Journey: Not the Band, a Walk of Faith

We all have multiple identities.  Not multiple personalities.  Not like Bourne Identity in that we are all special agents for some secretive government agency with dozens of passports and aliases. Our identities all intersect with one another in a complex system, sometimes in seemingly contradictory ways.  Awareness of them allows us to be self-enlightened.  They educate and inform us, sometimes very subconsciously, about our interactions and relationships with other people.  Pending on our circumstances or situation or location, one identity may take precedence over another.  And a different identity may become prominent in other settings. 

It has taken my whole life to even begin grasping and understanding my own identities.  My understanding is limited and still growing tremendously.  Identity 1: Male.  Identity 2: White.  Identity 3: Christian.  Identity 4: Homosexual.  The list goes on but these are some examples. These are much more than descriptive adjectives.  They are much more than classifications or categorizations.  They are identities.  They dictate my self-perception.  They inform my worldview.  They form my relationships.  They shape my perceptions of others.  I never stop being any of these things.  Together, they form the complete me.  

Take the color of my skin.  It is much more than just the racial group with which I identify.  Knowingly or unknowingly, and quite sadly, the color of my skin has played an integral role in my life.  I didn’t ask to be privileged, but I am.  Born into a messed up system of inequality and injustice.  A system that my generation did not create but continues to perpetuate.  Peggy McIntosh wrote a piece in 1988 that still rings true today titled White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack.  Some of the things include, but are not limited to

·         If I should need to move, I can be pretty sure of renting or purchasing a home in an area which I can afford and in which I would want to live.  My neighbors would most likely have a neutral or positive response.

·         When I am told about our national heritage or about “civilization”, I am shown that people of my color made it what it is. 

·         I can be sure that my children will be given curricular materials that testify to the existence of my race.

·         I do not have to educate my children to be aware of systemic racism for their own daily physical protection.

·         I am never asked to speak for all the people of my racial group.

·         I can easily buy posters, post-cards, books, magazines, greeting cards, toys and dolls that feature people of my race.

·         I can remain oblivious of the language and customs of persons of color who constitute the world’s majority.

·         I can be pretty sure that if I ask to talk to the “person in charge”, I will be facing a person of my race.

She continued.  These are just eight of fifty statements that she made describing every day examples of how my skin color has played a significant role in my everyday life.  And in 2016, that list could be extended.  These things affect my self-esteem and self-perception. They shape the way that I view my own people, culture and country.  They dictate the way that I view others and others view me.  Again, being White is much more than just an adjective; it is an identity.  And if you disagree, maybe you have never been exposed to other cultures and races and ethnicities.  Maybe you have never had to experience life outside of your “Whiteness”.  Maybe you are one of those people who has lived a life in relative seclusion in a radius of 25 miles with people who look and talk and think just like you. 

The same could be said about my identity as a male.  Tied with my color, white men are the least likely to experience systemic oppression.  Sorry Beyonce, girls do not run the world.  Women are still competing for equality.  Don’t believe me, just look at the debate about equal pay in the United States.  Women make far less than their male counterparts.  And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.  My faith, my main stream Protestantism gives me privilege.  I can be confident that my sacred religious events are counted as national holidays.  I don’t have to associate my religion with radical extremists and be feared that I am a domestic terrorist. 

I suppose that the one area where I face an uphill battle is my sexuality.  Yes, heterosexism is real and dangerous.  Though marriage equality has passed, there is still a very real effort to reverse it, which would affect my ability to marry the person that I love.  My morals and values are called into question based on sexuality.  People debate whether I should be able to have children or adopt.  They don’t take into account the awesome qualities that would make me a great father; instead, the mere fact that there would be two fathers in the home automatically disqualifies me from creating and growing a family.  In jobs that I have had, I have had to worry that my sexuality would be grounds for termination. 

White. Christian. Male. Gay.  Identity.

One of the identities that has played a significant role in my life is my faith.  It has proven to be a rock, an anchor.  And it has evolved.  I’ll try to walk you through my journey as succinctly as possible.  Buckle down for the journey.

