Joining the Church
A new installment of Journey of a New Christian. Click the “subscribe” button at the end to receive free weekly updates by email. New to the series? This introduction provides an overview.
In 2021, as my wife Louise and I began the process of joining our local church, I was excited, but also apprehensive about what lay ahead.
I was excited to finally join the body of Christ. We had been attending this church for four years, Prior to that, I had prayed and worshiped privately for 15 years without contact with other believers. Now, at last, I would be able to drop the veil of privacy and harmonize my public persona with my innermost thoughts and beliefs.
At the same time I was apprehensive about making this public commitment. Would I be accepted by other church members if they knew what was in my heart? Only recently I had come to realize Jesus was God. As I have described in earlier episodes, I had come to this conclusion through a chain of reasoning other believers might find overly cerebral. I didn’t know God viscerally, as other church members seemed to. But I hoped, through the influence of this church, that one day I would.
There are four major steps to joining our church: membership classes, baptism (if needed), an interview with members of the Care Team (deacons and/or deaconesses), and a membership vote at the Sunday service.
The membership class focused on the history, mission, and values of the church. It was interesting to see the church in historical context, from its founding by Swedish immigrants in the early 20th century to the first English-language services in the early 1950’s to the praise music and eclectic membership of the 2020’s.
Pastor talked about Christian unity. I liked hearing about that. The passage in 1 Corinthians 12:12 about parts of the body working together for the good of the whole had caught my attention. At this point I didn’t feel like I had much in common with other church members, but if we were all working together for common goals, each contributing something unique to the effort, that didn’t matter.
Pastor talked a little about the importance of not being drawn into factions. I was aware that there had been discussion about the role of women in leadership and about COVID-related health precautions, but I was a little surprised by the mention of factions. Perhaps what I understood to be merely differences of opinion had been something more serious. I didn’t have strong views about either issue, but there might be other areas in which I had more definite opinions. I wondered where the line was between advocating for one’s own view and engaging in “factionalism.”
Membership class also included an overview of the church’s beliefs, all of which were in line with my own. One core commitment was that the Bible was the authoritative word of God. A few years ago I would have bristled about that, and I was surprised to realize that, having by now read the Bible all the way through, I didn’t find it controversial at all. I’d never thought of myself as the kind of person who viewed scripture as the preeminent source of authority, superseding all human knowledge. Now, though, I’d actually engaged with the text. I understood the scope and depth of the Biblical narrative. With the help of notes in my study edition, I’d probed the intricacies of translation from the original Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic. I’d seen the correspondence between God as portrayed in the Bible and the God who had intervened in my early life. I found no room at all now for doubt about the Bible’s authority.
Beyond the church’s list of core beliefs, Pastor pointed out, different perspectives were accepted and welcomed. People come to our church from different faith traditions and hold all kinds of different views. That, too, was reassuring, because there were many theological questions about which I had no idea what I thought: the timing of the rapture, for example, or whether one could lose one’s salvation. Conservative Christian churches are sometimes mocked for enforcing conformity of thought or for imposing rigid codes of dress and behavior. Louise had attended churches like that in the past, and neither of us wanted to be subject to any such regime in the future.
After membership class, the next step was for me to be baptized. Louise had been baptized before. My own baptism in an Episcopal church, however, had been a mere formality: the pastor’s finger dipped in water from the baptismal font, making the sign of the cross on your forehead. Our church practiced baptism by full immersion during Sunday service, in front of the whole congregation, accompanied by a public commitment to follow Christ.
By this time I had seen others, ranging from teenagers to adults in late middle age, go through the same ceremony, so I was not uncomfortable or embarrassed. You wear a bathing suit under your regular clothes, undress in a side room, then descend into a baptismal pool in front of the altar.
Before submersion, the Pastor asks if you accept Jesus as your savior. Some people say a few words of explanation. Others just say “I do.” I would have liked to say more than that, but how to condense the 70 years that led to this point into a few sentences people could hear and understand? The basis of my faith is like the proverbial 3-legged stool: answered prayer; knowledge of scripture; and recognition of God’s protection and guidance in an earlier, tempestuous period of my life. I despaired of explaining that concisely and clearly enough for people who didn’t know me to make any sense of it. I didn’t want to raise questions in the minds of my new fellow-believers, let alone drag out the service when what was expected was brevity. Regretfully I made do with “I do.”
The ceremony was quick, painless, but not entirely dignified. The submerged steps leading down into the baptismal pool were unexpectedly slippery. Caught off guard, I staggered and would have lost my balance had not Pastor, ever alert, reached out and caught me. He grinned, and I couldn’t help chuckling. A few people in the front rows chuckled as well. Somewhat to my surprise, I wasn’t embarrassed. The water wasn’t cold, and I didn’t mind being dunked backward. Afterward, the congregation applauded, as they always do. Some people experience an upwelling of joy after baptism. What I felt was more like contentment. After a long struggle of conscience, I had arrived at a place where my public persona matched my convictions. I knew the way forward. Fully embracing this new Christian self at work, with family, and in the larger society wouldn’t be easy, but at least now I was right with God and had my fellow-believers behind me.
The next step toward church membership was for Louise and me to share our testimony (explain how we came to faith) to members of the church’s Care Team. To my relief, the interview was conducted by a couple who had befriended us when we first started attending. We knew them well from fellowship dinners before COVID. If anyone could understand my struggle of faith, it was this couple. Even so, I was apprehensive. I still felt shame for the tempestuous life I had lived in my early twenties. Memories of the grace that led me out of it stirred up raw emotion. What I was doing then—trying to stir up trouble as an antiwar activist—made sharing this doubly awkward. The husband is Vietnam-era vet.
Thankfully, the interview went off without a hitch. My voice trembled a bit, but I was able to get through my testimony without falling apart. Our friends listened graciously, with no hint of censure. In the aftermath, both husband and wife were as friendly as ever.
The last step was perfunctory, but nonetheless meaningful. At church the next week the husband stood up and announced the couple’s recommendation that we be accepted for membership. Pastor called for a vote. No one dissented. I was now a member of a Bible-believing church, a born-again Christian.
I didn’t feel a dramatic change right away. In the weeks and months that followed, though, I felt the sense of shame for what I did in my youth slip away. If God no longer counts it against me, what business do I have dwelling on what I’ve done wrong in my life?
With public acceptance of Christ and membership in the body of believers came a new obligation: to witness to friends, family, and people who had known me over the years. Most had known me as an agnostic: a proud agnostic, sole authority in the domain in my own life. It was time to acknowledge the change in me. It is to this challenge that I turn in next week’s episode.