When I was on the Pastoral Staff at St. Luke’s Methodist Church in Oklahoma City, one of our new parishioners reached out to me to help him develop his spiritual life. He knew I was a spiritual director (one who walks alongside a person to help them develop their spiritual life) and he wanted to share his story with me.
James was a native Oklahoman born and raised on the western side of our state. He grew up in a conservative Christian church and was formed by their teachings. When he grew to adulthood he worked on a ranch and at one point also worked on the oil rigs in that part of the state. Then he moved to Oklahoma City to begin a new job. As he began to settle in here in Oklahoma City he began to look for a church to attend. Some of his coworkers recommended St. Luke’s. He visited several time and then began participating. Over time he found our more progressive theology and style to suit him better than his conservative background.
He and I met once a month for several months and he embraced a new way of seeing the Christian story. He still honored his upbringing for what it had given him but its more conservative and evangelical stance no longer resonated for him. He was grateful for some reading suggestions I made and also found it useful to talk out the changes that were occurring for him. Some people would say he was deconstructing his faith but I preferred saying he was reconstructing it.
At one point he decided to go back to his hometown for a reunion. One of the things he did that weekend was to attend a Rodeo. At the conclusion of that rodeo there was a Cowboy church revival time which he decided to attend with some of his old friends. It was an experience that showed him how far he had come from his beginnings. In one of our conversations he said something profound. He said, “Attending that revival showed me clearly how I had changed, their approach really didn’t fit for me anymore. However, it also showed me that for those men and women in that environment it was a perfect approach. The things I’ve been learning and now believe would not have been attractive to them. Moreover, I found myself glad that what they needed was being offered even if it didn’t speak to me any longer.”
His reflections spoke to me. For years I had been telling people that we are called to grant tolerance to folk who believe differently than we do, tolerance grounded in the reality that none of us knows the whole truth about God. His experiences were a living example that God can work across all the spectrums of our Christian faith, i.e. very conservative to very progressive.
I came away from the meeting with James grateful for the story he had shared and how it informed me in a tangible way!
Note: James is not his name. I changed it in the service of anonymity.