"fellowship"

I used to hate the term "fellowship."

At least in the loose sense it was tossed around in college...college being the last days I was actively involved in any sort of....fellowship.

Yes, I'm speaking of Christian community, the church, fellow believers, brothers and sisters and Christ...speak your church language of choice.

I hated it because of, well, the almost clique-ish nature with which it was tossed around.

"Are you living in fellowship?"
"You need to be involved in a (Christian) community."
"He's fallen out of fellowship."

If you weren't, well, it wasn't spoken, but it was as if you were somehow less of a Christian.

That said...I miss fellowship.

Seriously.

It's been so long that I've had a consistent group of fellow believers to challenge me, keep me accountable, and, help push each other towards the creator.

It's probably my fault. In medical school there was always the excuse of needing to study. Not having enough time even for 1-2 hrs of church fellowship. Or the excuse that perhaps the (particular) church wasn't genuine enough. All show and no soul. That it somehow didn't fit into my sense of what church should be.

As you know, these sorts of things snowball, and soon I was essentially without this "fellowship."

Fast forward 4 years and a move 1000 miles from home, far from the non-denominational, evangelical, and, yes, southern baptist environment I grew up in. There I was right in the middle of a church environment that was far more traditional protestant and also, yes, overwhelmingly (relatively speaking) Catholic. I soon became married to a lovely wife who is also a believer, but had grown up in a church culture far removed from the one I was accostomed to. A church culture full of tradition and liturgy and strict interpretations (at least as far as I can best see without attending their catechism).

With nothing firm of my own to stand on, given that my once firm grounding in a more free, "spirit-filled" interpretation of the modern church and "fellowship" and church and evangelism and grace and, well, tradition, had eroded with 4 years of excuses, there was nothing to shore up further erosion.

Initially, I tried to open myself to this new view of the protestant tradition.

Specifically, there is a lot about the Lutheran tradition that I admire. I am obviously far from an expert, but I admire the devotion to faithful interpretation of scripture. The desire to reexam everything we say and sing about God and Christ and the Spirit in the light of trying to be faithful to the whole body of Scripture. I admire the ties to the traditional church, the continuation of liturgy which amazingly ties us to Christians who have come before us and wrestled with this faith and passes along lessons learned and beliefs established. I appreciate how this brings new and different meaning to the traditional Christian holidays, and how it carries a believer through the calendar year in an annual remembrance from the birth to life to death to resurrection of Christ, the continued church, and over again.

That said, there are other things about the tradition I'm less enthusiastic about, and therein lies the dilemma.

Will there ever be a church I find that fits what I picture the modern church to be? That fits what I've put together in my own faith story of how I should present myself in worship and service to Christ and others.

Or should I dump this idea of the "perfect church" (probably) and just plug in somewhere and begin again the process of service to others and surrender to Him?

But there always remains the question of how can one do this in an environment one doesn't not connect with fully? And it's not just this new tradition I've been exposed to, it's even those within the tradition in which I am comfortable.

So, that brings me to the original purpose of this blog entry.

I think I'm more excited about the possibility of finally finding a church community I can connect with in Austin, than with the other potential benefits of being back in a warm climate, close to a great lake, in the "live music capital of the world," living in the hill country, outdoor activities, etc.

The idea of mosaic intrigues me. It's a church that I'm told tried to keep the traditional liturgy in the setting of a (post-)modern world. That has (loose) ties to the evangelical tradition I've grown up in. That is ok with the modern worship movement.

Now, I'm probably building it up to be more (or different) than it really is. And I'll probably find some excuse to not like it like the others. And, perhaps even more so, it may not be a church community with which my wife can connect and serve and worship and grow.

And so, back to square one.

We'll see, I suppose. There's potential there. And an excitement that hasn't been there for a while. If not there, then perhaps somewhere. Surely God wouldn't have put us together without a church fellowship in mind in which we both could serve and worship and grow.

Rejoice....He is Risen.