One horribly awkward Thursday evening in college, I was heading out of my dorm to Intervarsity Christian Fellowship’s worship service, which we called “Large Group.” About five of us were walking there together, including one of the Bible study leaders. Really nice guy. Biggest heart of almost anyone I’ve met. This might be the only less-than-stellar memory I have of him.
As we crossed the first street, he said, “Hey, let’s invite everyone we meet on the way to Large Group!” We all responded with varying levels of fake enthusiasm. No one would dare admit to not liking evangelism. Partly because we didn’t know how to express emotions (“I feel embarassed and afraid!”), and partly because we already knew the response:
“you should really pray about that.”
So we headed onto campus and our fearless leader greeted everyone with, “Hey! Do you want to go to the most awesome worship service on campus?” After the second response of, “Uh, no thanks,” I think even he wished we could just walk the rest of the way in silence. But instead we all pretended we were having a great time, we just conveniently forgot to make eye contact with anyone.
We had an unspoken taboo against honesty. I hope that’s changed.
I genuinely did (and do) like having conversations about God… but inviting people to church has always been about as enjoyable as throwing up. Mostly because it is very, very hard for me to be honest and authentic. I start by asking someone if they’d like to come to church with me and suddenly I find myself quoting C.S. Lewis, then I force a laugh for no reason, then I tell them to just let me know if they want to come via email. Or text message. Or restraining order, if that’s more convenient.
But this week I had been talking with my sister-in-law about Christmas. She said that she hoped to teach her little boy that Christmas is about more than Santa and presents… she wanted him to value the sense of community and generosity, the idea of peace and love and helping others. And I had the strangest realization… she might actually want to come to my church’s Christmas eve service.
Normally I think, “if I invite Carine to church, we’ll probably sing ‘Grace like Rain’ for 17 minutes, then she’ll hate Jesus.” But this time I thought…what if I invited her and didn’t feel responsible for what happens there? What if I gave both of us the freedom to enjoy or not enjoy the service, without trying to fix or explain anything?
Joris, my not-quite-two nephew, came too. I’ve always secretly wanted to bring him to church, because he’s so darn cute and I like bragging that I’m related to him. He didn’t disappoint. At the end of every song, he clapped and yelled, “YAAAYYY!”, which often overlapped with the Scripture readings:
[song ends.] “YAAAAYYY!”
“For unto us a child is b–”
“YAAAYYY!”
Halfway through the service he found his blue fishy sunglasses in the diaper bag. He put them on and head-banged for the rest of the carols with his stuffed tiger, Coco.
The service ended with the song “Silent Night,” and a reading from the book of John:
“In the beginning was the word, and the word was made flesh and dwelt among us.”
What mystery, I thought.
And then.
A young pastor stood up and said, “You may have asked yourself, ‘where is God?’, and that’s a good question. Well, God has answered that question!”
I glanced over at Jack, who gave me this look:
Oh shit, I thought, the pastor is doing that Christmas-and-Easter thing. His church is packed and he’s going to try to convert as many people as possible. My sister-in-law is going to hate me. She’s going to hate Jesus. She’s going to think I manipulated her.
It was the ultimate test in emotional boundaries. Mine are very poor. I wish I could listen to that sermon and think, “I’m not sure that I like this homily, and it’s okay for me to disagree.” Instead I thought, “Oh no! How will I please both my sister and this pastor that I’ve never met? Have I disappointed her by inviting her here? Am I failing my church by being angry? Will I be kicked out for sighing audibly?”
I felt like I was again walking with my Bible study leader from Intervarsity, watching him bravely invite strangers to an awesome worship service. I didn’t know then how to speak honestly without abandoning him. And I still don’t know how to sit in church without the fight-or-flight instinct.
Carine, of course, didn’t hate me for the pastor’s sermon. She’d had a great time singing and was more than willing to wait out the 10 minute homily. Besides, she was too busy keeping a toddler quiet to really pay attention. Thank God.
