On returning to church

When MM&I started going to church it was a difficult transition. We had become accustomed to having leisurely Sunday mornings to rest, read the paper, and enjoy the weekend. Getting up early, getting dressed, getting Jessica ready, and getting to church was a habit that did not stick immediately.

At first we went back to Decatur Presbyterian where we had been married and where we both still had our membership (had they ever purged the roles our names would have been removed long since). However, I found it very difficult to feel comfortable there. I had too many bad memories of insensitive peers in the youth group and the congregation was so large that it was rare if anyone noticed that we were there (they certainly didn't notice when we weren't). Despite my discomfort there, at least one tremendously good thing came out of those visits to Dec Pres: we met the Miller family whose youngest child, Douglas, was only a little older than Jessica. Anne Marie Miller and Mary Martha became close friends and have remained so to this day.

After that we followed my parents' suggestion that we check out Northwoods, the church where my father had been called as I went to college, which had just called a new, young pastor. That felt a bit more comfortable to us and so we started attending there (when we managed to get up on Sunday morning).

It was difficult in some ways. Since I was the son of the former pastor (who the church has recently honored by naming him Pastor Emeritus) everyone there quickly figured out who we were. However, since neither MM nor I had ever attended there regularly we didn't know who anyone else was. We spent a lot of time huddled over the picture directory trying to put names and faces together.

Another thing which was awkward was the fact that Jessica was frequently the only child her age in the church. We were not very aware of the dynamics of church growth, but I see now that had we not had a connection to the congregation through my parents and had our interests been more in finding someone for Jessica to play with instead of finding someone to give us a break from Jessica, then we might have left that congregation in order to find one where there would be other children Jessica's age.

But we did stay and eventually it became easier and more routine to get up on Sunday mornings. Members of the choir charitably told me that they thought I sang well and that they would love to have me join them, which I eventually did. There were occasional Sunday School classes which sounded interesting and so some weeks we went for both church school and worship. Jessica became more comfortable staying with people who were no longer strangers, and even grew very close to her Sunday School teachers, Bob and Donna Altman, so that became an additional motivation to get up and go to church early. (Years later Jessica asked how she had grown so close to Bob and Donna. She remembered them being her special good friends at church, yet she had forgotten that they had been her teachers. Love was what remained from those Sunday morning classes. Bob passed away a few years ago, but Jessica and Donna still stay in touch via email and even occasional IMs.)

When Alex was born (Jessica was almost 3 by then) we decided that we really ought to make it official and join the church. We also asked to have both children baptized. The church not only authorized their baptism, they allowed our fathers to perform the baptisms so that Mary Martha's father (Ben Kline, now President Emeritus of Columbia Theological Seminary) got to baptize his first grandchild, Jessica, and my father, A. Milton Riviere, baptized the grandson who had been named for him, Alexander Milton Riviere. Tears of joy flowed freely that day.

Even with our increasing regularity in church attendance, I wasn't really especially committed to making the church a central aspect of my life. I was more involved in my work, in raising my kids, in playing on the computer (I ran a BBS for a few years there), and in the mundane details of our lives than I was in trying to figure out what God would want us to be doing. There were two things that I remember being sort of eye openers for me in this regard.

One was that some time after I started singing in the choir, Martha Clay (who has been leading and inspiring our congregation with an exciting music program for more than 20 years now) addressed the choir about something which she felt needed some attention. She pointed out that when we were sitting at the front of the church as the choir, we were very much leaders of worship in the same way as the liturgist or the pastor. As such we should be focused on what is happening in worship and helping to keep the focus on the point of the worship service, which is of course to be worshiping God. Now I can be more than a bit oblivious to what is happening around me, but even I realized that her general address to the choir was particularly applicable to me. I think that I generally spent some of the sermon time reading the bulletin and often only realized we were about to sing a hymn when everyone stood up around me. With that wake up call from Martha I started following the service more closely, being ready to help lead the unison readings, listening to the sermons more carefully, and generally trying to be more involved in the worship services.

The other attention getter occurred through an interactive message facility at Georgia Tech where I was working. I cannot remember now if it was chat-type program or a more of a forum, but there was another frequent participant who gave a short rant about how anyone who believes in God and thinks that there are supernatural powers in the world is an idiot. Well, as soon as I read that I had an immediate reaction of "I don't agree with that!" But that made me realize that I didn't know how to respond since I wasn't sure what I could argue strongly about what I believed, because I wasn't certain just what I believed.

I knew many of the bible stories from my years growing up in Sunday School. I could give rote answers to different questions about Christian theology (though I could not have quoted any catechisms giving "official answers" as formulated there). However, I didn't have a strong sense of a personal relationship with God or of what was important to me about my faith. That slowly changed over the years.

One sermon illustration that hit home to me was about an evil man. This man had lived his life selfishly and callously and this could be seen easily just by looking at him. But then one day he saw a beautiful woman that he fell in love with. However, he realized that she could never love someone as evil as himself, so he devised a mask and disguised himself so that his evil nature could not be seen. He pretended to be good, helping others, being considerate, and so forth so that he could fool the woman into believing that he was a good man. He did this so successfully that he was able to convince her to marry him and for many years they lived happily together as he carried on his charade. One day someone who knew his past recognized him and threatened to expose him, but he refused to submit to blackmail. So his tormentor exposed his disguise to the world in order to reveal him as a fraud. However, when his disguise was torn away, it was revealed that all those years of pretending to be good had transformed him, and he no longer looked evil nor was he evil. He had changed through the years so that he no longer had to pretend to be good. He was good.

I feel that this is what has been happening to me. I find myself appalled by actions that I would have joyed in years ago, but I cannot remember when I stopped enjoying such things. I find joy in simple pleasures that I would once have scoffed at, but I don't remember how I came to appreciate them. I continue to try to hide my faults, which I know are many, but sometimes I find that it is more natural to behave in such a way that I don't feel I have to hide anything. These changes are a marvel to me which I don't fully comprehend, but for which I give thanks to God.

Another sermon I remember in particular involved the idea that we grow in faith. Some people believe that once you accept Jesus as your lord and saviour that you are instantly transformed and former temptations will no longer appeal to you and you will know the proper actions to take. Maybe that happens for some people, but I haven't felt such a sudden transformation in my life. In this sermon it was suggested that some people might grow through spiritual stages as follows:

First we love God in hopes that we will be saved and have eternal life. Thus we are trying to win for ourselves what God has given us freely.

Next we love God in hopes that God will save our family and friends. This is still a distortion of God's freely given grace, but at least our focus has shifted to concern for others instead concern for ourselves.

Next we wind up loving God for God's own sake. We come to recognize that we have been the recipients of undeserved grace and become humbly grateful for God's goodness.

Then we come to love others for God's sake. Whatever other people have done, we realize that God loves them and that we should do no less.

Finally, we learn to love ourselves for God's sake. We have come full circle, knowing ourselves better than when we started, knowing God better than when we started, and learning better how God would have us live.

No doubt I have mangled this illustration in my fragmented memory. If anyone recognizes the source of this progression I'd appreciate it if you would let me know so that I can study it more fully and give proper credit.

Both of these sermon illustrations were presented by Steve Montgomery, that young pastor who had been called to Northwoods shortly before we started looking for a church home. Steve is a wonderful preacher and his sermons were frequently inspiring. However, these two illustrations spoke especially powerfully to me and have stayed present with me for many years. Occasionally I manage to see something of how I am living and can recognize that my life has changed from what it was like years ago, and I have hope that I am making progress towards achieving some spiritual growth, however slow that process might be.

Posted by JoKeR at September 21, 2002 05:13 PM | TrackBack