The room had the classic church basement feel—low ceiling supported by strategically placed columns, scattered metal folding chairs. Scott and I stood with a paper plate of danish slices and almond pound cake in one hand and a Styrofoam cup of coffee in the other and surveyed the room. “Where to sit?”—it was always the question. Where was the best place to break in to the space of those already in knowing conversation? We spied two empty chairs and pulled ourselves up to the table. To one side was a burly large man in late-middle-age whose accent told me he was a long-time local. Across from me sat an elderly man, with the thin cord of a hearing aid snaking out of his ear, and a smile that spread across the width of his face. He wore a brown tweed jacket, and I couldn’t help but think how much Scott would love a jacket like that, particularly if it included elbow patches. 

The man in the tweed jacket, Ralph, told us about his childhood home in Nova Scotia, about his children and grandchildren, about his career. It turns out they used to use the same type of turbo engine for electricity production that Scott now helps to create. He proudly told us this year he would celebrate 62 years of marriage with his wife. The secret?—”Always say yes,” he told us with a chuckle. When he gave a nod in his wife’s direction across the room, my eyes follow his gesture to see a horseshoe of elderly women seated along the back and side of a long folding table, strategically positioned to eye up the room. I realized then we had plopped ourselves down at what was clearly the “men’s table.” Oops. 

We had such a delightful conversation, and our new friend Ralph had some interesting stories to tell. It’s in moments like this that I’m reminded of the beauty of fellowship that spans the generations and of the dignity of having someone to listen to your stories.

Have you ever had one of those moments when someone finally put clearly into words what had been echoing and churning in your heart? You know, when you listen and want to scream “Yes—this is what I’ve been trying to say!” 

I had one of these moments when I heard Neil Hudson speak last year at the seminary I was attending. Neil is from the London Institute of Contemporary Christianity, which was founded by John Stott (that name might ring a bell for some of you) in the early 1980s. I hadn’t heard of Neil or LICC when I went. I went because I resonated with the title of the day-long conference: “No Time for Mission? Cultivating a Missional Imagination for Over-Busy Christians.” But I found there, finally, a clearly and powerfully articulated expression of what has been stirring in my heart for years—the need for, as he calls it, “whole-life discipleship” in the church. 

The work of LICC aims to give churches and individual Christians a vision to see beyond what is often portrayed as a sacred-secular divide in the life of the Christian, and instead see how the Gospel impacts all of ordinary life.

Our small group is currently studying the book of Daniel. As we started last week, I was struck by a simple statement in the first few verses. 

“And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his [Nebuchadnezzar’s] hand, with some of the vessels of the house of God. And he brought them to the land of Shinar, to the house of his god, and placed the vessels in the treasury of his god.” (Daniel 1:2)

The Kingdom of Judah is crumbling and on its last legs, finally coming under its rightful punishment of exile after decades of unfaithfulness. Nebuchadnezzar, the King of Babylon, invades, carrying away the political, social, and cultural elite—and “some of the vessels of the house of God.” He, a pagan invader, marches into the Temple and plunders the precious tools and containers used for the worship and sacrifices in the Temple, and then he takes those symbols of the religious life that was at the center of Jewish identity and puts them in the temple of his own god. In the cultural understanding of the day, this was a clear statement that Nebuchadnezzar’s god was more powerful than Israel’s God Yahweh: Yahweh was weak; Nebuchadnezzar’s god had won. God’s reputation was tarnished—God’s sovereignty and might were called into question…all because of the Israelite people.

And this was what struck me—God chose to identify himself so fully with His people that their behavior and fate colored His reputation. To outside rulers and leaders, He was who they were—their strength and character reflected on His. 

One of my current non-blog projects is a curriculum of sorts on basic theology. I find that a lot of Christians find theology to be intimidating or to be relegated to the scholarly or seminary-trained. I also find that we (myself included) don’t often consider the practical implications of our theology. We all have a basic theology-our beliefs about God and faith-and that set of beliefs, whether systematized and thought out or not, snowballs into chains of other beliefs and our actions. In other words, our theology shapes our worship and our living. 

For example, Protestants have inherited from our Reformation forefathers a deep value of the Bible. Martin Luther came to his Reformation understanding because of his study of the Scriptures, and he believed strongly in the power of the Word of God. So, he translated the Bible into the German language, so the average fellow in the church could understand it himself. Sermons which explained the Bible became important. We believe it is from the Bible we receive the authoritative Word of God, not from a human intermediary or tradition. This is a basic theological belief about what determines Truth and Authority. If you observe most Protestant church services today, the “high point” of the service will probably be the sermon, because its role in holding up and applying the Truth and Authority of Scripture is key. Theology has shaped worship.

