Reeled In

Even when I tried to ignore my call to ordained ministry and find another path I didn’t get very far before I found myself in church again. Fortunately, it didn’t take something as violent as a storm and spending a few days in the belly of a whale to get my attention. In my case God used something I was already focused on to lead me where I needed to go.

When I left home to attend college at Central Michigan University I made one feeble attempt at connecting to a church community. I called the local Lutheran church and asked if anyone could give me ride to worship on Sunday. I didn’t have a car and there was no bus service for the local community. The pastor told me that the congregation wasn’t set up to serve college students (I’m sure he phrased it a bit less bluntly) and that I should stick with a campus ministry organization. That was all the incentive I needed to explore what life apart from the church might be like.

I found that I didn't miss the church as much as I thought I would. If to this point in my life home was where I lived, school was where I went, and church was where I belonged, college now owned all three parts of my life. There was plenty to do simply adjusting to my new independence and responsibilities without adding the social obligations of belonging to a church. With no mandatory worship to attend each week I discovered lazy Sunday mornings and the joy of reading slowly through an entire Sunday newspaper before returning to school work. (I have a serious suspicion that this is what is meant by Sabbath and I still covet the once or twice a year when I get the chance to dwell in that kind of time.)

Sitting in my English writing class one afternoon during the winter/spring semester of my freshman year I found myself ignoring the professor’s lecture in order to gaze at the profile of the cute blond sitting one row up an over from me. She leans forward with both arms resting on her notebook. Her legs fold back under her chair. She is the model student, fully engaged, ready to participate. As I secretly admire her I feel the ball of nervousness grow inside of me. This was the day I had resolved to ask her on a date.

As class ends we stand up to gather our books and bags. She turns to face me as she slides her arms into the powder blue and cream white ski jacket and begins to zip it up. She smiles and her pale blue eyes shine in the white fluorescent light of the classroom. At the beginning of the semester we discovered that our next classes were in the same building part-way across campus. We had gotten in the habit of walking together and talking about whatever happened to be on our minds. It was my plan to ask her out as we walked together.

Evidently I was unable to bear the nervous anxiety until I could slip it into our conversation casually and I blurted out, “Hey, I heard there was this thing going on next Friday. Would you like to go with me?”

This wasn’t how I had rehearsed this in my mind. Gone was the suave, casual and in-charge persona that I had secretly hoped would emerge in moments like these. In its place was a sputtering rush of words vomited out in a semi-coherent splash on the floor by my feet. Did I really say, “this thing?”

“What thing?” she asks, tilting her head the tiniest little bit.

“Umm,” I stumble, not sure whether I am being given a second chance or just being set up for a bigger drop. “It’s a party. Like a dance. But I don’t know if there will be dancing. A social kind of thing at the Student Union. You know.”

I stand there trying to look confident and certain which, in this case, would have won me an Academy Award had I been able to convince her that I was.

Then, out of some magical place where grace and goodness come forth, she says, “Sure, I’d like that.” Her eyes radiate warmth and her smile washes away the anxiety. But before I have even the slightest moment to savor this little victory, before the tiniest swell of pride begins to bloom she continues, “But I have one condition. You have to go to church with me next Wednesday night.”

“Sure. I’d like that,” I say without thinking to ask, “What church?” I know church. I can go to one Wednesday night service without getting all caught up in it. Church is easy. A simple tradeoff in exchange for a date.

I’m too excited to understand what is happening to me. I’m too involved in the moment to recognize that God has baited my path with a cute blond woman and a pair of pale blue eyes.  It would be fifteen more years before I would recognize how I was lured back into the church after my brief hiatus.

It seems like most people who are involved in a church community have experienced a time of leaving before returning once again. The impulse to return is sometimes a spouse, sometimes it’s for the sake of their children, or sometimes a tragic or life-changing event that sent them in search of meaning and community. Strangely enough, these are some of the exact same reasons that people leave the church.

I think I’ve always assumed that belonging to a church was the goal. But what if that’s not the case? What if God led me out of the church that first year of college for a reason? What if God didn’t lure me back to the church but called me forward into the church only after I had experienced a time away? And what if God is leading people out of the church now for a reason that we can’t yet see?