lessons from Lists, Liturgy and the Velveteen Rabbit

I was born a Back-Row Baptist. Is that an offensive term? I mean it in completely endearing sort of way! I love that I grew up ABC (American Baptist Convention. To all my southern friends, it’s a thing). I think it is rich, and full, and surprisingly ahead of the game in many aspects, and I wouldn’t be who I am without it ESPECIALLY without the love and support I found within the West Virginia Baptist Convention. (I’m looking at each and every one of you with the utmost and sincerest gratitude and love. You can’t see it cause of our computer screens being in the way).

That being said, I now mostly tell people I love Jesus and that’s the only real distinction I’m into labeling myself with.

Christian.
Christ-follower.
His.

Which is kinda awesome. Being for Jesus and letting the chips fall where they may as far as subscriptions to belief sets or rules is freeing in the best sort of way. It lets me focus on Him and lets other people worry about what name tag to stick me with.

And I like it that way. But that’s not what this post is about.

This post is about what God has been teaching me about lists and perceptions.

I grew up Baptist, like I said. But this semester, I’m lucky enough to have snagged a sweet internship opportunity at a, brace yourself,

PRESBYTERIAN church.

I know. Did the Apostles Creed just flash before your eyes?

Mine neither, because I don’t know it by heart (despite my freshman theology professor’s best efforts to make my cousin and me memorize it). Because I grew up, say it with me now:

BAPTIST.

What’s the one thing we all probably know about Baptists? We’re not huge fans of people telling us how to do things.

So like, Tradition. (And I mean Tradition with a capital ‘T.’ We all know church ladies of all denominations and creeds LOVE traditions.)

I jokingly tell people that Baptists don’t like anyone telling US how to pray. We know how to do that ourselves, thank you kindly. Which is something I throughly appreciate about us. We celebrate individualism! We say, “Talk to Jesus however it suits you!” Our lack of creeds provides a kind of flexibility and fluidity that has made my faith able to stand the test of time and college courses with ideas bigger than what I knew before. A trampoline faith, as we say in youth ministry.

And here’s what I knew about Presbyterians before I started interning:

-not a lot
-formal?
-creeds
-say prayers together?
-baptize differently (lots of jokes in freshman theology)
-liturgy

That’s about it, honestly.

Liturgy (a form or formulary according to which public religious worship, especially Christian worship, is conducted. The actual definition, in case you’re wondering. Not that I needed it…) scared me. I thought it meant a bunch of rules and certain special things you had to do. I thought it made faith rigid, unmoving, and unfeeling.

Yet, ever since reading my formerly Jewish Soul-Sister, Lauren Winner’s book Girl Meets God, I had felt myself drawn to it. She spoke of it moving her to deeper worship and intimacy with Jesus. Because I trust that chick, I thought I’d at least give it a shot.

So as I walked into my first service this semester, at bright and ever-so-early 8:30am, I had no idea what I was in for. I knew my youth min. professor, Dan the Man, would be there. I knew it was the early service for a reason: it was gasp the contemporary service. And I knew I knew next to no one.

Which, by the way, was simultaneously scary and exhilarating as all get-out. Something different. Something new. A life of following Jesus is, as the Jesus Calling devotional so lovingly puts it, a life of continual newness. Doesn’t necessarily lessen the scary, but also refuses to let it overwhelm you. Which is a super grace-filled thing to remind ourselves of.

Back to the point, I was full of certain expectations and ideas about what a Presbyterian church experience was going to consist of. The first service was so nerves-fueled, I barely remember most of it. I do remember writing down in my notebook:

“I’m here, Jesus. Now it’s your turn. Show up. Do whatever you want.”

We did read a prayer together, I’m fairly certain. The Pastor spoke, I’m sure of that. I spilled my coffee on the carpeted floor of the fellowship hall and casually moved seats during “shake-hands-with-your-neighbor” time, so I could sit with Dan. That’s about all I can pin down about that first experience.

Not because it wasn’t impactful. It was! But what I have encountered since that first step into the unknown has been far more impactful.

I’ve learned that lists can limit. I had all these ideas about what liturgy and tradition meant. About what it meant to be a certain denomination or another. About what the point of worship was. About sanctification and how Jesus speaks to us. And I’ve since learned how we limit His ability to reach us and our ability to respond when we put up barriers.

My barriers started to come down the next Wednesday night. This church is pretty established, which was new for me. They had things they just do. One of those is Wednesday Night Dinners. They have dinner t o g e t h e r. The whole church.  Down to my Bible professors’ 2 year old.

