Finding a Church (pt. 2)

 Eleventh Sunday of Christmas

It's Faith Journey Narrative day on the blog. In January of 2011 we decided to settle in to University UMC, at least for a while. There were things I liked and things I didn't. I liked the location on that block of East Franklin that is center of Chapel Hill. I liked that it was a well educated congregation with lots of University people. I liked the pastors, the organist, the choir. I liked the order of worship, for the most part. I liked that they used the lectionary.

I didn't like the sanctuary. The enormous center pulpit really put me off. The lack of ornamentation, the absence of Christian symbols, the plain windows, the hidden front organ pipes, the distracting balcony (all around the side so you couldn't help but see people in the balcony and being distracted by them--balconies should behind, not going ups the sides) all were negatives for me. It was the first church I had been in an a long time that did not have pew cushions. The paraments appeared to be the cheapest thing in the Cokeshury Catalogue. All in all it signaled to me that this was a church that did not want to spend any money on worship. For some folks that's a positive, but definitely not for me.

For the first 6-8 weeks we went incognito; that is, I didn't let anyone know I was a retired United Methodist minister. I wanted us to be treated the same way as anyone else. I would say we were basically ignored. Alas, this is not at all uncommon in United Methodist Churches. It's a big church, and not everybody knows everybody. When people don't know everybody, they have a tendency to not to introduce themselves and ask, "Are you new here?" for fear the person will say, "No, I've been coming here for five years." Both of you would then feel embarrassed. At the passing of the peace, people shook our hands but never asked our names. We signed the attendance pads every week as visitors but never got a phone call, much less a pastoral visit. It was not that we were hidden on the back row. We sat on the second row. There was no way you could avoid seeing us. I thought, "This is a church where folks have not been trained in even the basics of evangelism."

We went to a Sunday School class, Joe Flora's "Christianity and Literature" class. Joe was great. This was a really good class for me. I didn't want to go to a class that dealt with the Bible, where I would know more than the teacher. Joe is a retired Professor of English at Carolina. Besides having all the knowledge you would expect him to have, as well as scholarly expertise in the study of Thomas Wolfe, Joe was a superb teacher. About six weeks into the class, when something came up that only I knew the answer to, I revealed that I knew it because I was a retired UMC minister. Joe and the class members were quite surprised. I'm not sure whether it's good or it's bad that I could hide my pastoral identity so easily.

Things moved along that spring.  Marianne had the carcinoma surgery. We became accustomed to living in Chapel Hill. I got to know Carl, the pastor, and Delores, the associate a bit. I told Carl that I wouldn't be a bother to him, but that I would help out with anything anytime he needed it. My big chance would come the following October. 

Faithfully,

Christian