Expect the Best. Better than Dreading The Worst.

I would be remiss if I did not provide an update regarding the church folks that Les and I emailed a couple of weeks ago about theology, orthodoxy, and how we don't exactly toe the "party line" (Anglican) about a number of doctrinal and social issues. Recall that we had been invited to get more involved in the life of the church there (hooray!) but had to fill out a form answering questions about our beliefs (yikes!!!!).

First, let me say that I totally respect that the church takes this stuff seriously. I get that they wouldn't want me to hold a position of "leadership" (or in this case, visibility) in the church and then find out that the counsel/advice/direction, etc, that I may provide a fellow congregant to be outside the bounds of Anglican doctrine. I'm not gunning for Deaconship or Bible Study Leader or anything, so I know that there would be a bit more leeway if I just want to be a greeter or help with worship stuff. But still, I was WIGGING about filling out this form, so I just let Les send his first since his reply might have been a deal breaker for them. And Les just poured his heart into it.

And we waited.

And I expected something along the lines of "Sorry guys, you seem really great and all, but we can't have your nutty liberal views getting out into the general congregation. But if you'd like to bake brownies or something, feel free!".  Les and I decided that we would be cool with whatever they had to say. We aren't up for a struggle, we just want to serve. If not there, then somewhere else.

But guess what? Their email reply was warm, engaging, and curious. Curious about us, about our walk of faith, about how who we are. They approached it from relationship, and we invited them to share lunch with us and talk.


I worked myself into such a lather yesterday that I pitted out my t-shirt before our lunch guests even arrived. I was damp with sweat. I cracked the sliding glass porch door open a bit to try to cool my jets. The table was set, the corn bread sat steamily on a platter and the spicy sweet chili aromas wafted calmly around our tiny white kitchen. But I had butterflies in my stomach.

And despite my wobbly knees when the doorbell rang, we had a wonderful time with them. No judgement. No finger-wagging or disappointed furrowed brows. We laughed. We shared. We made plans to keep meeting and talking and learning from each other.

We'll see about the worship stuff later. Time to get to know each other first.