When I was very little I remember
going to church with my mother on Sundays and partway through the service
running through the door at the back of the church to head off to junior
church, and learning so many wonderful stories about God and Jesus, and making
crafts and playing games along with those stories. I remember in the Christmas
season making reindeer out of pipe cleaner, decorating Easter eggs to
the story of Jesus' final days. When I was very little I remember going to
church with my mother on Sundays, and enjoying it.
When my mother married my father,
I'm told, they agreed to go to his family's catholic church and raise their
children catholic. We went, we were baptised, and then my father stopped going.
My mother was left with two young children in an uneventful church
service with open pews for them to try and escape. Eventually she gave up and
brought us to her church, a protestant congregational, instead. They had pews
with doors that she could keep shut so we couldn't run off, a Sunday school in
the morning before service, and something called junior church. I grew up in
this church. There were kids my age, some nice and some not. There was a summer
program called Vacation Bible School, which was also fun. There was a
scholarship to a place called Camp Fireside, which I always got because nobody
else ever even wanted it.
Vacation Bible School is a program
that some churches put on where each day there is a different set of
activities. I don't remember all of the activities. I do remember that, at the
end of each day, one of the adults would talk about accepting Jesus into our
lives and how wonderful it was. They would then call us all up to say a prayer
to do so, telling us that once we had accepting him there was nothing else we
needed to do, he would be there with us forever, you only had to do it once.
I went up every day.
If I didn't, I felt like I was
doing something wrong. Sometimes I would think, "Well, I already did it
before, I don't need to do it again," but as soon as the other kids all
started getting up I felt that if I didn't follow them, I wasn't doing it
right. So I went every day, every year. Then one year I was old enough to go to
Camp Fireside, and I went there instead.
Growing up I had thought my church
was how things were supposed to be. There was a way that church was done, and
that was how it was always done - that's how children often think of things.
Then there was Camp Fireside, a week-long Christian Camp, and everything
changed. At camp there was chapel every morning and every night, and everybody
looked forward to it.
The chapel itself? An old
barn-looking building. Wooden walls, wooden door, wooden roof. Open-hole
windows with screen stapled on to keep the bugs out. Inside was much the same:
wooden floors, wooden stage, wooden benches with wooden shelves for some
bibles. An old projector, the sort with plastic paper and quick-erase marker.
The only thing that really set this place apart for me, visually, was the band
that played the music. Guitars, drums, microphones, and every so often an ukulele.
What really set this place apart for
me was what chapel felt like.
Back at the church I grew up in,
before junior church was called away, everyone would join in song from the
hymnals. The music was monotonous, the words were so familiar that they were
often boring, and the singing was always slow. I had never known anything
different though, and so I thought that was how it was supposed to be. Camp
Fireside changed that.
Everyone would gather into the
chapel, sitting in rows according to their cabins, and as soon as everyone had
settled down the music would start. The words were set up on the projector, and
everyone started to sing along. The music was lively, the words were different
and upbeat, and the singing was so enthusiastic that it was impossible not to
find yourself singing along. The excitement to simply be in chapel was
palpable. The emotion was infectious. It was fun. It was magical, even.
Here was a place where everyone
inside was truly happy just to be able to sing about God, just to stand there
and feel the presence – and you could. Simply standing in the chapel while the
music was going with kids and counselors alike singing along, you could feel the Presence. It was impossible not
to. It was one of the first things I noticed. It was here, not back at Vacation Bible School, where I truly, undeniably,
found Jesus. It was where I was Saved.
But that is a different story, and
possibly just as long.
I went back
to Camp Fireside every year for as long as I could. My family never had the
money to send us, but as I mentioned before nobody else in my church ever
wanted the scholarship and so it was always given to me. Eventually I was too
old to go, and I had no interest in being a counselor. The feel of the place,
though, has always stuck with me. I was baptized catholic and raised
protestant, but I no longer considered myself of any denomination. I was a
Christian. That was that.
