. Mr. Smith would assign me a long hallway (hello, child labor) and then take me to Burger King. Sounds sketchy, but it wasn’t! He loved our church community by keeping it clean, and he loved me through Whoppers.

Dave Achterberg: I loved Dave because he treated me like an adult. We had this big printer at our church to make the bulletins in-house. It was legit! Dave had to lay down all the different ink onto the plates, and my little eight-year-old mind was blown away by the process. Dave would let me hang out and show me what he did step-by-step. After that was done, I think we probably talked about quantum physics. I was probably like an annoying little female version of Dennis the Menace, but Dave never let on.

Mr. and Mrs. Horst: He was a janitor, and she worked in the office. Every Christmas season, they would invite me over to their house to spend the night. Mr. Horst would swing by at 5 PM after work and take me to their home. Mrs. Horst and I would always make a craft. One year we even made a quilt. And by “we,” I mean Mrs. Horst did and I watched. Not sure why I spent the night (my parents couldn’t possibly have wanted a night without me), but I did. And the last year I stayed over I wet the bed. I might have been too old to wet the bed, and I might have been too embarrassed to tell them. I made the bed and went down for breakfast. That might be why it was the last year I was ever invited over.

Mrs. Wilson: She was in charge of missions at our church. She had little trinkets and maps from all over the world in her office. She would let me sit, talk, and ask questions. I never thought as a kid, “Oh, I want to travel when I get older,” but I wonder now if Mrs. Wilson whetted my appetite for the world with her stories and passion. One memory I had of SNAP (which stood for Sunday Night Activity Program; creative, I know) was when there was a pretend airplane made out of a huge dome of plastic. Huge square floor fans* kept it inflated as we “traveled” to another country. When we “arrived” and left the plane, the basement of the church was transported into another country. Mrs. Wilson died a couple years ago from cancer, and, as I read online about her last mission trip, I couldn’t help but continue to be inspired.

Mr. and Mrs. Achterberg: Yes, they are related to printing-press Dave. These two people were probably the coolest couple at our church. Mr. A was a veterinarian and pretty much always figured out how to have the best time possible, such as hay rides at their house in the fall or amateur hours where they convinced the staff to put on comedy routines for the church. My grandma, dad, and I all did a dance together once. Ask my dad. It’s true. Wherever the Achterbergs are right now, I bet they are scheming up something fun.

Mr. and Mrs. Harbison: OK, they might tie for coolest couple. They had two boys and a girl who were similar ages and genders as the three kids in my family. Mr. Harbison was a pastor on staff, and Mrs. Harbison was a full-time mom. I may or may not have asked my mom as a kid why she couldn’t be more like Mrs. Harbison. Ouch. Mrs. H let us watch movies and always made mac and cheese or ordered pizza. She let us dress up in her old wedding dress and laughed a lot. She thought we were funny. I was into that. Mr. Harbison had a killer mustache that he probably still rocks today. At least I hope so. Whenever he would pick me up to go play with their daughter Beth, he broke the speed limit. As the little legalist that I was, I would keep my eyes on the speedometer and call him out when the needle passed 25. But secretly I loved it.

Support group: I don’t know how it started, but basically it was a number of families in our church who “did life” together. I can remember as a seven-year-old being exposed to the still-mostly-segregated South as we went to Mississippi with Habitat for Humanity and built homes. We also (and still to this day) spent every New Year’s Day together. Food covering every inch of table space; football being watched and played; ping-ponging mixed with ceaseless laughter, conversations, and bloating.

I could keep going.

While this was probably more fun for me to write about and reflect on than for you to read, writing this gave me an idea for you…

For every person in the church who has hurt you, try to think of two who have been kind. Who have tried to be like Jesus, even in the midst of their humanity. Start there; it may not make you hit up a church this Sunday, but it might change your perspective on what the church can be through the all-star yet simple cast of everyday people. And, who knows? Maybe one day you will join the cast, and a child in the audience will grow up and write about your performance.

From my heart, 

Joy

*The ones that you put your face behind and say, “Luuuuuuke, I am your Faaather.” Just me?

