How I ended up in a UCC church last Sunday

We're barely even a month into 2007 and I'm already noticing how this year is feeling different and full of change. As I have mentioned in previous posts, I'm not sure where this is all going. I'm just doing the best I can to keep up and not miss anything (which I'm quite good at doing).

Sometime around late-November, early-December, with Christmas coming up, I began to feel a certain degree of ambivalence when it came to my spirituality. I began to realize that, while I still shared many of the beliefs and opinions, I no longer felt at home with my Unitarian Universalist spirituality.

Prior to midterms this past summer, I had reassessed myself and felt lead back to Unitarian Universalism from my stint with Paganism. I felt that I needed to take my Pagan beliefs and reapply them into a Unitarian Universalist context. This is reflected in another old blog of mine. But then, at Christmas, I was feeling lead towards another spiritual move--this one would be a big one.

When I visited my aunt in Texas for the holidays, I bought a Bible at the discount bookstore. Of course I had bibles back home, but I felt the urge to have a new one. And I wanted one that either had no devotional materials, or ones that didn't go out of the way to twist verses into an admonition against homosexuality. I found one that I liked, and bought it. Of course, not yet knowing where things were going, my reason for the purchase was "so I could have one to reference for school papers if I needed one."

Then, I get home and go with a good friend of mine to Borders and that is where I felt the urge to go and look in the Christian book area. This was where I saw The Secret Message of Jesus by Brian McLaren. I also noticed that McLaren had other books, particularly striking was the title, A New Kind of Christian. Reading the backs of these books I decided I would investigate them and the author online and just see what they were all about. About a week or so later, I went to Borders again and bought The Secret Message of Jesus.

I just finished reading it a few days ago, and I must say that I was pleasantly surprised by what McLaren had to say. I still despise the notions of an elitist, isolationist, self-righteous Christianity, so I was glad to read McLaren's view that was more in-line with what I imagine was really what Jesus meant. I especially liked that, at times, McLaren mentions the possibility that "what if Muslims, Buddhists, or Jews grasped Jesus' message before Christians did and entered the Kingdom of God before them?" Now, this is something I really like, here is a Jesus who you can believe in without renouncing who you are entirely.

Around the reading of this, I began to investigate churches in the area that would be open to gay people and not view us as "someone in need of changing." Of course, I first looked into the MCC, but while their beliefs are appealing to me, they just weren't geographically feasible for an actual visit. I emailed the pastor there anyways and inquired about if he knew of any churches in my area that would be accepting. I continued to research online and found Pilgrimage UCC's website and sent an inquiry to the minister. Then, I heard back from the MCC minister who said that he didn't know of any churches specifically, but that some UCC churches were accepting. This would be coincidence number 1.

I have not heard from Pilgrimage's minister, but this past weekend, my sister and I made an excursion there to check out the Sunday service. We were late, but didn't miss but the first 5/10 minutes or so. Turns out that that Sunday was the day they were celebrating a decade of being an Open and Affirming Congregation for the GLBT community--coincidence 2.

Coincidence 3 was the sermon. The sermon was given by one of their student ministers (going into the ministry). He was very passionate about his message, but what struck me was what he was actually saying. His sermon was hitting me as being nearly word-for-word from McLaren's Secret Message.

So, what do I think all of this means? I don't know. Do I think that these coincidences happened by chance? Not really. I do know that I want to go back to Pilgrimage and see more of what they are about. I also know that this Sunday was a huge step for me, considering it has been over 4 (almost 5) years since I had stepped foot in a Christian church service.

I look forward to sharing more about all of this and more as things unfold, and welcome any comments anyone may have.