Henry

My wife answered an ad in the local paper for a part-time church secretary at an American Baptist Church in Springfield and God’s outrageously ironic plan for me began at this point. Now here’s the gallows humor: The pastor, who was the one hiring for the job, had attended the same high school the same time as my wife. They’d been old friends who hadn’t seen each other since their graduation years ago in Morro Bay, California; not surprisingly, she was hired.

Pastor Jeff was about 35, a few years younger than me. Happily married to an equally charming woman with a sweet, young daughter-and-son combo, he had been raised in the fairly conservative Baptist denomination, Southern Baptist, who’d split off from the mother tribe back in 1855 over the issue of slavery. Jeff eventually found his family’s inherited tribal tradition too narrow. As a young man, he wandered toward the ABC, the most progressive flavor of the Baptist pantheon of more than 50 expressions of the Baptist denominational spectrum.

The closer he got to it, the more he heard the voice of God, and the same thing happened to me (my naive mistake was to believe that all ABC congregations would be exact expressions of the one to which I was about to commit my spiritual formation, no small order).

And, by God, the “First Baptist Church of Springfield,” my wife’s new employer, welcomed us warmly and genuinely with what may be termed Christian grace. We found not a spectator-sport congregation but an authentic, light in sprit but meaty in study and missional dedication family dedicated to God, God’s gardening and to the health of the tribe. They were open and just downright friendly. Jeff was the shepherd of this flock of all ages and diverse histories and he was great at his job. We’d found what we’d been asking for in our prayers on the journey and proceeded to take a dive into the deep end of the pool. And the result was sheer joy: I was fed and so began to feed.

Wanting to be of some use besides a guaranteed hour of consistent Sunday worship, I began to make some close friendships and get involved in the life and lives of this congregation. I helped out in worship technology; worked closely with the church youth; took part in food ministries for the hungry; became active in church leadership; teaching, being taught and wrestling with the intentions behind the holy texts of this mystery.

Eventually, I was asked to preach at a Sunday sunrise service by the pastor, which resulted in a young woman, a single parent with a young child, moved to come forward for baptism and entrance into the religion and the tribe based on my words, my own grapplings with the mystery of the resurrection and the reasons behind it.

Finishing up my bachelor’s of arts in history at the University of Oregon, I was busy applying to graduate programs in the subject to schools across the nation and began to receive some promising responses. It was at this juncture that I, Saul, was thrown off my horse, blinded by a light, and heard a voice saying I was to take this gospel message to my own pagan world. I could imagine nothing more unlikely nor terrifying; parishioners were beginning to encourage me to become a pastor. No way, man. I was in for a penny but not for the pound.