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read the post before this one, here.

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Joy Eggerichs

Joy serves as the Director of Love and Respect NOW. She began her journey in ministry as the Love and Respect Conference Coordinator for her parents, Dr. Emerson and Sarah Eggerichs. During these live events, she would hear couples say over and over again, “I wish I knew then what I know NOW.” This inspired her to help her generation, of 18-35 year olds, avoid that very feeling. You can follow Joy on her site www.loveandrespectNOW.com Facebook: www.facebook.com/loveandrespectNOW Twitter: @joyeggerichs and @loverespectNOW

© 2012, Preston. All rights reserved.

© 2012, Preston. All rights reserved.

I shift myself into just the right kneeling position: an evenly-weighted perch so my stockinged knees do not slip backwards on the slick, red-cushioned kneeler and my forehead does not have an abrupt and painful meeting with the top edge of the pew directly in front of me.

I would never have this problem in a Baptist church.* Oh right, we’re in the middle of the Confession of Sin…

We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness…

the remembrance of them is grievous unto us,

the burden of them is intolerable…

My chest feels heavy.

Are they? Is it?

I worry that I am not so pained by my offenses to my Father, Lord, and Creator—and not to mention my neighbor—as I am pained by, say, my selfish agony over my own awkwardness or ineptitude, for example.

And yet I still mouth the words.

Though I grieve my lack of grief, I utter them in an expectant faithfulness, rather than one that knows or feels it already, in a way I hope to be True, “truer than how I feel,” as Lauren Winner writes. I pray to mean them.

To be honest, I might not say these words—or many others in the prayer book, for that matter—on my own, for my fickle heart may never get around to it if I waited to fully feel them or understand their true weight. And yet, I must say them. In humble obedience, I add my voice to the ones echoing both from the past and the creaking pew behind me, because I need their current to help move me along.

And then, sometimes my body does the praying for me, articulating in swift and determined motion the faith my mind and heart are often slower to process. I bow to center as the cross goes by, as I long to orient my love and my life in such reverence, making Christ center and circumference. Before the Gospel reading, my thumb traces tiny crosses on my head, on my lips, and over my heart, in hopes that the Word may be placed there, too.

These and others are as true as the motions my spirit knew as prayer, as closeness, before I could tell you who St. Ignatius was, or could even oh-so-clumsily describe “sacramentalism”—like folding laundry, knitting, or tracing my knife around and through the sections of a grapefruit in preparation and praise for its tart flesh.

Though these little moments can assuredly be holy in their ordinariness, I have come to treasure liturgy too, because it both allows and demands that I conform to it, in the best way possible. It provides a rhythm for my love: a love that makes me want to be better than myself, a love in which I keep doing the hard work even when I don’t feel like it.

A love that even pushes me to risk getting a mild concussion on a weekly basis.

*To be fair, my Charismatic upbringing had its own set of wardrobe logistical issues—for example, if you plan to pray on the floor, make sure your shirt length is accommodating enough to hide the scandalously colored underwear that will no doubt creep up your back. Along the same lines, skirts are best avoided.

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read the post before this one, here.

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Antonia Terrazas

Antonia is a soon-to-be-graduating senior at Baylor University, studying Great Texts of the Western Tradition, with an emphasis in constantly explaining what that means and that she doesn’t know exactly what she’ll “do” with that yet.  She  quotes 30 Rock excessively, gets herself into amazingly awkward situations, has a love/hate relationship with change,  can often be found to setting up camp in a coffee shop, thinks ‘sarcasm’ could be the sixth Love Language, usually feels like she doesn’t know anything, and has a faith journey that seems as scattered as her thoughts, but is held together by a thread of grace. She tweets here.

© 2012, Preston. All rights reserved.

[Editor's note: I am very honored to share Amy's words today. Amy was one of the first readers of this blog and has been a gracious supporter ever sense. I owe much to her encouragement.]

“You need to visit here,” I heard Him say as I drove past a church while running errands in a city near us in August 2010.  I laughed, “That’s crazy. It’s thirty minutes away.” “Just visit here,” He tells me again.

