Written 5/13/2011 but edited later, so I'm technically on Day Ten now, but you get what I'm saying, and I'll have more to write later tonight after poking around Grand Rapids . . .
Total Mileage: 1,140
Song of the Day: “Lake Michigan” (Rogue Wave)
Book/Article of the Day:
- Beyond Megachurch Myths (Scott Thumma and Dave Travis)
- “Mega-Churches: A New Ecclesiology or An Ecclesial Evangelism?” (Laceye Warner)
(I only just started the former. I’m planning to talk about both at some point in the next few weeks.)
You know, when I was first trying to figure out the order of my church visits, I didn’t really realize that I would be starting out this journey with areas of such personal significance to me. Last weekend, I explored my parents’ early years of marriage in Baltimore and learned a lot about my family in the process. I’ve spent the past week exploring my old college and revisiting a lot of the opinions I held while I lived there (informed or otherwise). I’ve delved back into the things I believed back then and seen the places where I’ve grown as I’ve gradually accepted the call to ministry. And now I find myself in Michigan. Do I ever have a history with the state of Michigan! Honestly, I haven’t even really spent that much time in Michigan --probably less than a month’s worth accumulated over the last half-decade--, but it’s what the state symbolizes to me that really gets me. Michigan was my escape plan, and now that I’m here, I feel like I should take a second to explore the very different direction that my life almost took. If you know me well, this story is probably a pretty familiar one. In fact, I probably tell this story too often, but here goes anyway.
A History of Argument
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| Me in high school. Those were dark times. |
I know that this will be hard to believe, but I had a slight argumentative streak in high school. Shocking, I know. Making things worse, I was very prone to liberal thinking and asking a lot of questions (and still am both of those things), but since a lot of my peers were more on the conservative side in their beliefs, and I hadn’t exactly learned little things like tact and patience, this led to tension with my peer group. For the most part, I managed to steer clear of subjects like abortion and gay marriage --and I still avoid those issues whenever possible--, but when it came to evolution or the End Times, well, I hadn’t quite learned to pick my battles yet. Whenever Jeff Williamson (my very patient youth director) would take us to summer programs, I would inevitably get into an argument and wind up having to go talk to him afterward. The conversations would go something like this:
Jeff: What happened this time, T. Lewis?
Me: Well, the Bible Study leader was taking a passage of 1 Thessalonians out of context and combining it with elements of Revelation and Isaiah to form an improper and largely-unbiblical depiction of the End Times based on a highly fanciful view of Satan that is more Milton than Scripture, and I called him out on it. I asked him where in the Bible he was getting his particular spin on the origin of Satan, and when he couldn’t give me an answer, I kept pushing him, and then he said I was going to Hell for questioning the Bible! Can you believe that guy?! I wasn’t questioning the Bible! I was pointing out his mistake and may have suggested that he spend a little more time in 1 Timothy and a little less in Tim LaHaye!
Jeff: Okay. Slow down. Cliffnotes version.
Me: Teacher was wrong. I was right. Teacher got defensive and condemned me to Hell. Screw him.
Jeff: Was your argument presented with love?
Me: That’s not the point.
Jeff: It’s always the point. The Gospel is very simple: God is love. In that love, God sent His Son to die for our sins. What does John 15:13 say?
Me: But Jeff--
Jeff: What does it say? And don’t pretend like you don’t know it.
Me: “Greater love has no one than this: that a man would lay down his life for his friends.”
Jeff: Good. You’re smart T, but you have to make sure you’re following that simple gospel. God is love, and, as Christians, we’re called to live that love daily.
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| Rev. Jeff Williamson, a man of great patience |
This exact exchange occurred on at least a monthly basis in high school. I picked a fight in Bible Study or Sunday School or pretty much anywhere. I got sent to Jeff. Jeff tried to help me think and act more charitably. I did not obey Jeff. Rinse and repeat. Then, in the summer of 2004, I attended the Youth Theological Initiative at Emory University and discovered that there was a much wider range of Christian thought than I had previously realized. There was more to theology than Southern Baptist summer programs. I was excited to have new dialogues open to me, but when I came back to my church after the program ended and found myself getting in the same old arguments, I sort of lost control. One Sunday, after a particularly heated exchange that reduced my Sunday School teacher to tears, I left my church. Jeff has never admitted it, but I’m sure he was quite disappointed in me for being such an intellectual bully. We’ve stayed in touch though and make a point of grabbing lunch every time I pass through Memphis. I’ve grown a lot since then too, and Jeff’s guidance has been crucial in that process. He’s stood with me through some tough stuff and always reminds me of the beautiful simplicity of the Gospel: God is love. To this day, if I could only identify one person as my pastor, it would probably be Jeff, and this summer, if all goes according to plan, he’ll be a part of the ordination.
