Part of my early journey

The famous American editor, Horace Greeley, told of receiving a letter from a woman who wrote: "Our church is in dire financial straits. We've tried everything to keep it going: a strawberry festival, an oyster supper, a donkey party, a turkey dinner, and, finally, a box social. Will you please tells us, Dr. Greeley, how to keep a struggling church from disbanding?" Dr. Greeley wrote back to her a message in two words: Try Christianity!

While this is humorous, it is a painful description of too many churches. Part of the problem is that for generations in North American churches those activities have been the very description of being church and being Christian. Dr. Greeley's statement makes no sense to many people. He is pointing to a vision of Christianity that goes much deeper than the way we have been doing church for decades. When I was in my 20s, having grown up in church, I knew that in the first 3 centuries of church history believers willingly died for their faith. This puzzled me greatly because I hadn't seen anything in church worth interrupting one's social schedule for let alone dying for. Then I read the book of Acts and I got a glimpse of what was so important. That was the beginning of my adult spiritual journey. The next step for me in the late '60s was a program offered through St. George's Episcopal Church called "Christ and the Meaning of Life" produced by Rev. Edward Bauman pastor of Foundry United Methodist Church. This spoke to my questions in that era: "Was there a meaning to life and did Christ have anything to do with it?" The answer was a resounding "Yes!" Eventually this journey led me to seminary at UTS.