A few weeks ago I shared with my church the experiences that led me to love being part of a local church. I find it interesting that this happened. As a child and until my senior year of high school (in Hillsboro, Oregon) I had little to no exposure to Christianity. All that changed in May of 1990 when a friend shared with me the Gospel. She talked about hell--and she really believed it existed. I was dumbfounded because I knew she was no fool and yet she actually believed that Jesus is Lord. Sometime in the next few months the Lord saved me. 

In college I attended a large church in Eugene, Oregon. I was never very involved in the church as-a-whole. However, I spent quite a bit of time with the college ministry. We met on Friday nights at a house called, "The House of His Presence." I remember the picture of Jesus hanging over the mantle. I thought it was cool that we met in a house. It seemed better (for no good reason) than meeting in a classroom on campus. My college pastor baptized me. Then, a little while later he asked, "Aaron, how about joining the church?" 

"No thanks," I replied. "I'm only going to be here four years." I had no category for church membership. It seemed strange, institutional, serious. I met my future wife a year later. She attended First Baptist Eugene. Though a terrific church, I felt the same way toward a church called "First Baptist" that I did toward membership. Somehow both struck me as staid. Maybe that was because the church I attended was called Faith Center. Yes, I attended college ministry at the House of His Presence that was part of a church named Faith Center. I'm thankful for all the people I met, especially George Boehmer, the college pastor who ministered to me so faithfully. Still, theology in general and the church in particular were not on my radar screen. I was more interested in branding.

Things began to change when I moved to DC in 1994. For one, I read Chuck Colson's book, The Body. It talked about Christian community in a way that really struck me and that, sadly, still seemed foreign to me. I started attending Capitol Hill Metropolitan Baptist Church (now sans Metropolitan) and was introduced to both community and theology, to life and doctrine. It was an amazing experience. Mark Dever, now a well-known pastor, had just come to DC. To borrow a worn-out cliche, it was like drinking from a fire-hose. The church was small but it was special. 

The Lord called me into ministry at that church. I left a great job on the Hill to minister on church staff on the Hill. Leaving for seminary in 2000 was one of the saddest things I ever did. I loved the people at CHBC, I grew spiritually, it had become home. Then, in Louisville, Kentucky, I had a similar experience at another little church called Third Avenue Baptist Church. I thought I was there to get a seminary education. I soon realized I was there to be a part of that church. My life, my family's life, was built around that church. We prayed and we worked to see Third Avenue affect the Old Louisville community in which she sits. Now, the church is being ably led by a wonderful preacher, Kurt Heath.

Then, as I've mentioned on this site before, I moved to a church in Atlanta. The day I preached in view of a call was bittersweet. I was excited about the opportunity to minister at Mount Vernon Baptist Church, but my family and I were sad to leave our church family in Louisville. It has been ten months, ten good months. Every week this place increasingly becomes our home.

Yes, I have become emotionally attached to the churches I join. But it is an emotional attachment rooted in a theological conviction that I'm supposed to gather with other believers, formally commit to them, and dig into that community for the glory of God, the good of myself and my family, and the good of the community in which we serve.

Though I have no intention of removing the name "Baptist" from the church's title, I have no strong conviction that it has to be there. However, I no longer see denominationalism as staid--I've seen too much robust Christianity dwelling in the midst of congregations that identify themselves with a denomination. Those who take Scripture seriously end up disagreeing over matters that are not central to the gospel but that remain important to congregational life. Nonetheless, my prayer is not that a particular denomination would grow but that individuals would be saved by God into a community of believers eager to follow Jesus together.

Two trends make a robust commitment to local church membership more difficult. The first is the reality that American evangelicals are increasingly eager to identify themselves as "followers of Jesus" rather than members of Christ's church. The second is the continued growth of the mega-church movement that makes anonymous Christianity (in the non-Rahner sense) possible. In the face of both these trends, I pray that the theological substance of my experience--a commitment to and love for the local church--will not fade away.