Church

When I was a child I attended a Wesleyan church.  I attended this church because my older sister wanted to go to Sunday school. My mother, a very practical woman, decided that the best way to handle this was to walk us to the church that was one block away from our house. It happened to be a Wesleyan church.

For those of you unfamiliar with Protestant churches, the Wesleyans became a church when

they broke away from the Methodist church.  They decided that the Methodists were WAY too liberal so they separated to start their own, more conservative church - an 'evangelical' church in today's parlance.  When I was growing up the Wesleyans didn't smoke, didn't drink, didn't play cards, didn't go to movies...didn't do a LOT of things that we did do in my house. We played cards, saw a movie here or there, my dad smoked for a while when I was young and had a drink every evening when he got home from work while watching the news. An occasional swear word could be heard. I didn't grow up in - what many church people referred to as - a 'church home'. 

Once I got out on my own and became an 'adult' I went through various phases of church attendance - attending for a while, abstaining for a while when I couldn't find a place that felt like a good fit - but generally I ended up at churches that were somewhat similar to the church of my childhood.  We go with what we know.  😉  So once I landed in Minneapolis I ended up at another church that could reasonably be described as 'evangelical.'

I chose this church for all sorts of reasons.  I had friends that attended and invited me. I thought the music was good. I thought the teaching was good. And, the church was BIG.  I could be invisible if I chose and, for a while, I did choose. There were some things I didn't like and wasn't particularly comfortable with but I stayed. Why?  Inertia. It was easy.  It was fairly comfortable. Why change?

But as time passed the discomfort I felt regarding some of the church's positions and attitudes regarding certain social issues and certain people groups became more and more difficult to ignore.  So I went into one of my periods of abstaining. 

The problem with that, though, is that I like going to church.  I like gathering in the same place with others to acknowledge corporately that there is something greater than myself.   I know that many people don't understand that 'urge'.  And, given the way that Christianity has been practiced by some groups I understand their hesitancy.  We've seen right and left how some people will behave in the worst possible ways and yet wave the flag of their 'Christianity' and their 'family values' as a defense.  But I like going to church in spite of that.  So the search was on to find a church that more closely aligned with my understanding of the answers to the infamous question - WWJD? 

I started with my trusty friend - Google.  I knew that the Catholic church was not right for me and I also knew that the evangeical churches were not the right fit either.  But I knew that I needed to try something different.  So my Google search was:  "open and affirming Episcopal churches near me."  The first one that popped up was St. Luke's in South Minneapolis. I went that Sunday and have been going back ever since.

It's a different expereience than the one that I grew up with and I wasn't sure I was going to like it.  There's liturgy - real liturgy.  (My best friend says that Episcopalians are JV Catholics. 😏 I see where she gets that.) Threre's a priest and a deacon - they wear robes.  There's a choir - they wear robes.  There are acolytes - they wear robes.  There's a piano. There's an organ. There's not a guitar or a drum set or a 'worship team' in sight.  We use a hymnal - no giant screen with words to praise choruses hanging from the ceiling. It's celebratory. It's reverent. It's moving. And it's open. Every week prior to starting communion we hear the priest say "ALL are welcome to receive at this table."  ALL.

This is a church that is filled with ordinary people. Young and old. Gay and straight. Immigrants. Refugees. All colors, all economic backgrounds, all varieties of family.  Nothing is perfect. No one is perfect.  But ALL are welcome.  For me, that is the answer to the question - WWJD? He would say ALL are welcome.  Amen.