Monday, September 12, 2022

Finding Nemo and Coming Back Home

Fun fact about me: The very first movie date I took my wife to was Finding Nemo way back in 2003. We weren't officially together until a few years later and indeed one of the movies we used to stick in the car for Caeli to watch when she was a baby was Finding Nemo. I'm not going to spell out the plot of the story yet it parallels my own spiritual journey as a free agent over the past year and how Mount Zion became our church home again for the indefinite future - and hopefully, the place where not only my daughter is baptized and begins her Christian journey but also where my homegoing service is located.
What does a clownfish have to do with my own spiritual free agency? More than you think.

More often than not, we fancy ourselves as Nemo - sweet, innocent, precocious - who happens to get separated from the larger group partly due to curiosity yet primarily from swimming out too far out of the local safety net into a literal fishing net! We may be able to come home yet the trials, twists, and turns have forever made an indelible imprint on our hearts and souls as those steps were reoriented from what we thought was a certain pathway to one a bit undefined.  But Jesus would not let him. Instead, he said, “Go home to your family and tell them how much the Lord has done for you and how good he has been to you.”
Mark 5:19

God does say something about homecoming - and not just in the context of church anniversary weekend. Check out Mark 5:19 and a few other tweets sprinkled throughout the post:
Wherever you go, I will watch over you, then later I will bring you back to this land. I won't leave you—I will do all I have promised.
Genesis 28:15

The above text is something we typically associate with homecoming as it is remarkably relevant in this context. When we leave one house of worship for another due to moves, end of a spiritual season, a calling acknowledged, etc., and return to our stomping grounds, we find ourselves looking back wistfully at the memories made in earlier times. In more than one visit during my own spiritual free agency period, I was escorted around the church's property and shown the improvements, updates, and future plans should we unite with the particular band of believers that we may have a hand in such as building expansion and completing remodeling projects. While we physically view our legacies, homecoming is the time to look back briefly not revert fully to the growing pains [re: simpler times that weren't that simple] rather as a recognition of those ebenezers lain for the present assembly - and the future members and leaders. Like those elders who have kept up with our progressive growth since our departures, God has continued to watch over us and as we returned to the land, He provides proof that He has been there all along.
Once we prayed and weighed all of our options, the next thing I had to do was write my letter of Christian experience (It's a lot harder this time around when I had to do it all by myself versus when Mom did it for me years ago. She's the secretary at my home church, BTW). Did I need to spell out the years of faithful service and varying roles, or would I be OK with just two words We're back just like Michael Jordan did when he unretired from the Bulls nearly thirty years ago? It took a little bit of time and while I won't spell out the contents, let's say I presented myself well. 
In the end, I did enjoy my time as a free agent visiting and worshipping with all we engaged with. Thanks to all of the congregations who had us (and the three who either tried to put me to work or compared notes regarding upgrades). As we land - and punch in our time cards - it in our prayers to grow, lead by example, and remain relevant in a world that seemingly values a sugarcoated Gospel that robs us all of the truth various authors spoke of throughout the Bible.
 It's one thing to say that we go to church. It's another to be the Church.

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