Church People

Ever since I first learned that there was a Vineyard church plant in my town (immediately after I accepted the job here, while I was still living 450 miles away), I've felt like I should be committed to it. Ed and Jodi, the pastors, went way beyond the call of duty to welcome me even before I arrived. They sent me long emails. They told me that the men's Bible study would be standing by to help with the house when I moved in, and that people in the church were already praying for me by name. They treated me like one of their own--before we'd ever met.

Their commitment to the area and to this church has become even more impressive to me as I've gotten to know the community a little better. When you walk around downtown, it's clear that the town's heyday was a couple of decades ago. Empty storefronts and dilapidated, gutted buildings provide only bare reminders of some past civic center. There is some new construction, and there are signs of growth--they're just so small, subtle, and slow that you need to be extra careful to note them. It's as if God is doing things very, very quietly, announcing his plans at just a whisper, and you have to listen very hard to hear Him rustling about.

Case in point: one Sunday, I found myself irritable in worship. There was a couple in front of me, the male part of whom kept letting his hand drift over his girlfriend's rear end during worship. Another woman just in front of me kept looking all around, sighing in frustration, drumming her fingers--not just normal fidgeting but "I can barely stand to be here" hyperactivity. She even bolted out once or twice, returning after having apparently had a cigarette. All of this my oh-so-holy Baptist-raised self found distracting. Why couldn't these people keep their minds on God for one lousy hour and let the rest of us do so as well?

I tried my level best to focus more intently on worship, but I'm ashamed to say that it took quite a while for the real lesson to sink in. At home later, I felt God say to me, "Tara, at least they're there." And I realized what a miracle it was for a woman who could barely sit still to want to come to church every week, as uncomfortable as it made her. (If church made me that uncomfortable, I don't know that I would have the obedience to go. But she did.) And as for the couple, they're apparently recently recovered from some kind of addiction, so maybe the fact that the man was happily offering his worship to God was more important than the fact that his hand dropped too low for my personal good-girl taste.

Ed and Jodi think much more like God and much less like me. They've made a commitment to be in this town, even when the great big sign of God's movement for a given week might be that someone in the congregation manages to sit through whole sermon, while a lot of the others still can't. Their commitment to nurturing a church planted on this parched, rock-hard earth leaves me awe-struck. It's as if they've promised themselves in marriage to an unfaithful spouse, or adopted a child that they know is plotting to run away. And yet they stay, planning to continue pouring out unreserved love as they wait for the prodigals to return. They wait week after week, year after year, for God's people, for us--the jittery addicts and the sanctimonious Baptists.