In my early youth, my family attended a small Methodist church in the countryside.  We weren’t avid in our faith, but I do remember singing duets with a family friend.  I also vaguely remember children’s church in the church basement.  And I’ve seen pictures of my brother and me participating in some form of a play.  I’m assuming it was around Christmastime.  My face is poking through a cutout in a green tree.  But that is about the extent of what I remember.  I would not consider us a devout Christian family in my early years.  We moved at the beginning of my sixth grade year, and we became even less so.

At some point in middle school, a friend of mine invited me to a church youth group.  I decided to check it out, and forever my life was changed.  At the time the church was named Spring Lake Wesleyan Church.  The youth pastor was Steve Deur.  There was something special there, a form of community which I hadn’t experienced.  The music was great.  The games were exciting.  The messages were poignant and relatable.  At first, I think I kept going because I was making friends and feeling included in a group of people with whom I felt very comfortable and confident. But that began changing as I continued attending. 

Towards the end of middle school, I was heavily involved with the youth group.  In fact, I slowly became a student leader.  I attended every week.  I sang on the youth worship team.  I participated in a leadership development group with the youth pastor.  I attended all of the fall, summer and spring retreats.  I went to the regional conferences in Chicago and Indiana.  And before my senior year I traveled to Australia on a two week mission trip.  The friends that I met in youth group became a close-knit group of inseparable kids.  We hung out together frequently.  Our activities were harmless, but we always had a great time.  And we supported one another.  I was so committed to the church that I decided to stop playing soccer my junior year to focus on my faith.  And after graduating high school, I served as an intern with the youth ministry before attending college.  Slowly but surely my family also started coming to church on a weekly basis.  My father participated in their monster Easter production.  My sister became very involved with the middle school youth ministry.  I have incredibly fond memories of the church and the amazing opportunities that it afforded me.  It helped to shape my character and faith in very profound ways, ways that are still affecting me today. 

During my junior year, our church had an intern serving in the youth department.  He attended Moody Bible Institute.  And by the time his internship was finished, I was convinced that I wanted to attend.  And I knew that I wanted to spend my life in service to the church as a youth minister.  My mother and I visited Moody in Chicago one winter day, and my fate was sealed.  I fell in love with it instantly.  I was so determined to attend that I only applied to Moody.  If I had not been accepted, I was willing to work for a year and re-apply.  Thankfully, I was accepted, and I shipped off to Chicago in August of 2002.

I could rant and rave about my experiences at MBI.  Some of my fondest memories are from my time there.  I’ll be concise.  I sat under incredible professors who taught the Word of God with passion and conviction.  During chapels and conferences I listened to world-renowned preachers.  I experienced deep fellowship with like-minded men and women. I had never encountered Christian brotherhood, and have not since leaving, to the extent I did at Moody.  I was shaped and groomed and molded and matured. 

In retrospect, I think the most influential aspect of my education at Moody was PCM, Practical Christian Ministry.  Essentially, they are yearly internships.  Students are placed at various locations throughout the Chicagoland area to serve on a weekly basis.  My first PCM placement was in Cabrini Green at the Chicago Fellowship of Friends.  Cabrini Green has, for the most part, been torn down; however, it was life-changing for me.  At one time it was one of the country’s largest public housing projects, and one that failed miserably.  Extremely low income.  Infested with crime.  Gang warfare.  It was my first time working in such an environment.  I worked with children and teenagers from the community, and my heart was instantly attached.  And, without coincidence, all of my PCM placements followed in the same light: Inner City Impact, Circle Urban Ministries, and Bridgeport Community Center.  My passion for youth ministry evolved to desperately wanting to work with and serve inner-city youth.  And I have been doing so ever since, mostly in the academic arena.

Upon graduating college in 2006, I moved to West Orange, New Jersey.  I served as a temporary youth pastor for a local church.  I bounced back and forth between churches for some time in a state of disarray and confusion.  Eventually I landed at Christian Love Baptist Church in Irvington under the leadership of the late Rev. Dr. Ronald B. Christian.  Never have I ever experienced such a church.  I had small involvement with the youth ministry, but most of my time was spent with the music ministry.  Occasionally I was asked to preach, and sometimes I participated in wakes or funerals or hospital visitations.  I attended every Sunday and Wednesday.  And at the height of my involvement, I would be at all four Sunday services.  In 2011, I participated in some classes to train me for ordination.  And in December of 2011, I was officially ordained as a reverend. 

Obviously, faith and religion has played a huge impact in my life. 