It was one of those moments where God speaking to you is so loud, so strong, you think you are hearing things. Only three times in my life have I ever felt Him speaking almost audibly. Yes I laughed at God and told Him it was crazy and I ignored it.

All the while I know He was smiling while quietly He kept nudging.

For too long to measure I had been miserable in the church we attended. I never felt settled in this church where my husband had grown up. We found wonderful friends there, but my spirit never felt at peace. We found ourselves becoming frustrated by attitudes and situations. We were attending and participating because it was expected. We were going through the motions, but our spirits were not in it.

I understand the importance of going through the motions. Of winding the clock. I strongly believe that for many instances in life we must go through the motions for healing to begin. There comes a time though in some situations when going through the motions begins to smother you, when it becomes obligation instead of delight. Suffocating instead of healing.

So on a beautiful fall day two months after He spoke I followed that nudging. Alone I walked into an unfamiliar church meeting in an old furniture store. A sense that life was about to change settled over me. Two weeks later I walked in with my husband and son and a peace that I do not have words for covered me.

My heart had found a church to call home. A church that truly accepts anyone just as they are. No matter how they are dressed, no matter their past, they are loved.

A church that doesn’t ask you to volunteer, but seeks to help you discover your strengths and spiritual gifts and how you can use those to serve. A church that believes in doing a few programs and doing them very well.

Leaving a church where you have roots and friendships is not without pain. Some did not agree with our decision. While most were understanding and supportive, a few seemed to be offended. We did not give our reasons for leaving. We did not want anyone to question their place there or cause dissension.

Even though we never voiced our reasons I heard murmurings of others sharing the same frustrations. Yet still they remained.

I struggled with my attitude. Wondering how they could stay when God had led us away. Perplexed how they could still see hope when I saw none. I wanted to share how much I loved our new church and how I was growing, but I often hesitated. How could I share about our new church and how I was growing without making them feel defensive about their church? There is an undercurrent of competition among denominations I think. Especially here in the south.

God worked on my heart for many months as I wrestled through it all. He continually and gently reminded me that although He lead us elsewhere He still had a purpose for others there. Showing me that worship and growth and hope looks different for each person. Yet another way He is teaching me to trust His plan. A plan that looks different for each of us.

I have learned that Christ accepts anyone at His table. This table we call Christianity. For some this may mean a non-denominational church. For others a Methodist, a Baptist, or Catholic or even a mixture. We each have to find our place and it doesn’t mean that how we choose to worship is better or more right than the way someone else chooses.

There is room enough for all because there is grace enough for all.

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read the post before this one, here.

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Amy Nabors

I’m a wife, mom, writer, photographer, daughter, sister, and friend, but most of all I’m a child of God learning to find the joy and see the extraordinary graces in the seemingly ordinary. I write at Ordinarily Extraordinary to share what God is teaching me and hopefully encourage others along the way. You can find me on twitter as @amykiane.

© 2012, Preston. All rights reserved.

Church has never been easy for me. I guess you could say that I’m the kind of person who struggles to find a place in the typical evangelical congregation. My introverted personality locks up in large crowds. I harbor a mistrust of loud, triumphant sermons and flashy graphics. My shyness tends to burn bridges, and what is actually an intense dislike of being a burden to people all too often comes off as indifference towards them.

When I graduated from high school and moved to college, I experienced no grief at leaving the church I grew up in. After years of being labeled the goody-two-shoes and the nerd of the youth group, of struggling to be seen and heard amongst the athletes and the “popular” kids, I was burnt out and fairly convinced that if I was ever going to fit in at a church, I’d have to stop acting like myself.

Indeed, I’ve learned some coping mechanisms for overcoming my introversion after four years of attending the largest Baptist university in the world, where it seems that eighty-seven percent of the student body have been camp counselors at least once in their lives. (I’d make a terrible camp counselor.) I’ve learned to be perky, to smile big, and to laugh loud. I’ve learned a different vocabulary for letting people know that I care about them. I’ve learned to manage with a smaller personal bubble. Perhaps most of all, I’ve learned to act as though I have it all together.

