Post-Traumatic I Got Myself Kicked Out of Church Syndrome, part 2

I emerged from the RV. I was unchurched. I was depressed. It was around 5 o’clock in the afternoon and I hadn’t shown my face all day. Camping activities had gone on all day without me. I made my way to the campfire. An old high school classmate was sitting there.

We had both attended the same church boarding school. We were both raising pre-teens. It wasn’t long before she started sharing about her church. It was different. The music was contemporary. The preaching was challenging and dynamic. The prayers were heart-felt. As I listened to her I was doubtful. A denominational church that was contemporary and that was also loving, accepting, and forgiving.

Yet, I had to think twice about what she was saying and her invitation that I check it out. I had never known her to be particularly religious or spiritual. But as she spoke, it was clear that she was excited and enthusiastic. The next day, when I pulled the RV out of its tilted parking spot I had something to think about. I wasn’t happy with my unchurched condition. Golf was fine, but I had been indoctrinated as a child that if you believe in God you are a church member. I did believe in God, I just didn’t think that the church believed in me.

It wasn’t long before I took my friend up on her invitation and I attended services a her church. An amazing thing happened. She had been telling the truth. I like the music, the prayers and the preaching! I began to attend every week. I cut down on golf!

The church was growing. And this was causing problems. There wasn’t enough parking and seating was limited, especially for the more contemporary service. The pastor wanted to expand the facility and put in more parking but the elders of the church were against this idea. As a regular attender I didn’t hear much about the conflict, but I knew it was happening.

One week the pastor made an announcement. A new church was going to be planted. I had never heard of such a thing even happening in my denomination. The pastor talked about his vision for the new ministry. Now each week there would be an announcement about something that was happening in the planting process. Soon the first weekend service was announced.

The day arrived and when we got to the rented church facility the parking lot was nearly full and so was the sanctuary. Over 500 people had arrived to attend the first service of the new church. Excitement was in the air. At the end of the service the pastor took questions and answers. He had been explaining the membership process for the new church and it wasn’t like anything I had heard in my denomination before. It seemed to welcoming, to accepting and too simple. One of the audience asked a question for clarification: “Do you mean, if you’ve been kicked out of another church, can you became a member of this church.”

This was an important question for me. While I had been a regular attender for some months, I hadn’t made any effort to become a member. Rejected once, I was not interested in being rejected again. I liked what this church was doing, but I wasn’t anything like fully committed. The pastor did not hesitate for even one second before he answered: “That’s exactly what I mean.” The entire congregation erupted in long and sustained applause. I knew that I had returned home, not quite a prodigal son, but a person who had been far from the church, and, in my own mind, far from God had felt the embrace of the Father and of his church.