The Best Thing I Did in 2017

Finding a new home in a place I never would have expected

The best thing I did in 2017 was find a new home.

That doesn’t mean I left an old one. Home is still home.

North Dakota is still home. West Fargo is family and games and a safe space. It is warmth amidst the bitter winter cold. Wheaton is still home too, as is the apartment I’ve called home the last nine years. But this year I added another home to the mix.

This year I found a new home in Jesus at City of Light Anglican Church in Aurora, Illinois.

The best thing about City is the children.

Children are so often treated as obstacles. We find a sitter so the kids can stay at home while the grown ups go out. We turn on Netflix so the kids are distracted while the adults breathe a sigh of relief. At church, we send our children off to Sunday School so the grown ups can receive the Word of God in peace and without distraction.

At City, the children are part of the church. There’s still a City Kids program during part of the Sunday service, but even there the children are meeting God in their own worship room, set to join the adults for the final minutes of the service. The kids take communion along with everyone else. They worship exuberantly, they recite the liturgy by heart.

Jesus said, “Unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Children bring something boring old adults just don’t. There’s a wonderful unbridled joy in the faces of children as they eat the bread and drink the juice, as they sing loudly songs they don’t totally understand yet. There’s honesty and frankness in their prayers. There’s an open acceptance of the way things are, not the way they’ve convinced their mind to perceive things.

Our City Kids are the best kids. I often have the joy of serving in the Sunday morning program and there’s nothing quite like the smiles that greet me there each week. One girl is inquisitive and excited to learn, a sponge with a question round every corner. Three sisters bring warm smiles and are always excited to see me when I serve on Fridays at their school. The only boy in our class always tells me about his family’s week, is grateful for a kindred male spirit. One girl is spunky and full of energy, another shy but insightful and caring. A few of the older girls are like big sisters in our class and sometimes miss City Kids to serve in their own role elsewhere in church.

They are a delight, all of them. They’re the best part of my week. They are still learning, and their honesty and inquisitiveness is so refreshing to my spirit. They’re full of energy before and after (and during) church, and they bring a smile to so many of the “big kids” around church.

They are wonderful — they’re family.

The best thing about City is the opportunity to serve.

At City of Light, there’s a place for everyone. You can serve behind the scenes or up at the front. You can serve on Sundays or during the week, by leading or as a follower, using whatever talents or gifting to God’s good work.

My first opportunity to serve came early. I’d only been at City a few months when asked to serve at a children’s backyard Bible club an early August week. I’m introverted, and I could count on two hands the number of people in the church I knew at that point. I’d spent the last 15 years working with college students and wondered if I even remembered how to interact with kids. But my schedule was open and I was willing, so I said I’d give it a shot.

The first couple days I was with the kiddos, the twos and threes and fours. I felt like a cat herder, but a needed one. I left feeling drained but satisfied that my presence had helped keep order. Later in the week I got moved into the elementary age group and everything clicked. When Bible club ended and the other tired adults chatted on the sidelines, I was the one still running and playing with the kids. I left those days energized. I had somehow forgotten that I spent a decade in children’s ministry before those college student years. I forgot that God made me good at this. That I could be more than just a body herding cats but that I could use the gifts God gave me. I could serve.

There’s just about always some opportunity to serve with City. Our church is only two years old and still growing, and just about everyone of all ages has some role. Some roles are more visible, leading worship or serving communion. Others arrive early to set up or stay late to return the school gymnasium to order. Some of the children serve already. Young elementary boys race to collect all the Bibles the moment service ends. An early teen is on the welcome team, greeting people as they enter and passing the offertory plate with a smile.

There’s a spot for everyone. There was Fall Festival and the Lessons and Carols service. Some lead small groups or serve by hosting or welcoming into a home. A few prepare coffee for the morning or count attendance, the little things that go unnoticed until they are missing.

Everyone serves some role or another. It’s beautiful, really. And, like I was told early on, it’s by far the best way to get to know the others in the church — by serving right alongside them.

The best thing about City is how it feels like a church my grandma would’ve been part of.

My grandma went home to be with Jesus two years ago. Her service was not a time of mourning but one of celebration. It was shared with many from her church and neighborhood.

Grandma was the welcome lady in her town for decades and decades. She served as the treasurer in her church over half a century. As I met strangers from her neighborhood and church, I was struck by how unique everyone was. Grandma was 91, white, and conservative. But the people that came to our family with tearful stories of Grandma’s big heart were anything but that. They were different colors and races. They were young and old, some well-to-do, others clearly not. There was a burly man in a Harley jacket who stood up crying several times at the family service with a story of how Grandma had touched his life.

