belong

The Planting

It was 1991. I went to church and I believed in God, and that was the extent of my knowledge of anything that might be called “The Church of God.” Then one day, my best friend in the seventh grade invited me to one of his youth group activities. He said it’d be worth my time because the power of God was alive in this community and people were finding their lives fulfilled and given meaning and purpose, and he himself had felt his heart strangely warmed while studying the introduction to Martin Luther’s commentary on the book of Romans.

Actually he said that there were cute girls there, and that these cute girls had friends. So I went.

And he was right. So I went back.

And thus began my journey in faith with the Church of God. I told my mom I wanted to go to this church instead of the Grace Brethren church we attended in Brookville, Ohio, and my mom, who was happy with the prospect that her children might actually want to attend any church, made the switch to Salem Church of God in Clayton, Ohio.

There I learned a little about the Church of God, mostly that historically we didn’t dance and that there were other churches of the same kind that we’d meet at International Youth Conventions, and that there was this college, called Anderson, somewhere in Indiana that was important.

And while I was there I was nurtured in my faith. I was trained in righteousness. I was taught what it meant to be faithful by men and women who loved Jesus, and ultimately, I was called to ministry while standing on a hill, overlooking make-shift homes and a hopeless endeavor in Tijuana, Mexico.

The Growing

Upon graduating I went off to college, not to that school in Indiana, but to a small Nazarene school, and then to one of the largest universities in the nation. And I grew in my faith with brothers and sisters in Christ who were Nazarene, and Campus Crusaders, and one or two people whose history ran back to that same Church of God church. I didn’t consider much about what congregation I might join, or where my spiritual support came from because we were all Christians. We all followed Jesus, and that was what mattered most.

It was that concept that led me to a Southern Baptist church plant north of Columbus after college. For three incredibly formative years I sat and grew in my faith, listening to expository preaching done incredibly well by a pastor and friend only a few years older than me, and I didn’t think anything of it, because were all washed by the blood of the Lamb.

By this time, it had been a while since I’d thought much about the Church of God. I’d grown in my faith. I’d grown in my commitment to Christ, and to living faithfully. I’d even met a nice Methodist girl whom I thought quite a lot of, and we worshiped together in this Baptist Church, because the people there lived holy lives as best they could, and loved one another, and were of one mind and one spirit in Christ.

The Sunday

And then one Sunday, that call that had first been heard in Mexico rang through my mind and my heart. As I stood there at the end of that service I knew, in a moment, that God was calling me to move forward into ministry, and that this call meant moving to Indiana to begin studying at Anderson University’s School of Theology. And so a year and half later the nice Methodist girl, whom by now I thought more than quite a lot of, and I got married and moved to Anderson, and I began my journey into formal education and training for ministry.

The Choice

For the most part, I was still agnostic in regards to my affiliation to any particular denomination, movement, sect, congregation, or what have you, but the more I learned about the Church of God and the more I encountered people who lived out certain principles that seemed to grow out of the Church of God’s theological roots, the more I felt drawn to what the movement had historically meant. My wife Gwynne and I began attending a Church of God congregation nearby and serving in their youth group, and in my final year at the SOT it came time for me to consider ordination. It was at this point, that I had to decide if I was going to hitch my life in ministry to the Church of God.

But by then it was too late. Without consciously realizing it, I’d already made up my mind.

Somewhere along the way, I had chosen to believe that what the Church of God said they were about was actually something worth joining. I had come to believe that a Christian could actually so experience the grace of God and the indwelling of the Spirit that it was possible to live a holy life, characterized by the type of love on display in the life of Jesus. I had come to believe that sin didn’t have to be the default setting in the heart of the believer, and that the kingdom of God coming near could actually mean hope and life and freedom for people in this world today. I saw how lives defined as holy, lives of the culture of the Kingdom of Heaven, would therefore be bound to one another in such love so as to display a unique unity among brothers and sisters in this world.

And as I was captured by this possibility, I began to wonder whether or not the Church of God might just be poised to grow into maturity in this new, ever-changing, post-post-modern society.

What if people who long for real relationships in a virtual world find that the love and unity of the kingdom that the Church of God holds to be so important, meet them at their greatest longing?

What if people who are asking questions about violence, oppression, slavery, and segregation in the world find answers in a Church of God that has long held convictions about peace, justice, freedom, and equality in the power of the Spirit of God poured out at Pentecost?

What if people who are struggling in the isolation of absolute relativism could find that there is a Church of God which actually lives a shared vision of holiness where they are not shunned but can belong; one that begins and ends in love, and calls us to walk together as we live in obedience of our Lord?

As I wondered these things I realized that for me, the choice had been made, and it was easy. The Church of God was a uniquely beautiful part of the Kingdom of God, and it was a part of the Kingdom that might just be coming into it’s maturity for the sake of the good news of Jesus at this point in history. And even if this idealized (possibly romanticized) understanding of the Church of God seems a long way off at times, I had to commit to speaking into our efforts to make it more of a reality going forward because the Church of God had become my home. The call to holiness, the desire for true unity among believers, the willingness to stretch a hand to every blood-washed one, the devotion to scripture, and the faith in Christ as Lord, reliance on the Spirit for power, and trust in the ever working hand of the Father, it all came together in a way that as I watched it on display in the lives of professors and friends, beckoned me on and welcomed me in.

And so here I am, tied to the Church of God and growing roots. I lean on the those around me whose roots grow deeper, and I long to see the songs of the Church of God be sung anew to the world around us, offering hope where there is despair and life where there is death, because God is at work drawing his people together, and his Kingdom is a kingdom of love.