But then there are days like today.

My motivation to study for classes wavers uncharacteristically. My physical health fails under stress. I unwittingly hurt the feelings of a friend and sister in Christ and experience her rightful frustration. Meanwhile, another dear friend copes with four different medical issues in five days. I find myself retreating to the corner rather than jumping in with the crowd. Self-doubt causes me to question my adequacy as a girlfriend, daughter, sister, roommate, and friend. My smile fails; meanwhile, tears readily fall. It’s days like these, when I am not enough, that I feel like a floundering fish trying not to panic while some crazy toddler knocks on the aquarium glass.

All my life, a small and terrible question has haunted me time and time again. What if church isn’t for puny and scared people like me? What if church is only for extroverts, superheroes, and camp counselors?

The life-giving answer to these disturbing questions is that extrovert or introvert, superhero or damsel-in-distress—church isn’t about me. Loud and bubbly? Great! Shy? Come on in. Bold in faith? Here’s your spot. Weak and wavering? Come unto me, all ye who are weary and burdened.

Church isn’t about me. It’s about Christ and His work and worth. We are His body—not our own bodies. He triumphs for us—not we for ourselves. We are one body, with many beautiful talents, and that body is Christ. Though all of our lives are different, they are united in one life, and that life is Christ. It is a grace and not a curse that I am not enough, because this paves the way for our Lord’s sufficiency to be glorified and worshipped through His Bride and Body—the Church.

Thanks be to God that I am not enough, and that He is more than enough.

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read the post before this one, here.

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Kelsey Jones

Kelsey Jones is a senior at Baylor University in Waco, TX, where she attends Dayspring Baptist Church. After her graduation in May 2012 from Baylor’s University Scholars program, she plans to move to Houston, TX where she will join the movement for educational equity as a high school English teacher in the 2012 Teach for America Corps. She is passionate about all things old, shows her love and affection through cooking, and loves discussing the theology of virtually anything over a warm cup of coffee.

© 2012, Preston. All rights reserved.

I’ve been in church my entire life. I grew up in a non-denominational church (read: charismatic/pentecostal but doesn’t want the heat that comes with embracing the denomination) until I was 20. Then I began attending a First Baptist Church where God breathed life into me. Ironic, given that many of those I knew at my old church would consider this a “spiritually dead” church. Yet, that is where God chose to make me spiritually alive, or at least finally feel that way.

Through conversations with the discipleship pastor I became exposed to Calvinism for the first time, not just the doctrines of predestination and election (which I adamantly railed against for months prior to meeting this pastor) but Calvinism as a whole. Through his constantly, lovingly kicking my legs out from under me showing that I didn’t really know what I believed, or why, I became obsessed with studying Scripture to prove this “Calvinism” to be the devil I felt it must be. Oddly enough, the more I searched Scripture, the more I came to agree with and love Calvinism. The more I understood about the Doctrines of Grace (and I still don’t fully understand them), the more I came to love Christ and His Scriptures.

Currently, I’m a covenant member of The Village Church, where God never ceases to change my heart in ways I’d have never expected through means I’d have never anticipated. One of my good friends, Mike, is the young adult minister at Northplace Assemblies of God, so from time to time it’s my joy to worship with them as well.

So, I’m a Calvinist who loves worshiping both with my home church, which embraces the Reformed doctrines, and an Assemblies of God church, at which many people would argue against them. And here I stand: a Reformed Christian who speaks in tongues, prays prophetically, embraces Complementarianism, and loves Mark Driscoll writing a blog for Preston, who probably disagrees with at least half of what I hold dear. Where do we find the grace to worship with each other, converse with each other, and love each other despite such drastic differences? The Table.

The one thing I’ve come to learn over the past few months is that God’s grace is much, much bigger than I can ever imagine. Grace is quiet and subtle, and it is violent and fearsome. But grace is also all-sufficient. When I take communion with my home church, it is not the common doctrines or practices which unite us, but the broken body and blood of our Savior those elements represent. When I worship with a church that I probably disagree with more than agree with (on the whole, not the young adult ministry itself), it isn’t political correctness that allows us to worship in the same place without offending each other. In that moment, I find that all the denominational differences are drowned by the blood of Christ, and the doctrinal differences somehow fit together and are made whole by the broken body of our Savior. It is in this remembrance that we find unity, peace, grace, and love.

