Each year at Thanksgiving, I write a post about an educator who inspires me. I've written about the teachers of my childhood, my colleagues, the GRACE administration and parents, my group fitness instructors at the Y, and Learning and the Brain.
This year, I am particularly grateful for my church, Holy Trinity Anglican Church in Raleigh, and most especially for its rector. His fancy name is Rev. Dr. John W. Yates III, but he's my pastor, John, and I could not adore him more.
Fair Warning: This post is going to be longer than normal. There is some background information, and I want to tell the story in detail. Get some coffee and settle in.
A little background on me. I grew up in church. I don't mean I went every now and then. I mean I grew up in the church building. My family was there, at minimum, 3 times per week - more if there were youth activities, drama practice, handbell or choir performances, etc. I also attended a Christian school from kindergarten through 9th grade and went to a Christian university. So, I've been hearing sermons since my ears were forming in utero. And, Roland Harrell, the pastor I had during the most formative of those years, was intelligent, thoughtful, organized, and prepared. We used to joke that he could pull a sermon out of a comma in the middle of a sentence. He kind of ruined me for all other preachers. It took me a while in college to settle on a church for that reason. In Tulsa, a city FULL of churches, there was no preacher that lived up to Mr. Harrell.
Fast forward to my adult life. I had been attending a well known church downtown Raleigh for quite some time. I never really got plugged into it, though. I was briefly in a community group, but it didn't stick. It's a big church where it is easy to be pretty unknown. Maybe I needed that for a while, but in late 2022, I started feeling that it was time to move on. I don't have anything bad to say about that church; there's no dramatic story. I just had allowed myself to become stale. I was mostly anonymous, showing up on Sunday morning to listen to the sermon and that was about it. Because it was non-denominational, doctrine was very much de-emphasized. If asked about specific doctrines, they would say, "We hold some things in a closed hand because they are essentials. We hold everything else in an open hand because Christians can respectfully disagree on those." I am on board with that philosophy. I grew up in a Pentecostal church and a Baptist school and went to college at ORU. I taught in a Christian school with a multi-denominational population. So, I am accustomed with respectful disagreement amongst faithful people, but at this church, we didn't get a chance to respectfully disagree; I couldn't tell you if I disagreed with them or not because they never talked about them. (I'm not even 100% sure I know which issues they might put in each hand.) So, I wasn't growing at church. I went to church for those last few years because I am a person who goes to church, not because I was contributing to or taking anything from it. I got my doctrinal development from podcasts. I knew this wasn't right, but inertia is powerful; so it took God moving in my heart to get me to think about looking elsewhere.
But in November 2022, I didn't feel like I could leave yet. I had committed to a two-year giving initiative, and we were only near the end of year one. I didn't want to break my commitment, and I still believed that what I was giving to was a good thing. I didn't want to make my home somewhere else only to say, "I'm sorry, I can't give here for a year because I'm still giving over there." So, I decided to wait until after Christmas of 2023 and then start looking for a church home, where I could grow, serve, give up any sense of anonymity, and stay until I died.
Okay, here's where God has a sense of humor because He knows what is coming and we don't. During the fall of 2023, He started nudging me out of the classroom, something I had never remotely considered. You can read that story here. Everything in my life was about to change as I went from very stable income and a predictable school calendar to the unknown of hourly work, writing a book, and the attempt to build a consulting business. When I made my last payment to the giving initiative, I thought, "Really, God? I know I said this was when I would leave, but . . . NOW? Do I just not have enough change coming in my life?" But I knew there was a reason this needed to happen, so I made a list of local churches and began visiting.
The first church I visited was definitely not it. I posted about it on Facebook, prompting one of my friends to send me a "What were you thinking?" message. I was thinking I needed to go to church this week, and there was one on this corner; but don't worry because I'm not going back. On a walk to a kickboxing class with my friend Meagan, I said, "I will visit however many it takes; I want to find the place I can stay forever, and it may take time to find that place." She suggested that I visit Holy Trinity Anglican Church, saying, "I think they have the things you are looking for." This was, word for word, the same thing she said when she suggested I take a tour at the Y, so she's wise about knowing what I am looking for.