Taking a Break
I spent my last year of high school at Second Baptist Church in Memphis, and my parents wound up joining there as well. I very much enjoyed my time at Second, as brief as it was. I built a few relationships. I grew a little. I started to get a bit more patient and respectful (even if it was just because I found more people with whom I agreed). I still consider Second to be my church home, and I still attend there whenever I’m in Memphis. I have felt their prayers in many a rough spot, particularly now that they are preparing to ordain me for ministry in August. I’m proud to call Second my church home, but that doesn’t change the fact that, in college, I was ready for a little break from church.
I tried a variety of labels for myself in college. In the span of about three years, I went from “inclusively Christian” to “unchurched Christian” to “Agnostichristian” to “spiritual but not religious” to blah. While I did lose a good bit of that Christian identity, I was gaining a lot of valuable insights into the world’s many religious traditions through my Religious Studies major. I was finding that Islam had amazing language to describe the wholeness and sovereignty of God. Buddhism gave me insights into the transitory nature of the physical world. Judaism had language of endurance and chosenness that I hadn’t really encountered elsewhere, and let’s face it: Jewish reggae is infinitely superior to Christian rock. I don’t want it to sound like I was moving toward syncretism, but all of these concepts were very much informing my perspective on the world, and all the while, I had totally stopped attending church. Of course, then it came time for another big argument . . .
Another Big Argument
During my junior year of college, Will Graham (the grandson of Billy Graham) came to our campus. A few churches in the community had gotten together and rented out our gym to give him a place to hold one of his massive “celebrations” (since the word “crusade” has taken on such a negative connotation). The school reminded the student body that, by hosting Graham, they were not endorsing him, his message, or his religion, and we were encouraged to behave in a neighborly fashion even when people came into our cafeteria looking to evangelize to our 90% atheist/agnostic/"searcher" student body. Okay, sure, that’s all fine. Whatever.
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| Franklin Graham still has no clue I exist, but that's okay. |
What wasn’t fine was that, a few years prior, Franklin Graham (Will’s father, Billy’s son, and the director of Samaritan’s Purse) had spoken up and called Islam “an evil and wicked religion.” Now, that did not sit too well with many people on the Kenyon campus-- not just Muslims, but people of other faiths as well. Truth be told, I’m still not sure exactly what led me into this fight, but I volunteered to help gather signatures on a letter of protest written by Rev. Karl Stevens (the campus’s Episcopal chaplain at the time). What none of us had really expected was that, because my name had appeared in a few of the emails, it was assumed by much of the campus that I had organized the effort, and I wound up drawing a good bit of fire from people who were “defending free speech.” Karl helped me deflect a lot of the emails (most of which were just people looking to pick fights), and we never even really drew the attention of the Graham family. Still, this protest got me involved in religious life on campus, and it was through this that I got to know a campus minister named Jeff Bergeson. (There have been a couple of pretty significant Jeffs in my spiritual life.) Seeing that I was in a fairly undefined place in my faith, Jeff asked if we could start meeting one-on-one each week to talk about anything I wanted, whether it was religious or not. He wanted to build a relationship with me and get to know me. I agreed to this and began two years of conversations that completely changed the direction of my life.
MSU Law: Plan A
You know, as fun as it is to write grand, dramatic retellings of your past, I don’t want to risk over-dramatizing this part, so I’m going to tell this straight:
While I was at Kenyon, I dated a girl named Allison Goldsmith for just shy of three years. Even though we came from pretty different backgrounds, we were a good balance for each other at the time. Our personalities meshed, and her family-based spirituality interplayed pretty well with my . . . well, whatever I was. A dedicated student whose overachieving ways never overshadowed an outgoing personality, Allison was bound for med school (most likely at Michigan State). I, on the other hand, was a little less committed in my long range planning, and Allison’s mom wanted to help me find a little direction. Seeing my willingness to get into an argument about absolutely anything (particularly the subject of religion), Mrs. Goldsmith proposed law school as an option and helped me in preparing for the admissions process and for the dreaded LSAT. Mrs. Goldsmith was an MSU law professor herself and knew the admission process intimately. I had inklings of a call before all this happened, but I had thought that it would revolve more around teaching, and the ministry was really just on the periphery of my mind. Sure, law school. Why not? This way, I could work on a real passion of mine: issues of church-state separation. I planned to specialize in Constitutional Law (specifically First Amendment issues) and become a guru on all things church-and-state. It was a great way to keep one foot in the religious realm while also fitting in with the Goldsmith family.