I was overwhelmed, walking into the fellowship turned mess hall: circular tables squeezed into every available square inch, kids pranking each other, babies laughing, old men discussing whatever it is old men discuss over dinner. I was standing in line to get my mini-meat loaf, in awe.

So the “formal” thing was kinda off the bullet points list.

As I’ve continued my internship, my heart has grown soft to prayers said in unison with the congregation. It’s as if we’re all supporting one-another. Saying, “Oh, you can’t say this part and mean it today? That’s okay. We’ll say if for you, so you can remind yourself it’s still true.” We repeat after the pastor, affirming what he’s saying, like “Yeah. You’re right. That is a wonderful thing about our God. I agree!” Slowly, more and more things were scratched off my list.

Then today happened.

Today, following the mythical and elusive Snow WEEK, I finally ventured out into the late-blooming winter wonderland that has become B-Town, TN/VA. I arrived at church, quickly spilled coffee all over my boots and the already massively stained carpet, then settled in for service. Dan was leading, and I was loving that. He’s SO youth min. about everything.

What I mean by that is he’s genuine. Authentic. Open. And fervently tries to connect with people, and to connect people to Jesus. By whatever means available to him.

We’re singing, there’s a scripture reading, and then Dan tells us to sit down (not typical order of service, from what I’d gathered). We sit. Dan opens up a small, blue book, and tells us he’s going to read from

The Velveteen Rabbit.

Now, this was weird because I had brought up this classic children’s novel within the last two of my english classes. And then it got weirder because Dan read the exact passage I had mentioned:

“‘Real isn’t how you are made,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘It’s a thing that happens to you.'”

‘Real is something that happens to you,’ Dan said. ‘We have to be real with each other, here. We have to be real with each other and before our God.’

I was caught off guard. So off guard that I didn’t even register that the head Pastor was calling up newly appointed Deacons and Elders to be affirmed in their new positions. Now this might seem like an awkward transition to you, but not to me. To me, sitting in the makeshift pews, it seemed seamless.

There was a call and response portion. To everyone around me, I probably looked disrespectfully oblivious, doodling in my notebook. But I was entranced. The congregation was called upon to accept the leadership of those standing before them. Then the Pastor called for prayer.

And he called for the other deacons and elders to come forward.

And to lay their hands upon their brothers and sisters in prayer.

And I was so overcome by the Holy Spirit driven nature of the moment that I didn’t know what to do.

It was in that exact moment that I realized what was going on with the liturgy and the tradition and formality in that church.

I discovered that Liturgy can be ‘Real‘ and genuine, not cold or contrived, distant and alienating, or ritualistic for the sake of ritual. Tradition itself is not bad or good. It’s our heart behind it, and the attitude of our mind that makes the difference. The people that make up that congregation care deeply for one another; they ask for prayer requests from the pulpit, they read the prayers together in unison, asking God to do His God-thing in each of their lives. But also in their collective life. I found out Liturgy could be a living, breathing thing, that is warm as it invites us to meet Jesus amongst its quiet moments.

So I discovered I like a little Liturgy. But I discovered something bigger.

I discovered that God can reach me as easily in a Presbyterian 8:30am service, as He can at my beloved Baptist campground, or my church plant’s folding chairs, or the dam overlooking the lake by my house.

This means that as long as we are being ‘Real’ and honest in our worship, then it can all be used for and by Jesus. For all good and holy things are For and By Jesus. And Praise Be, because that means my Baptist family tree won’t have to cast me out for being at a Presbyterian church, and vise versa, my Presby friends won’t ostracize me for having been dunked all the way under the waters.

Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is truly freedom.

So go forth, do good, press on, find Jesus in everything, and

 let us try and become ‘Real.’

************************************************

“‘Real isn’t how you are made,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.’
‘Does it hurt?’ asked the Rabbit.
‘Sometimes,’ said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. ‘When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.’
‘Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,’ he asked, ‘or bit by bit?’
‘It doesn’t happen all at once,’ said the Skin Horse. ‘You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.” -Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit

“And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!”” – Isaiah 6:3

“This is wonderful news. I do not have to choose between the Sermon on the Mount and the magnolia trees. God can come to me by a still pool on the big island of Hawaii as well as the altar of the Washington National Cathedral. The House of God stretches from one corner of the universe to the other…I am not in charge of this House, and I never will be.” – Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World