This faith has changed and evolved in several ways.  First, recall the community in which I was raised.  The church was very reflective of that community.  White.  Middle Class.  Relatively conservative.  I moved to Chicago and began searching for a church home.  Most of my initial attempts were at churches that were very similar to my upbringing.  But when I started serving in Cabrini Green and other neighborhoods, I realized that I wanted more.  I wanted a church family that represented the Kingdom of God, with people from every tribe, nation and tongue.  I found it unfortunately sad that the world of faith was extremely segregated.  So, I tried out something new.  I visited a COGIC church in Chicago: St. Luke Church of God in Christ. 

To say that my pursuit of a diversified church was not successful is an understatement.  The church may have had some diversity in ethnicity, but none racially.  I was essentially the sprinkle of diversity in the church.  I might have stuck out like a sore thumb. It was my first time in a black church. I slowly began getting involved with the church choir, which ended up being a weekly commitment in rehearsal and Sunday morning worship.  It was my first time in a Pentecostal setting.  I didn’t know what an “evangelist” was.  No, not like Billy Graham.  It seemed like a lot of women worked in hospitals because many were dressed like nurses. No, they didn’t work in a hospital.  I witnessed things I had never seen.  I never heard someone speak in tongues.  I never saw someone dance or run around the church.  I never heard someone prophesy. I never experienced a “praise break.” Praise was exuberant and joyful and contagious.  I became hooked and fell in love with the congregation.  I felt loved and accepted, even though so different on the outside. 

I remember when I graduated college and was preparing to leave Chicago.  The church was so kind and sent me off with a beautiful departure.  I recall one of the directors of the music ministry speaking of my involvement over the past four years and his skepticism of me when I first approached him to become involved.  He had initially questioned my sincerity.  He thought I was joking.  And he explained how this perception changed over my time spent serving there.  Initially I was taken aback.  Why would he question me?  Why would he think I was joking?  At that time I think I was blind to my privilege.  But now my privilege smacks me in the face.  His questioning makes so much sense.  The skepticism too.  Especially given race relations in Chicago.  I’m embarrassed at how ignorant I was, and in some ways, still am.  I am ashamed at how entitled I must have looked. 

On breaks or visits home, I would visit a COGIC church in Muskegon: Holy Trinity.  I was never involved with ministry, but I used to get a kick out of their video ministry.  Their cameras used to pan the congregation during worship and preaching.  My face seemed to regularly be seen on the screen.  I think it was an attempt to show their "diversity".  In this once instance, all White people looked the same.  Oh wait, that’s because it was the same White person.  I think I was recruited for every ministry.  Men’s ministry.  Children’s ministry.  Young adult ministry.  Music ministry.  Even women’s ministry.  OK, not really the last one.  Looking back, I can’t help but giggle. 

My time at Christian Love was relatively similar.  There was a lot of ethnic diversity; there was little diversity in race.  There were a few other White men and women sprinkled throughout the congregation.  And there were a few Hispanics.  But a majority of the congregation was Black.  I’ve come to realize the beauty in diverse forms of worship.  I’ve seen the power of various styles of preaching.  I’ve witnessed differences in theological beliefs.  It has placed within me a deep anticipation for the Kingdom of God, when people from all races, tribes, tongues, and languages live together in perfect community in love, peace, justice and equality.  I love the image that is painted in the book of Isaiah:

A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse;

from his roots a Branch will bear fruit.

The Spirit of the Lord will rest on him—

the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding,

the Spirit of counsel and of might,

the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the Lord—

and he will delight in the fear of the Lord...

…The wolf will live with the lamb,

the leopard will lie down with the goat,

the calf and the lion and the yearling together;

and a little child will lead them.

The cow will feed with the bear,

their young will lie down together,

and the lion will eat straw like the ox.

The infant will play near the cobra’s den,

and the young child will put its hand into the viper’s nest.

They will neither harm nor destroy

on all my holy mountain,

for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord

as the waters cover the sea.

