How God Humbled Me through a Church I Didn’t Agree With
A few years ago, I could tell you where I stood on many secondary and tertiary doctrines. I was proud of those stances, but if you asked, I’d naturally say that the gospel mattered most and that our stances on these issues don’t make us better than one another. What I didn’t realize is that God was about to put all of that to the test.
Growing up, I never dealt with theological labels much. I knew there were lines between what was truth and what was false teaching, and that not all churches claiming to be Christian worshipped God in spirit and truth. Growing up in church, my mentors and pastors taught me historic Christianity and founded me on the essentials—so that I could recognize when a church or teacher strayed from orthodoxy.
In those discussions, denominations didn’t really come up. Why? In a small town with only a handful of churches and people, nearly every church looked about the same. We weren’t taught to look at the denominational name on the front of the church, but to test the church’s teachers against Scripture.
I lived on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere next to a river, and the closest church was a twenty-minute drive away, and the next option was even farther. Neither of my parents were believers, so they simply asked a few local friends if it was a good church and then dropped me off at the doors. I see God’s hand even here in that the first church in which he placed me taught the true gospel and upheld Scripture.
I grew up in that church and went to both Sunday school and Sunday morning worship there. I attended a youth group at another church (because my Sunday morning church only had one teen and that was me) that I carpooled to with a friend. When I met my husband-to-be in high school, I started going to his church regularly.
Through all these churches, I’m thankful that I found people who invested in me. My pastor at my childhood church took me with her to visitations after the Sunday service, gave me opportunities to read during the service, answered my many complicated questions as she drove home, and mentored me as I taught in the Sunday school. At my youth group, two of my youth leaders became mentors to me as well, and they made themselves available to not just answer my questions but teach me how to find the answers myself. They put books in my hands and even wrote Bible studies for me.
Through it all, no one ever really talked about theological labels, and I assumed they didn’t matter all that much. I thought I could remain “non-denominational.” What I didn’t realize is that I was developing a certain theology, and ironically it was one that none of those churches would affirm completely.
As I spent a couple of years at Bible college, I began to see the labels under which my theology brought me. When I shared what I believed in debates, I’d get the inevitable, “Oh, you’re a . . .” At a Bible study once, a guy jumped to his feet and pointed at me with a gasp, “Guys! She’s a . . .” I began to do my research, and soon found out that those accusations were true, and I was actually okay with it. I had chosen a historic, orthodox position within Christianity, and I agreed with nearly all its points.
The only trouble was that when I got married and moved back to my quaint community, not a single church bore a sign with that doctrinal name on it.
Through a friend, my husband and I learned that there was one church with a pastor that agreed with us theologically, though the church did not. The church was nearly an hour away from where we were living, but we went anyway. Over time, we became faithful members of his church and close friends with him and his family. The family mentored us, and we became more grounded in our faith and theology. We finally felt at home not only in a theological camp but also in a church; so we uprooted from where we were living at the time and moved three minutes away from the parsonage.
A few years later, that same pastor sat down with us in our living room to tell us he and his family were moving away. I’ll never forget the details of that morning, or the morning that we hugged them and packed their van up. I cried as we walked home.
Within a year, we ended up moving to a different town within the same small community for work, and it made sense to find a closer church. But as we searched, we already knew there were none that shared our theology.
When we settled on a church, we knew we were entering into a place that stood on the opposite end of the theological spectrum from us, though still within orthodoxy. But it’s one thing to know a reality in your mind and another to lay it down at the feet of Christ in your heart. To be honest, in the beginning we believed we were better than them. We scoffed at their interpretations. We got annoyed by their worship style. We didn’t understand how they could possibly miss what was so obvious to us when we opened Scripture.
As we walked through the big glass doors each Sunday and during the week for small groups, we felt lonely. Isolated. We felt lost in a big church with hundreds of people and two Sunday morning services. I couldn’t help but grind my teeth and clench my fists. Why would he grow such a passion for theology in my heart and then place me here?
In the midst of this, we had our first of two miscarriages.
That Sunday, I held back tears all through the morning worship. When I got home and sat in the sun by the open window in our living room, I shook my fist at God. “What is God doing?” I cried. “Not only did he take our friends away, but he did so in our time of most desperate need.” God felt like the cruel author of my story, scribbling out a tragedy for my life rather than one of redemption.
My husband didn’t have an answer. As the wind ruffled the linen curtain, my doorbell rang. I put my toddler on the floor and wiped the tears from my face as I walked out to the porch.
On the other side of the door, the leader from the mom’s group stood on my steps with an orchid and a warm meal in her hands. She said she was so sorry to hear of our loss and she wanted to help us through this hard time. She had asked the other ladies of the mom’s group I attended to cook meals for us for the rest of the week.
After I thanked her and came back inside the house, I stood speechless. I still am. But that’s not even the whole of it.
The following week at the mom’s group, another mom gave me a bag of homemade chocolate chip cookies with a card that said she had gone through miscarriages too and wanted me to know I could talk to her whenever I wanted. I took her up on that offer, and she embodied Christ to me in a small coffee shop and my own living room as she prayed with me and held my hand through all my questions and inner torment.
A few months later, another one of the moms sent me a message on Facebook saying she had noticed that I seemed to like theology based on how I answered the questions during discussions at the mom’s group. She asked if I’d want to get coffee with her sometime—and we’ve met nearly every Thursday night since to discuss and have friendly debates.
When our family went through a crisis a year ago, the pastors asked how they could help us. They arranged many meal trains for us and spent hours in their offices with me and my husband as we cried and wrestled with questions. They sat with me over video chat as I told them my anger towards God. Every time, they listened and acknowledged my pain while also encouraging me with the true and real promises of God. They helped me unclench my hands again and instead fold them in prayer.
I still don’t agree with my church on worship, but as I sing, I remind myself to look at the people around me; many of them love and believe in Jesus, and I will worship with them in spirit and in truth in eternal life. They are serving Jesus in faith, and I hope that through them God will teach me to have just as much love and service for the lost and hurting as they do. I may have stacks of theology books that give me many answers, but they know a lot of the right actions that I often fumble through.
All of us are lifting our hands and offering to God what we believe is the most faithful interpretation of his Word and how he calls us to worship. And together, we’re striving to bring the gospel throughout our community.
God changed me. He didn’t change my theology; I still stand in the same theological camp as I did then. Rather, God took a prideful theology student and showed her that his people are everywhere and they are bringing him glory—and he opened my eyes to see that through my local church. Slowly, God is uncoiling my clenched fists with his loving gentleness.
Lara d’Entremont is a wife and mom to three from Nova Scotia, Canada. Lara is a writer and learner at heart—always trying to find time to scribble down some words or read a book. Her desire in writing is to help women develop solid theology they can put into practice—in the mundane, the rugged terrain, and joyful moments. You can find more of her writing at laradentremont.com.