It is in this remembrance that we find true beauty: that God would die for a bunch of people like us who just don’t quite get it yet, and never will until we reach eternity with Him.

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read the post before this one, here.

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Don Sartain

Reformed guy who loves Jesus. Member of The Village Church. Single for His glory and his good. Writes about Theology, the Bible, and life application at TransformingWords.org. Trying to be missionally driven.

© 2012, Preston. All rights reserved.

Things were not going well.  The meeting was breaking down to a chorus of bad news and disappointments.   The heartbreak was palpable.  Church members and attenders were trying to work through a tragedy that was not of their making.  Confessions, accusations, assumptions, frustrations – all came together in a chorus of disappointment and concern.  This church body was in jeopardy and the decisions it faced were critical to the future of its survival and witness.

Sometimes I am in too many meetings like this one. 

Because of my role in the lives of more than 120+ churches I can find myself called in when conflict or confusion has reached such a crescendo level that the viability of a staff member’s ministry or a church’s sustainability is being questioned.  While bearing no direct authority in directing the affairs of a congregational church, I have a relationship with them because of role or influence that allows me to help them through the maze of the present challenge they face as the Family of God.

Sometimes you hear things you would have rather not heard.

Like nails skating across a chalkboard come piercing comments better left unsaid.  Words can take on their own life priming others to join in a similar stream of conversation that leaves little room for grace or mercy. Proverbs 26:2 says, “Like a fluttering sparrow a darting swallow, an undeserved curse does not come to rest.”  For the moment these words harpoon the heart.

Church, where sometimes you hear things you’re glad to hear.

The meeting I was in shifted its focus to the good the church had done in the life of the membership and its community.  Voices of affirmation resounded for the impact and value of the lives of individual members and the church body corporately.  One voice in particular stood out.  Her testimony was simple, “I was considered untouchable in this community and this church embraced me, became my family, welcomed me, and let me know I had found a home.”

Church, where the “Untouchable” are touched.

Time and again through the narrative of the gospels (Matt 14, Mark 3, Luke 6) records the untouchables of society thinking, “if I can just touch him (Jesus) I can be made whole.” Mark 5 tells us about a woman who spent 12 years looking for answers to a medical condition which precluded her being welcome to worship with others at the Temple only to find doctor bills that bankrupted her, disappointments that crushed her, and additional pain which hindered her who thought, “if only I can touch the hem of his garment I can be made whole”.  She touched him, he touched her, and her life was forever changed.

Church, where the “Untouchables” gather whose lives have been changed forever.

When the time came for me to speak again to the congregation, I stood and asked the “Untouchable” a question.  “What is your name?”  She told me and speaking her name I expressed to her what the Bible says to all of us.  All of us are untouchable to a holy God.  All of us are but broken vessels of dishonor that are untouchable.  Only by the grace of God through Jesus Christ are the “Untouchables” made whole and that it cost no more or less to make her life whole than it did mine at the age of six when I asked Jesus into my heart.  The family of God is a family of untouchables made whole who are now new creations (2 Cor 5:17) in Christ Jesus.  The untouchable becomes touchable because “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” (2 Cor 5:21)

Church, where this “Untouchable” was touched by Jesus.

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read the post before this one, here.

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Dr. Roger Yancey

Roger Yancey relates to more than 120+ Southern Baptist Churches north of Houston as the Executive Director of the Tryon Evergreen Baptist Association.  His passion is leadership development, church planting, and assisting churches in getting outside of the walls of the church building.   He has been in Christian ministry for over 30 years serving in multiple capacities including church planting and pastoring local churches before coming to the TEBA in 2004.  The most important thing about Roger is that he is God’s child, Pauline’s husband, and Preston’s dad.

© 2012, Preston. All rights reserved.