Blessed
I just got done talking with my mom about how very diverse and full my faith life/upbringing has been. It's a blessing that I feel I must explain for others to really comprehend.
From toddlerhood to seventh grade, I grew up and was educated in a small, 125-year-old Missouri synod congregation. From first grade to seventh grade, I attended confirmation classes in that church, memorizing passages from Luther's Small Catechism with Explanation extending to a 8.5" x 11" typewriter-type in length. I would have been confirmed--having completed all their education requirements--if we had stayed the church for a few months longer.
Toward the end of the fall of seventh grade, my family join a small, 20-year-old ELCA congregation. Confirmation classes were just beginning for them. They had received first communion in fifth grade, but I had not yet through our old church, so in addition to regular confirmation classes, I had a few one-on-one session with my new pastor before receiving confirmation.
I was confirmed at the end of the fall of my sophomore year of high school. At the beginning to the following fall, I began teaching confirmation classes. I taught for two years.
I attended a ELCA Lutheran college. There, I took three religion classes and one ethics course. For three years, I was an active participant in Student Christian Outreach, helping to lead retreats for middle-high school students at churches of varying denominations. I assist in retreats at one particular Presbyterian church for three years in a row. Each time I visited felt like home because the pastor and his family always remembered me, provided us with dinner, and often gave a parting gift--one gift being a Switchfoot CD that has seemed to say just the right things to me and just the right times.
I digressed. For my last two years in college, I took part in a Bible study whose diehard members included a devout Catholic, an Episcopalian PK, a Presbyterian PK, women whose faith backgrounds and encounters included Assembly of God, E-free, Baptist, and Quaker, and a fellow ELCA Lutheran whose background differed culturally--she had been born in Africa--her mother, a former citizen of Cameroon. I learned so much in such a close, diverse group.
Now, I'm dating a Presbyterian PK. I'm teaching Sunday School. I work in a bookshop whose owners are Christian but like to experiment---Buddism, powwows, etc.
Then there are mission trips, summer camps, backpacking trips, funerals, weddings, volunteering in the nursery, accompanying the children's choir, singing in the adult's choir...
The richness of my faith life--intellectually and spiritually, learning and teaching, observing and participating, in fellowship and in solitude--astounds me and, once again, makes me feel ever so blessed.
From toddlerhood to seventh grade, I grew up and was educated in a small, 125-year-old Missouri synod congregation. From first grade to seventh grade, I attended confirmation classes in that church, memorizing passages from Luther's Small Catechism with Explanation extending to a 8.5" x 11" typewriter-type in length. I would have been confirmed--having completed all their education requirements--if we had stayed the church for a few months longer.
Toward the end of the fall of seventh grade, my family join a small, 20-year-old ELCA congregation. Confirmation classes were just beginning for them. They had received first communion in fifth grade, but I had not yet through our old church, so in addition to regular confirmation classes, I had a few one-on-one session with my new pastor before receiving confirmation.
I was confirmed at the end of the fall of my sophomore year of high school. At the beginning to the following fall, I began teaching confirmation classes. I taught for two years.
I attended a ELCA Lutheran college. There, I took three religion classes and one ethics course. For three years, I was an active participant in Student Christian Outreach, helping to lead retreats for middle-high school students at churches of varying denominations. I assist in retreats at one particular Presbyterian church for three years in a row. Each time I visited felt like home because the pastor and his family always remembered me, provided us with dinner, and often gave a parting gift--one gift being a Switchfoot CD that has seemed to say just the right things to me and just the right times.
I digressed. For my last two years in college, I took part in a Bible study whose diehard members included a devout Catholic, an Episcopalian PK, a Presbyterian PK, women whose faith backgrounds and encounters included Assembly of God, E-free, Baptist, and Quaker, and a fellow ELCA Lutheran whose background differed culturally--she had been born in Africa--her mother, a former citizen of Cameroon. I learned so much in such a close, diverse group.
Now, I'm dating a Presbyterian PK. I'm teaching Sunday School. I work in a bookshop whose owners are Christian but like to experiment---Buddism, powwows, etc.
Then there are mission trips, summer camps, backpacking trips, funerals, weddings, volunteering in the nursery, accompanying the children's choir, singing in the adult's choir...
The richness of my faith life--intellectually and spiritually, learning and teaching, observing and participating, in fellowship and in solitude--astounds me and, once again, makes me feel ever so blessed.