Each year
that I went to Camp Fireside, I felt less interested in going to the church that
I had grown up in. Each time I felt the immense joy present in the worship at
chapel, I felt the lack of it in my home church more and more strongly. I still
went with my mother, but eventually even that stopped. Sometime in High School
I started volunteering at the local animal shelter on Sundays, and that became
my excuse. When I left the shelter it was only because I was starting college,
and since my college was in Vermont that, then, became my excuse. I still
attended service on Christmas and Easter, but that was it. I fell away from the
church and, to be very honest, I was glad. The church had become boring to me,
unexciting, even - to some extent - dead.
I spent my
college career worshipping and praying on my own. Listening to Christian rock
music on my computer and praying in the privacy of my dorm room, or on walks
through the nearby field. “After college,” I would tell myself. “After college,
I’ll go back to church.” I just had to find one.
After
college I was eager to begin the search. I did what any other self-respecting
person of my age would do to begin it – I googled. It did admittedly take me a
few months to begin this process, but a few months after graduating I started
actively searching. My grandmother offered to drive me, and my fiancé, to
various churches to try out. We went through a total of three.
The first
was an episcopal church that my grandmother had grown up going to. The people were
very friendly, the songs were varied, and many of the people did seem happy to
be there. Unlike the church I’d grown up in, the smiles outweighed the scowls
of boredom. Granted, the church population consisted mostly of older, graying
individuals, but it was large enough. It felt lively enough. They even had
coffee and tea together after each service. “Maybe here,” I thought. My fiancé liked
it well enough, too, but in the end my mother convinced us to keep looking
until we’ve really found one we’re happy with. She told us not to settle.
So we tried
another. An evangelical church. There, the people were just as friendly. The
service was shorter, but the songs were upbeat and there was the occasional
joke shared between the pastor and those sitting in the pews, the occasional
wave of quiet laughter. The ages here were much more varied, and again my fiancé
and I found ourselves thinking that we could get used to such a place. Again,
my mother convinced us otherwise. She kept insisting that we try another
church, one that she specifically had heard of through a second-hand store that
they ran. One that, ironically, I shared a name with. So we went, not expecting
any more than what we’d found at the other two. We were wrong.
When we
arrived at the church we went through the wrong door. A very friendly man
offered to guide us to where service was held, and we were led through a school
– an entire school, pre-k through 12,
attached to the church. This may not seem like anything special to some but as my
grandmother, my mother, and my fiancé and I walked through the halls, as I held
my fiancé’s hand and looked at the various classrooms, I started to feel as
though we could build a future here. Then we arrived at the auditorium where
the services were held.
There were
rows and rows of chairs to fill the entirely gigantic room that the service was held in. I looked to the rows of
chairs, already almost half filled with people, and let my eyes wander across
the walls which had sound dampening panels. Then I looked at the stage. Then I
saw where the band would stand, the singer’s microphone, the guitars, the drum
set behind a sound-dampening plexiglas shield. We went to the second row, so my
grandmother could lip-read whoever was speaking, and I stared at the two giant
projector screens. My heart started to beat a little faster. How could we have
missed a place like this so close to home?
A few
moments later, the band came out. The music started, and words were projected
up on the screens for easy readability. Modern music, Christian rock. I didn't know the song, but the words were there so I tried my best to sing along. Every so often I would glance to the side at the people around, and I realized that the auditorium had filled with people so that I could hardly see any empty seats. Most of them were singing. All of them were smiling. Some, like a high schooler standing behind us, were dancing. Some were throwing their hands in the air. Some were crying with smiles. It was about that moment that I noticed the stinging in my own eyes, and how my heart was beating. I looked back at the words on the screen, having caught on to the chorus by now, and started to sing along once more. I could feel It again, emanating infectiously from the people all around, projecting from the band like a megaphone, and thudding against my own ribcage. It was there, it was all around, and it was wonderful.
The corner of my eyes stung again, and I quickly wiped away run-away tear before my fiance would notice it and not the smile on my face. As the song came to an end I heard a few words filter through my mind, like a whisper on the wind. "Home," it said. "You're home. This is home. Welcome back."
I am happy to say that I have found another church to attend.
I am happier to say thank you, to Him, for leading me to it.
