Vita 7: Trust

Being raised in a rural community where your parents are the song leader and organist in the church means that you go to church everytime the doors are open. If you were sick on a Sunday morning, one of your parents would say, 'Throw up to prove it' and if you did, then they'd say, 'Don't you feel better? Ok, let's go to church!' (Mark Lowry says something like this in one of his routines, but it is true that my dad is the song leader and my mom the organist at Oscar United Methodist Church.) Around 10 years of age, I started to realize that certain people (esp. the preacher) in the church would talk about the need to make a decision to trust Christ for salvation and become his follower. Though 'aversion from hell' may have been part of the presentation, that wasn't what drew me to a place where I wanted to make that decision. I wanted to share an identity and purpose with my family and set the stage for my friends at the church who were a little younger than me, so I asked my parents about what this 'decision' entailed. They told me it was something I had to do myself...they couldn't make it for me. That conversation took place on a Sunday morning (St. Patrick's Day; March 17, 1991: sixteen years exactly before Sam, my son, was born) as we were getting ready for church. They told me if I wanted to become a Christian and trust Christ for my salvation, I should consider going to the altar at the end of the service.

So that is what I did...I don't remember the preacher's sermon that morning, but I remember being anxious to go down to the altar (all fifteen feet away) when he finally decided to shut up. The tradition was that the pastor would stand at the front of the sanctuary during the 'hymn of invitation'...I went down there and told him my 'decision' to put my trust in Christ. The hymn playing at the time: 'Only Trust Him'...'Come every soul by sin oppressed there's mercy with the Lord, and he will surely give you rest by trusting in his Word; Only trust him, only trust him, only trust him now; he will save you, he will save you, he will save you now.'

Fast-forward seven years to the summer of 1998. My oldest brother is married to a preacher's daughter and the marriage takes him to join his wife's church...it's in the same county in Kentucky as my parents'/grandparents' church. I became friends with some of the youth my age at his new church and attended some of their activities when Oscar UMC didn't have something scheduled. Such activities would include attending their 'annual revivals.'

(Aside: revivals in such areas and contexts are often more calendric and social events than an opening up to the Holy Spirit to actually and radically change the community by bringing new life; kind of like deciding when the revival will be is like deciding when the next committee meeting will take place. And/or they are designed to get some preacher who yells to 'get people saved.' Working in a center whose focus is on 'revitalization movements' has shown me the great variety of ways in which the Spirit is renewing the Church. Look at the new life she is experiencing in say the liturgical traditions who are experiencing growth as their existent members become interested in actively participating in God's mission and people are re-joining them in masses from Protestant traditions who realize that their traditions are lacking in giving them a story that has lasted longer than 10, 50, or 100 years...but here are 2 or 3 traditions who heavily draw from the story that began and has continued through two millennia and focus their worship on a 'meal' that mysteriously brings Christ presence to and in them. Or look at the house church movement in China that is growing in leaps and bounds despite the threat of persecution or death if they are found out. Or look at the communities of faith at home and across the globe who are finding a mission in doing more than lip service to the poor, the trodden down, the AIDS epidemic, single mothers, orphans, widows, prisoners, drug addicts, the list goes on. And we often limit 'revival' or 'revitalization' to a week long series of sermons about stuff that has nothing to do with the mission of God.)

Okay, I'm off the soapbox...sort of. Back to the 'annual revivals.' To be honest, the ones I attended were often more about literally scaring the 'hell' out people than getting them to do anything for God, others, or the world. I remember one 'evangelist' in particular who frequented my brother's church. This 'evangelist' I used to adore and wanted to be like, now I cringe when I think of some of the things said by and about him. Evangelism is about good news from what I know...but I remember a bunch of bad or guilty news. That's not to say that guilt or preaching for repentance isn't integral to the gospel message, only that guilt is not where even John the Baptist's attention was fully or primarily directed. This evangelist would talk about being 100% sure that if you died soon, you'd go to heaven (a phrase that really bothers me now). Well if you took that seriously, like I did, you'd be scared too...especially if you didn't remember all the cognizant factors or the date when you may have made such a 'decision' in the past...maybe I didn't really put my trust in Christ in that moment. (Let me interject a quick thought here: preaching that some formulaic 'prayer' is a requisite for 'heaven's entrance' has a lot of similarities to the indulgence preaching promulgated by Tetzel, et al. in Luther's day...all about a 'ticket' of some sort.)

This was the summer of 1998...I had just gone to Centrifuge Church Camp where I had been introduced to a group called Smalltown Poets...bought their self-titled album there. A pretty good 'spiritual high' there at Centrifuge and I came back to more guilt riding and fear mongering. Based on how he described it, I suppose I wasn't 100% sure that I'd go to heaven if I died that night. So one day during that week while I was at work, I prayed the formulaic prayer to get my fire insurance. I shared that with some of my family members and the only critical response came from my mother. At the time, I was frustrated by her attitude that seemed to 'quench the Spirit' but I now think she actually spoke the truth to me more than anyone else that day. She said, 'I thought you'd already done this.' Anyway, I was sent on an errand in a few minutes by my parents...that Smalltown Poets was playing in my truck's CD player for the first time. I hadn't listened to all the songs, but sometime during that errand, it got to track #10...called 'Trust.' It's a pretty cool song and its bridge had some words I had heard before: 'Come every soul by sin oppressed, there's mercy with the Lord; and he will surely give you rest by trusting in his Word.' I had to pull over from weeping...I didn't know what it meant at the time and for several months I thought it meant different things, but now I'm pretty sure (though not 100% sure, to that evangelist's chagrin) that God was telling me salvation was not about trusting a formula or whether or not I said the right words...it's about trusting him and I had been doing that. Sure, I needed improvement (as we all do), but that was no cause to doubt that he'd ever done a work in me.