E-Minute by Clara Pauw

November 25, 2007

We have been doing a series of e-minutes for a while now at Crescent Hill.  These “evangelism-minutes” provide a (hopefully) brief period of reflection where members get to answer a seemingly simple question: Why do you come to Crescent Hill every Sunday?

As a kid growing up in this church, I would have found the answer obvious.  “Because I want to see my friends!”  You see, my two best friends Mara and Cora and I would always sit in the back pew and whisper our secrets to each other. Then, at the passing of the peace I always wanted to see my friend the “life-saver lady” (for obvious reasons).  During the hymns I would turn my eyes towards the rose window in the choir loft and see my friend Debbie Dierks playing the organ.  If I was really focusing I would even try to listen to the words of my friend Jane’s sermon.    

Yet as my friends and I grew up the dynamics changed.  We all graduated in May of this year and made plans to leave in the fall for college.  Cora and Mara both left for Wooster but I found out I had to have open-heart surgery immediately and defer my admission to Emory University in Atlanta.  For a while I was too sick to come to church.  But when I returned I was surprised to find that although Cora and Mara were gone, my answer was still the same.  “I come to church to see my friends.” 

I realized that the reason I come to church is bigger than me and my girlhood secrets.  Even if I don’t know the people in my pew by name, they are still my friends.  They don’t have to know about my surgery to know that we are connected by our belief in Christ.  As I sang and prayed with the people of this congregation as I have done for so many years, I knew that these were just as close to me as the friends that stood by me as a child.  I come here to share my faith with my brothers and sisters in Christ, both known and unknown.  As I have learned, I will never know what will happen next in my life, but I will always be grounded in the fact that I can find a welcoming community of faith at Crescent Hill.