I’ve also had some significant changes in my theological beliefs.  I grew up in conservative, evangelical churches.  In fact, some would label them as fundamentalists.  Biblical literalists.  The world and all that is within it was created in seven literal days.  Adam and Eve were real people.  The entirety of the world was covered in water by the flood.  And that’s just the first few chapters of Genesis.  As I began teaching in a Catholic school and studying some of their doctrine, it introduced me to an entirely new outlook on the Bible, and one that made so much more sense to me.  Most of the Bible is not viewed as literal; although, quite comically, the sacrament of communion is. This form of Biblical interpretation opened me up to new ways of looking at Old Testament Scriptures such as Judges and Kings and creation accounts.  Stories that I had read for years held deeper meaning, and I found new themes in books that I thought I were so familiar.  I read the Gospel narratives through new a new lens. 

To be clear, I did not become a Catholic.  But I can appreciate their faith tradition.  A lot of it makes perfect sense to me.  Much of my early church experience focused on developing personal faith.  What makes for a good Christian?  And the answers seem so Sunday “Schoolish”.  Personal Bible study.  Devotions.  Personal prayer life.  Listening to Christian worship music. Going to church.  Telling people about Jesus.  So on and so forth.  Are these things important? Of course!  Of course, for the development of my faith, deeper knowledge of the Divine, and restoration of my soul, I should study the Bible and find myself in prayer and worship the Holy through music. 

But it must be more than that.  It must be more than simply developing my personal faith relationship.  It must be more than just telling people about Jesus and thinking we’ve done enough.

Essentially, I started becoming frustrated with the church.  Church started feeling like an exclusive country club.  Believe what we believe.  Live like we live.  Worship like we worship.  Pray like we pray.  Do the things that we do.  And if you don’t, you’re not a good Christian.  You don’t fit the mold.  Uniformity.  Not unity.  Uniformity.  Everybody look the same.  Talk the same.  Do everything the same or otherwise you can’t be “one of us.”

But there must be more.  There must be more than just showing up to church every Sunday.  There must be more than attending small groups.  Than serving on a volunteer team.  Than having personal devotions. 

Studying Catholic doctrine instilled in me a deep passion for social justice.  The idea that God cares about justice seemed so new to me.  And it’s not some passing, distant care.  Not a, “Yeah, I guess I should kind of care about that.”  He seems passionate about it, on a level that extends far beyond my limited human understanding.

God seems to care for creation; therefore, I should be committed to preserving and protecting it diligently.

God seems to care about all people on the earth; therefore, I should diligently seek to preserve and protect all people.  I should care about racism.  I should care about prejudice.  I should care about people from other faiths.  Again, not some passing care.  Deeply involve myself in preserving their humanity.

God seems to care about the unlovable.  So should I.  But often, it seems like the church distances the unlovable from their “inside circle”. 

It goes beyond caring; it extends to action.

I should feed the hungry.

I should clothe the naked.

I should give drink to the thirsty.  Food to the hungry.

I should defend the oppressed.

I should visit the imprisoned.

Refugees.  Immigration reform.  The unjust “War on Drugs”.  Police brutality (and no, I’m not saying that the police are evil).  Criminal justice reform.  Islamophobia.  Women’s Rights.  Global poverty.  Chronic hunger. Human Trafficking.  Child labor. These are things that I should commit to changing.  And not once a year.  Not a special fundraiser or clothing drive.  A deep, passionate commitment to using my faith to affect society.

Like all things in life, I think there needs to be a balance.  As a Christian, I think I need to be involved with a church, find myself studying the word and immersed in the worship of my God.  But I think I need to stand for those who cannot stand for themselves.  Defend those who cannot defend themselves.  Love those that nobody else loves.  In real, tangible ways. 

Of course my faith will continue to grow and develop and mature.  And of course I will continue to pursue the knowledge of the Holy.  The truth is, the more I study faith, the more questions I have.  God is a mystery.  Thinking that I have “figured Him out” is futile.  He is holy. He is divine.  He is immortal.  He is, and will always remain, the greatest pursuit of my life.  I look forward to the day where my faith becomes sight! 

In closing, I want to honor the late Rev. Dr. Ronald B. Christian.  A pastor who, although imperfect, loved people.  All people.  Who was unafraid to minister to absolutely anybody who walked through his doors.  Who pursued justice, peace and equity.  Who taught me to love others.  Who taught me to love myself.  He embodied so much of what I want to become in faith.  In service to others.  In dedication to love.  In commitment to mercy and forgiveness.  Rest in peace!  Rest in Heaven.  Rest in the Father’s embrace.