My first visit was interesting. I sat about halfway back in an aisle seat. After a song and prayer, when I sat back down, I was blinded by sunlight coming in through a very large window. I got up and moved, feeling very conspicuous (although, that's just the Spotlight Effect - no one actually noticed). Having attended very few liturgical services in my life, I felt a little awkward about kneeling and responsive readings, but I also liked the sense of ceremony and connection to everyone else in the room that came from it.
Then, John got up and preached the sermon (start at 22:00). It wasn't long, but it didn't need to be. It was powerful. It was about loving your enemies and blessing those who curse you, which feels countercultural in our current climate. After putting it in the historical context of Jesus' audience, John shared a story about a time his dad, who he clearly loves, was betrayed by a friend and told how he responded. I was impressed by the vulnerability it took to share this obviously painful story, so later that week, I found his email address on line and thanked him. I ended the email with, "I don't know much about Anglican practices. Is there a resource you could point me to?" I thought that, if he answered at all, he would send a link to a website. He wrote back a lovely response and said if I would send my mailing address, he would mail me a book called Anglican Essentials (for which he had been a contributor). There's so much about this gesture that appealed to me:
- If it is possible for books to be a love language, they are mine. This, friends, is the way to my heart.
- It is unusually kind. Copying and pasting a link would have gotten the job done. It took time and care to put the book in an envelope, put the appropriate postage on it, and mail it to me.
- It shows that he cares about scholarship - both his and mine. I didn't know it yet, but he is a Brainy Smurf. I've since heard him talk about pursuing his degree as "thinking I could scratch an itch only to find out it was poison ivy; everything I learned just made me want to learn more." This is basically my life as well (minus the advanced degree).
The next week, as I approached him, he said, "You're Beth?" I wondered if I just looked like someone with questions, but he had gone to the school website in my email signature, so he would recognize me. Again, a kind act that took some time. He suggested another author that morning. I was talking to my friend Elizabeth, who had been on a similar journey with moving from a large non-denominational church to small, Methodist church recently. As I told her the story, she said "Wow, you found your people." This was made more evident a few weeks later when he expressed, in passing, an interest in theoretical physics and specifically string theory. It was my turn to give him a book. When I gave it to him, I told him it was my favorite book about string theory, and he told me that made me a special kind of nerd.
Done. Sold. This is my church. If, after only 5 weeks of knowing me, you knew that I would consider it a compliment to be called a nerd (and a special kind of nerd at that), you get me.
Every other member of staff has been wonderful. Claudia sought me out after seeing me for a couple of weeks in a row and told me she could help if I had any questions. I've learned well from the sermons of Tripp, Caleb, and Jason. The vestry is full of friendly people who are intentional about connecting. I am not anonymous as I sit around the same people each week and chat with them before the service. There are opportunities to serve, so I am now on the altar guild and have recently been added to the reader list.
What God knew when he started prompting me to move churches was something I didn't know. I was about to lose something I had taken for granted, the intense Christian community I had experienced at my job in a Christian school for 21 years. Even though it wasn't right, I had "gotten away with" treating church the way I did because I attended chapel, teacher devotions, and a prayer meeting weekly at school. That's not happening in my current role, and God knew I was going to need a pastor who I wanted to listen to, often going onto YouTube later in the week to listen again. He knew I was going to need a pastor who was patient with my constant communication. (Because he became so important to me so quickly, I send him way more emails than a reasonable person should, and he is gracious in answering them.) God knew that I would come to love liturgy, finding the repetition of the creed and certain prayers each week more meaningful than I imagined. He knew I was going to need sermons that sometimes feel like they are just for me. God knew I was going to need Holy Trinity Anglican Church in Raleigh.
This may not seem like the most "education-y" of posts, but John is a gifted teacher. I have learned more in the past 22 months than I had in most of my adult church life. Teaching matters here, and I could not be more thankful for that because that teaching has been a gift to me - and one that I really needed more than I even knew. In a meeting with Claudia, I mentioned something about one of John's responses to me, and she said, "Yes, we really like to think here, and he leads that."
So this year, I'm giving thanks to God for Holy Trinity Anglican Church, generally, and the gift of John Yates, specifically. I sometimes wish I had found you sooner, but God blessed me with you at exactly the time I needed you. Thank you for everything.
And thank you to Meagan for being the kind of friend who knows what I need.
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