I remember the morning of my wedding. The enormity of what we were embarking on pressed on me. All I wanted to do to calm my nerves and reassure my heart was talk to Scott—just briefly, just hear his voice. Unfortunately, one of his groomsmen, in the name of tradition, had spirited away his phone to ensure that our first contact of the day was at the church altar.

So, like many other brides before me, I made it through the morning of my wedding left to my own devices. I donned the most exquisite dress I’ve ever worn. I laughed with my friends. I practiced waltzing with my dad around our dining room. I hugged my mom. And I waited.

When I entered the back of my childhood church sanctuary, my arm linked through the crook at my dad’s elbow, it was as if I were walking in a dream. The swirl of emotions, the faces of so many I loved and who loved me turned to watch me. So much preparation, so many conversations, and we were finally here. When we rounded the corner to come down the center aisle, and Scott and I finally locked eyes, I knew once again that this was right, that I wanted to spend the rest of my life by his side.

Do you ever watch the news or overhear a conversation and think “Oh Lord, what is happening to your church?” I find myself in this position particularly when I hear of ways that the Gospel is being distorted into Law and bondage, and when what should be the “hospital for sinners” is turned into an exclusive club of the self-righteous and proud.

If I’m being honest, I often grow discouraged when I look at the state of the church in America. As a general trajectory, those who call themselves Christians in this country are compromising on mission for the sake of popularity, emphasizing moralism over Gospel transformation, abandoning basic biblical ethics and beliefs, undermining the authority of Scripture, and giving into hypocrisy. I’m sure many of you have seen these things in your own experience and on the news. We cringe, we weep, and we defeatedly accept it’s “just the way things are.”

It can become easy to bash the church—either the whole or our current individual one—criticizing its flaws and imperfections. We pick up and leave because such-and-such a church wasn’t “meeting our needs.” We give up on corporate fellowship entirely, and consider occasional online sermons, walks in the woods, or our own personal piety sufficient.

And so we abandon the Bride of Christ—and run her name through the muck.

But the discouraging things we see are not the end of the story. 

Have you ever felt a deep connection to someone you’ve never met? Perhaps you’ve developed feelings of friendship after reading a memoir or listening to an album? You know what I mean—something sparks inside of you, and you think “If I could only sit down with this person over a good cup of tea, I know we’d be friends.” There is something powerful—even sacred at times—about the invitation into another person’s world through word and story. We see something of ourselves in them or sense a uniting point of humanity, and it enkindles within our hearts the sense that we are not alone, that our experience is not all that unique, that there are fellow travelers with similar aches and joys and visions of the world.

I sometimes sense this spark of friendship, for lack of a better word, as I learn about Christians who have gone before us. (I know, I’m a bit of a strange bird in this case.) As I read their writings and the stories recorded of them, there are certain characters who become prominent in my mind. Although we are separated by a great chasm of time and space, I feel a sense of friendship and an awareness of a kindred spirit.

One such “friend” for me is Aelred of Rievaulx. Rievaulx Abbey now stands in ruins in the countryside of northern Yorkshire, and its beloved abbot, Aelred, has been largely forgotten.  But this fascinating man leaves behind a touching legacy of deep compassion, particularly towards those who are weaker in the faith.

There’s always been room for one more chair at the table. For several years, we held at fifteen around the tables stretching out of my grandparents’ dining room. Then boyfriends came, who turned into husbands, and added one, then two chairs. Now the arrival of the next generation brings new lives to the table. There’s never been a question of how we’ll fit everyone—we just nestle in a little tighter and slide another chair into place.

What fond memories I have of this scene—the cheerful bustling of the holidays, the laughter. We always seem to forget which way to pass the food, sending the bowls of corn and mashed potatoes into a jumbled cross-armed handover. Four or five conversations simmer at once, with some able to dip into all of them.

Over the years this family has pulled others into its fold, like some sort of very friendly amoeba. It’s a family with open arms, willing—and eager—to pull another person into warmth of being known, being loved. And the thing that’s so beautiful about it is that I don’t think it’s even a conscious or “intentional” decision.

I know I am running the risk of putting my family on some sort of pedestal—which is hardly my intention. But in an age in which so many of my generation face strings of divorces, family factions who will not speak to each other, aunts, uncles, and cousins strung across the country, and grandparents they see at best on Christmas or Thanksgiving, I feel so blessed to have a family that is functional, intact, and likes each other the majority of the time. I know that it’s a rarity.

It’s not completely idyllic—we all have our quirks and foibles, and we aren’t immune from the occasional familial spats, disagreements, and frustrations. But we know that the next holiday will find us squeezed around that same table again, engaged in the same antics as we have year after year. We’re family.

And what of the family of God—Christ’s beloved church?