One Body, Many Expressions

I've grown up in the Vineyard. I went to the same church from the time I was only months old until I was 24. At that point, my now husband and I had started talking about getting married and decided that his church (also a Vineyard) was a better fit for us together as a future married couple. Just over a year ago we joined in a group of people planting a church in the city in which my husband and I had just weeks earlier signed a lease for an apartment. A Vineyard church plant. Suffice it to say, my experience of church liturgy, my theology, and my fundamental understanding of "church" has been and still is primarily influenced by Vineyard.

In 2011-2014 I was part of a program to earn my Masters in Ministry through a school in Canada. Though my professors were predominately (not exclusively) Vineyard pastors, my biggest personal takeaway from the experience was an openness and underlying appreciation for many denominations. This, in itself, was highly influenced by the assigned books A Generous Orthodoxy and How (Not) To Speak of God, as well as experiencing more liturgical church gatherings such as St. Croix Vineyard's Celtic service and the twice-weekly Spiritual Direction classes we took in our 3 two-week modules at SSU. Further supported by the inclusive and humble attitudes of the faculty, this girl that (up until that point) had only ever attended one church and (through the present) had only ever called Vineyard churches home suddenly understood other denominations to be family for the first time at the heart level.

So a year ago when I was offered the opportunity to serve a local Anglican church plant by leading worship, I didn't even think before answering with a resounding, "of course!" That became a once- and sometimes twice-a-month opportunity that has been nothing short of a complete blessing for me and the other musicians and worship leaders that have served with me. While leading Sunday mornings at the church is relatively routine, and not all that different from any other church I've ever led for, the high church holidays are an especially wonderful privilege to be a part of. In the last year, my husband and I have attended our first liturgical candlelight Christmas Eve and Easter services, our first ever Maundy Thursday service, and received our first cross-shaped ash marks on Ash Wednesday.

But the most profound experience I've had yet caught me entirely by surprise and pushed me further into a state of loving other denominations or traditions, although I prefer the term "expressions". I co-led worship for an infant baptism.

If you're not familiar with the Vineyard, the standard Vineyard stance is that we do baby dedications and leave baptism until an undefined age of reason (which I believe is generally left to the discretion of the parents). Baby dedications are fun and meaningful celebrations of new babies in the community that mark the parents' intent to raise their babies to love Jesus to the best of their abilities, through His grace. But this infant baptism had two aspects I had never experienced when witnessing a baby dedication: the absolute weight of the tradition and the wrecking sense of the presence of the Holy Spirit. (Not at all to say that the Holy Spirit is or was absent from baby dedications. But I believe it struck me more because of my background and my expectations of the moment that the Holy Spirit was so obviously present.)

I'm sure that infant baptisms vary widely based on the liturgy surrounding them. In the case of the one I was a part of, the presider states that the act is performed with the understanding that at some point the child will make his or her own profession of faith (which was an important distinction for my understanding of infant baptism). But the weight of the words the parents spoke blew me away. Now, to be fair, I am a person that puts a huge amount of emphasis on the words that are chosen and spoken. Perhaps not everybody understands this tradition the way I did. But, in essence, the parents are refuting Satan and sin and turning to Christ on behalf of their infant. To me, this is essentially saying that if my child were to die before the age of reason, I would stand before Christ in my child's place.

Even writing those words overwhelms me again in some small portion of the actual experience of the event. Regardless of whether my theology or Biblical interpretation allows for infant baptism, the Holy Spirit was undeniably present and the entire event deeply moving.

All of this to say one simple thing: don't knock it until you've tried it. I'm in no way supporting relativism or saying there are not major theological and Biblical understandings and misunderstandings that make church expressions loving each other a difficult and sometimes impossible task. Neither am I saying there is some core of Biblical truth that is the absolute minimum we all must agree on to "get to heaven." And I'm certainly not saying that just believing Jesus was a good man and discarding the rest of the Bible is enough. To be real, I don't believe it is at all my place to decide what theological tenets or Biblical understandings are necessary to being a Christian. In the same way, I'm not saying nothing is necessary to being a Christian. I am simply saying within the realm of Christ-loving church expressions, we should all be more hesitant to speak and more hasty to at the very least study and understand, if not experience. In many, if not most, cases you may find that just because someone else doesn't express their Christianity in the same way and may disagree on some minors or even majors doesn't mean they're not family. And you may find a deep love for symbols or traditions outside of your own expression. You may be surprised. But I'm reasonably convinced you will find unity and love in a way you may not have thought of or experienced before.