Yesterday I went to a church that I had never been to before. I often need to be intentional about stepping out of my comfort zone because I have PTSD and that can lead to a lot of self isolation and metaphorically sleepwalking through my days. Thus it was yesterday when I woke up with the unmistakable gut feeling that, “I need to go to church today,” without knowing where I would go. I’d missed the worship times of a lot of churches and it was well after 10:00 a.m., so I used my still well practiced skills from my time in the Marines to complete my morning ablutions, get dressed, and out the door in about fifteen minutes. The church I chose to attend had an 11:00 service. They had made news a few years ago because as a congregation they decided to leave the United Methodist Church (UMC) when the UMC had decided against being open and affirming towards LGBTQIA Christians and clergy — a decision that thankfully the UMC just changed in May of this year. Having grown up in the Southern Baptist Church which indoctrinated me as a young man in the early 90s with vile, false, and hateful propaganda to be bigoted towards my LGBTQIA neighbors, a sin for which I have repented, I won’t attend a worship service in a church that is not open and affirming. That was one of the reasons I chose to attend worship at Grandview Church in Lancaster yesterday.

The other reason I chose to go there is because two of my former seminary colleagues, Jane Dutton and Liz Fulmer, are on the staff as Associate Pastors at Grandview Church. It was the first time that I had ever attended a church where the entire pastoral team is led by women. I just love that. It harkens back to the early centuries of the Christian movement when women were preaching and prophesying as a matter of course because as Paul said in Galatians 3:27-28, “As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” This passage and the other passages in Paul’s undisputed writings where he affirmed women preaching and prophesying are conveniently never mentioned by gender complementarians like Joel Webbon and John Piper whose real goal is patriarchal power and domination over women, but I digress…

In new situations, particularly in public settings, my PTSD addled brain can leave me feeling anxious and hyper vigilant as I get used to where I am and what is going on around me. That feeling was present yesterday as I walked towards the church while simultaneously pushing through a desire to go get back in my car to drive home. I’m grateful that I was willing to ignore the lies Petros* was trying to sell me. Those anxious feelings didn’t go away completely, but I believe they were mitigated to a large degree because of the interiority — to borrow a word from Walter Wink which to paraphrase means the internal spirit and intentionality of a place, entity, or group — of the church as cultivated by its ministerial team, staff, and members. This is beautifully expressed on their website’s “Who Are We” section: Jesus Christ calls Grandview Church to be a fully inclusive church, recognizing the sacred worth of all people, including those of every race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, and gender identity.  We embrace those who are marginalized for any reason.  Grandview cultivates respectful discussion of differences among all who seek to love their neighbors. We believe God is love. Beyond that, we are a community of all sorts of people and a wide variety of ideas. We practice a thinking faith that likes questions.  We don’t take the Bible literally; we do take it very seriously.  We make our spirituality active through acts of justice locally and globally. If only all churches were so inclined and the Christian faith had not been polluted with empire building, misogyny, racism, nationalism, xenophobia, a lust for power then Christianity wouldn’t have such a negative connotation in America right now. That, and the racist, sexual predator, and career criminal that the GOP just nominated for President would be no more than a footnote in American history rather than trying to cement Christofascism in America. Again, I digress.

As the pastor, Rev. Andrea Brown, was finishing her sermon, she mentioned that a visitor had come to church one Sunday when the worship featured music but no sermon. This visitor told Rev. Brown that they could feel the love that the congregation and the ministerial team fosters and maintains at Grandview Church. This, I believe, is what anyone attending any church should feel whether they are a member or not, or whether they are a Christian or not. As my friend, author and fellow God Squad member Keith Giles, said on a recent episode, Christians should ask the person or group they’re claiming to love whether or not they feel loved, because far too many Christians think that spewing venomous hate or fallaciously warning people about hellfire and damnation are signs of “Christian love.” They are not. Without love we are but clanging cymbals — discordant, irksome, noisy, and obnoxious. The Grandview congregation understands this. I don’t know if the spirit will move me to go back, but I am grateful that it moved me there yesterday.

Peace be with you.

*Petros the Stress Demon, aka PTSD.

If you enjoyed this blog post, you’ll love my book Theological Musings Volume 1 from Quoir Publishing.