It was a little slice of a beautiful diverse world, not a slice I even knew existed in small-town North Dakota, and definitely not the world I would have ever assumed my grandma was part of. It turns out my grandma was Grandma to hundreds of others. She baked for them, cared for them, served them. She served them because they were the people God brought into her life. They were her neighbors, her fellow churchgoers. They were people made by God, and that was good enough for her. God’s people were her people.

Grandma would’ve loved to attend City of Light. It is a welcoming church that strives to be a home to all. It’s not full of buttoned-up, white, middle-class folks like so many other churches in my area (many of them lovely). There are people of all types, an eclectic and wonderful group. The liturgy is in both English and Spanish, serving the Hispanic community where our church meets. The language in service is inclusive, knowing that not all people have a mother and a father in their home, that not all adults can be parents, that not everyone is a cookie-cutter evangelical.

It is a church for everyone. It is a church for anyone. If you walk through that door on Sunday morning or into a home during the week, you are welcome. Grandma would’ve been beloved at City. She would’ve served every week, made meatballs and cookies for many, felt at home there.

She would’ve felt welcome and part of the church, because everyone is welcome at City.

The best thing about City is finding a new day in Jesus and a new home in his church.

At City, I am home.

That was never as clear as the Friday after Thanksgiving break, when I returned to Chicagoland after time in North Dakota with family over the holidays. December can be such a hard time, stressful, busy, an exhausting period between one holiday and the next. That Friday began with a third grader I meet with weekly through Kids Hope, a Big Brother program at the school where our church meets. It continued that afternoon with me giving a ride home from school and joining a church family for a few hours, playing Wii with the kids and eating dinner with the family. Then was a time to serve and sing at a coffee shop Christmas caroling event, then finally a late evening out with friends new and old from church, laughing and telling stories and encouraging one another. Six months after I first stepped foot into City of Light, that was the day I knew I had found a home.

2017 was hard for so many, for many different reasons. At City I found a new home to share that hardship with and a new family to celebrate with. There were game nights and Christmas parties and baseball games. There were dinners in a home with a family, ever a welcome offering for a 34-year-old bachelor. There were encouraging and challenging messages on Sundays —exhortations of unity in the church and of praying for justice come to mind.

I am home at City of Light because Jesus makes his home there.

My home is welcoming. One churchgoer ducks out of service two or three times every Sunday so he can take a new path back to his seat each time and greet a few people with a smile and a hug or handshake. A newer friend makes brings up the game he knows I’ll be watching that afternoon, making a point to connect with my interests and my work. And on days when I’m too shy to find someone to say hello to and try to duck out quietly, my friends who invited me in the first place always seem to notice and give a word of greeting and encouragement as I head out the door.

At City of Light, I am known.

I am noticed. People care that I am there — and when I am not.

That’s how it should be with family. That’s how it is at City. I am home.

The best part about City is what’s still to come.

My journey to City was long and twisted. I’ve tried and failed and tried again to connect to a church home in 16 years at Wheaton. The failure was mine and theirs and no one’s and everyone’s. I’ve given up and started over again too many times to count. Five different churches I’ve attended for at least a year before falling astray for one reason or another. I’ve had friends like Tim and Meagan and Tracey and others pray and gently encourage me for literally a decade to find a church home. Now that I understand why, I’m excited for others to find a home too.

My pastor is encouraging us to dream about what’s next for us at City of Light. 2018 may offer me an opportunity to become a member of a local church — something I’ve never done in 34 years. It will offer another chance to commit to giving financially to a place where God is moving. Each Sunday will bring another opportunity to serve, many Sundays with our City Kids, and other ways on Sundays and throughout the week. Perhaps 2018 will provide a chance for a start-up youth ministry at our church, or maybe there’s another service opportunity I don’t even known about yet. There will be new friends and old friends and a chance to get to know the new friends I’m just beginning to make.

I believe the best is yet to come at City of Light, both for me and for the church. It is not a perfect place — no place this side of heaven is. It is a broken place with broken people, but it is a people who are broken together.

Maybe in 2018 you’ll find your home in a church, with a group of people that love Jesus, and figure out life with him together. Maybe you’ve already had that home for years. You’re lucky.

Maybe City of Light is your next home, too. I’d love that.

I’ll drive.

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