"That's the Church in you"

“Say you grew up in the church without saying you grew up in the church.”

The Facebook prompt made me grin. Immediately, a thousand and one responses came to mind, but I first wanted to see what others had written. I clicked on “Comment”.

The responses were as expected. Some were words from common Sunday school songs, like, “Jesus loves me, this I know”, “This little light of mine”, or “Red and yellow, black and white” (which in hindsight is a little racist, isn’t it?). Some were mentions of flannel board stories or well-known characters like Salty, Larry and Bob, or Odysseus. There were short answers, such as “WWJD”, “Jesus Freaks”, and “VBS”.

It struck me that the majority of answers were positive or eye-roll worthy but not negative. Though there were some of those, too. People noted themes of guilt and shame, dusty hymn books, and being told what not to do.

These references were intimately familiar to me. I knew every single response given to that post and could have made the same ones. I probably could have added a lot more, as well.

Growing up in church, I was known as a “PK”* – a pastor’s kid. My dad served behind the pulpit for forty years. When I say I grew up in the church, I jokingly add I mean it literally. We did church every Sunday and most Wednesday nights, too. Plus, special events, potlucks, Bible studies, camps, youth outreaches, service Saturdays, and pretty much any other time something was happening at church – we were there.

We spent so much time there, church became like a second home. My younger brother and I used to play hide and seek among the pews after services. We explored the dark and mysterious "secret passageway" in the back of the sanctuary (truthfully a hallway mothers could use to go to the nursing room). We would even go up on stage to the pulpit and pretend to preach.

I was a star Sunday school student. I knew all the stories, memorized all the verses, had all the right answers. I attended Vacation Bible School (VBS) every summer until I was too old for it and then became a VBS volunteer. I was a youth group student leader and the president of the Christian Club in High School. I went on to attend a small, conservative Evangelical Christian college.

One of the things I remember most, though, growing up in the church, was my dad’s office. You would think my many memories of waiting around in my dad’s office for him while he met with a parishioner in need would be negative (especially as we had no screens back then to entertain us), but instead, those memories are cherished. His office had an entire wall of floor to ceiling bookshelves. Bookshelves that were full of books, some of them dating back to his years in seminary and others more recent. I would walk along those shelves and trail my fingertips over the spines, reading titles that were at the time beyond my comprehension. They held imposing words like “eschatology”, “hermeneutics”, and “theophanies”. I wondered at the wisdom held in those books.

Sometimes I would pull one down and thumb through it. Rather than read the words of the book, though, I would read the notes my dad had written in the margins. He was/is infamous for writing in books while reading them. As a pastor, he had to buy a new Bible every year as his old one would be too full of notes to continue using. The notes were sometimes reflective, sometimes personal, sometimes profound. I sought out each one. I had hoped that one day I would inherit my dad’s collection of books. Unfortunately, they were mostly donated to a library the last time he moved. It felt like a great loss to me… so many of my father’s words and dreams and inspirations… gone into the hands of strangers. 

I've been building my own library since Bible college. I have a shelf of books on apologetics - the defense of the Christian faith. I have a shelf of Bibles and Bible study materials. I have a shelf of Christian living books and Christian social justice books (yes, that's a thing). It's not as impressive a library as his used to be, but it's growing.

Growing up in the church has influenced me in ways I am only now understanding. This influence goes beyond the fact that I don't swear, don't drink, and try to be a "good" person. It is ingrained in my core beliefs, in my biases, in my worldview. 

One time when I was about twenty, I took a class at a local community college. After class one day, I stayed behind to help straighten up the room as we had moved things around for our small groups. One of the students said, “You don’t have to do that.” I replied, “I want to.” Shaking her head, she slung her backpack over her shoulder and scoffed as she walked out, “That’s the church in you.”

Apparently, I say I grew up in church without saying I grew up in church A LOT.

I am not certain what my classmate meant. Was it the helping? Or the feeling obligated to help? Was it the feeling of guilt that would remain if I didn’t help? What was it that made it “the church in me”? I didn’t know if the comment should be taken as a positive or a negative. From her accompanying facial expression, I assumed the latter.

It didn't bother me. I was used to people who were not raised the same way not understanding me. We are even taught in the church to expect judgment, confusion or even scorn from "unbelievers".

What I was NOT used to, was being judged BY the church. 

And the fact that I was judged by the church for doing what I believed to be the work of Jesus ... well, that is what brought on the demolition of religion as I knew it.

* Sidenote: "PK" is one of many phrases of "Christianese". Evangelicals have their own language. I noticed this when I finally emerged from my little Christian bubble. Sometimes people wouldn’t understand me. Phrases like “born again”, “personal testimony”, “spiritual gifts”, etc., were foreign to others - like I was speaking a completely different language. Which, I guess in a way, I was.