October of my senior year rolled around, and it was time for all of my studying to pay off. I had taken practice LSATs left and right, and I arrived at Denison College totally ready to slay the test. As we sat there waiting for the test to start, I listened to the conversations around me (since I had already flawlessly arranged my seven perfectly-sharpened pencils at that point). “Yeah, I have to get over 160 so that I can get into the school I want! They have the exact clerkship connection I need to be set for life.” “I need a 175. I just have to get into an Ivy so that I can work with the big-money firms!” “I hear the corporate curriculum at that school is a beast, but still, can’t beat the school’s reputation when it comes time to apply for work.” As I listened to these students who had meticulously planned their lives and were so caught up in the details of securing profitable employment, I had an epiphany:
These are not my people, and I will hate the next three years --if not the rest of my life-- if I go down this path. This is not for me.
I went ahead and took the test anyway and got a score in the mid-150s. Sure, I wasn’t going to get into an Ivy League school with those numbers, but it would be good enough to get into Michigan State, and Mrs. Goldsmith was helping me get a foot in the door there. The seed of misgivings had been planted though, and when one of my law school advisors explained to me that I should express an interest in corporate law on my application (since the school wants rich alumni), I had enough. I wasn’t interested in corporate law in the slightest; all we were doing was buttering up the admissions committee. Though all of my law school advisors (including Mrs. Goldsmith) had my best interest at heart and wanted to see me successful and happy, I couldn’t go along with it. I wasn’t just making an argument at this point; I was telling a bald-faced lie. I couldn’t do it. I never submitted my applications.
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| Jeff Bergeson, prophetic meddler |
At one of my meetings with Jeff Bergeson, we talked about all this, and Jeff asked me what I would do for a career now that law was no longer on the table. The thought of going to divinity school and then using that to springboard into a PhD made sense; I could go back to my original plan of teaching. Jeff cocked an eyebrow at me as if to say, “You have the guts to apply to divinity school when you call yourself an ‘Agnostichristian?’” Jeff decided that it was time for a little test. He asked me, “Tom, Jesus says, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through me,’ right?” I eventually consented that this particular Jesus quote is in the Bible despite dubious authorship due to blah blah Bart Ehrman blah. Jeff continued, “Okay, that’s fine, but do you believe that no one comes to the Father except through Jesus?” After some more arm-twisting and trying to wriggle out of the question, I produced an uncertain “maybe.” It took some convincing, but Jeff talked me into going along with him and a group of students to a conference called Jubilee in Pittsburgh on Valentine’s Day weekend the next semester, and that was when everything changed.
Finding Jesus in a Bar
Yeah, sometimes I make this story a little more G-rated by saying “restaurant” (particularly if asked to give a testimony with children or youth present), but in the interest of full disclosure, yes, it was a bar. When you think about it though, if you look at Jesus’ track record in the New Testament, is it really any surprise that I found him there? I’m getting ahead of myself though. Back to Jubilee . . .
I was on the warpath from the second I arrived at Jubilee. I was ticked off that I was spending my last Valentine’s Day in college at a conference. I was uncomfortable being surrounded by so many Christians for the first time since high school. I was peeved that there was all this language of Christian love in the air, and I was sure that it was just a clever mask for intolerance toward outsiders like myself. Grr. Hiss. Spit. My sword and shield were at the ready. I was gonna catch me some hypocrites!
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| Very many Christians at Jubilee 2009 |
Okay, that mindset lasted all of an hour or two before I was overwhelmed by the sheer outpouring of love occurring around me. It was unreal. People greeted each other like old friends and seemed like they genuinely meant it when they asked how others were doing. There was all this talk of sending aid overseas and about Compassion International and all these Christian organizations doing relief work. There was a special segment about an inner city church there in Pittsburgh that was working to build connections in the community around it and raising money to send neighborhood kids to college. The event’s keynote speaker (Andy Crouch, author of Culture Making) greeted me in the elevator and had a normal conversation with me as if he were nothing special. And you know what else? I think there were just as many liberals as conservatives, and that seemed totally fine with everyone. This was bizarre. Even though Jeff Williamson had told me half a decade before that God is love, I was still amazed --and a little uncomfortable-- to see that attitude modeled on this large a scale. There were thousands of Christians there, and all of them seemed to share that mindset. Our God is love. Our Gospel is peace. Let’s pray for this world and lift it up to God in joy, hope, and thanksgiving. What was all this? Seriously, where was the intolerance hiding? It had to be there somewhere.
I needed to clear my head. I needed some time to myself to mull all this over. I thought for a minute, remembered my good Southern Baptist upbringing, and realized that there was one place the Christians wouldn’t dare follow me. I headed straight for the convention center’s bar. I wasn’t even there to drink; I just wanted to hole up in a corner with a book and get away from the overwhelming Christian love-fest going on around me. I buried myself in the pages of whatever I was reading at the time (possibly King Lear?), but I was soon distracted. I looked up and saw a group of campus chaplains that I recognized from an earlier breakout session. They were laughing and smiling and swapping funny stories over drinks. What if someone saw them cutting loose like that? Would they get in trouble? I looked to another table and saw a group of Jubilee staffers taking a break and fellowshipping together-- all still in their conference apparel. Weren’t they afraid of being recognized in this less savory setting and then being judged by all the Christians just outside? I even saw speakers from the event, famous people, sitting together and talking and loving on each other! It was unbelievable! I thought I had escaped to the one place where they couldn’t follow me, and the Christians’ love had entered even into a bar. Either these people were part of some sort of crazy cult, or they were just that convinced that the love of Christ permeates any setting. After a considerable amount of deliberation, I decided it was the latter.
Jeff Williamson’s words floated back to me: “Make sure you’re following that simple gospel. God is love, and, as Christians, we’re called to live that love daily.”
I got it. It all made sense. Something had stirred in that bar besides my neighbor’s martini. I was going to divinity school. I might even be going into the ministry.
Calling
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| Duke Divinity School: didn't see that coming. |
I came back to Kenyon and discovered that Christian love hadn’t been the only thing contagious at Jubilee. I had the flu, and I had it bad. I spent the next week on my futon drifting in and out of consciousness while Allison brought me fruit juice in between her classes and nursed me back to health. It was during this time that I received a call from Duke and found out that I had been accepted to their M.Div. program. I replayed the message again and again to make sure that it hadn’t been part of a delusion brought on by my fever. The really curious part is that Duke was the only M.Div. program to which I had applied. I had sent in applications to do more academically-geared masters programs at every other school, but on a whim, I had applied for a ministerial education at Duke. I still have no idea why I did that, but it sure worked out well.
Eager to explore the suspicion that God might be calling me to ministry (and hopefully debunk it), I accepted Duke’s offer and applied for a church internship through the school. I was placed at Fremont United Methodist Church, where a number of very important things happened. I discovered that I had a passion for preaching. I discovered that I could relate well to other Christians despite still grappling a bit with my own Christian identity; in fact, that might have even enhanced my ability to relate. I discovered that it’s possible for Christians to have serious disagreements and yet still love one another and treat each other’s opinions charitably. I discovered that I feel at home in the church. I got to work with a great mentor in Rev. Judy Drye. I learned to be respectful of people who had more experience in church matters than I did. I made lifelong friendships. By August, I couldn’t deny that I felt a sense of calling to ministry in the church.
And this brings me back to Michigan, because as all this was unfolding at Fremont, Allison and I were drifting apart, and we ended our relationship that summer. She was heading for med school at Michigan State and wasn’t really interested in religion. I was heading for divinity school at Duke and was giving my whole life over to religion. It was a difference that couldn’t be made to work long-term, so we broke things off amicably and have stayed in intermittent contact since then. I actually had dinner with Allison earlier this evening and had a great conversation. Even the difficult question of “So, who are you dating these days?” was handled with relative ease. Both of our lives kept right on moving, and we’re both heading toward pretty promising places. It was a nice moment of closure.
Life’s funny sometimes. Or maybe it’s God or fate or one of those things. Hard to tell them apart sometimes. I could have never guessed that, in the first nine days of my project, I would be revisiting so much of my own history. Baltimore, Kenyon, and now Michigan-- they’ve all required me to take a pretty hard look at myself, and I haven’t even made it back to my hometown yet! These past nine days have required a lot of personal reflection, but with my Mars Hill visit coming up in less than 48 hours, it’s time to get back to business. I’ll be taking a look around the community tomorrow, asking around about the church, and then on Sunday, I’ll get to experience it firsthand.
Peace and Blessings,
Tom
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