God Is Faithful: Zach's Faith Journey- Part 1

Hi Friends! Today we begin Zach’s faith journey. I first met Zach at a prayer conference held by Christian Healing Ministries. I remember it was February and they seemed to be blasting the AC in the room, but for some reason this guy sitting next to us was wearing shorts. What?! Turns out he was originally from Minnesota, so Florida “winters” were probably nothing for him. What stood out even more about Zach was that he had such a striking presence of peace and kindness. It was no surprise when he shared that he was in Divinity School to become an Anglican priest. It has been such an amazing blessing that God put Zach in the path of my friends and myself. It is an honor to now call him friend. I love his story. Part 1 reminds me of how the faithfulness of our parents has such a great impact. Enjoy!

One of my presets, and the most important thing about me, is that I have been claimed by God.  I am marked as Christ’s own forever and I am beloved in his eyes. 

On March 9^th, 1997, when I was not even three months old, my parents brought me to receive the sacrament of baptism.  That day, Pastor Gary Sandberg baptized me in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Although I was too young to have formed an actual memory of it, I look back on that event because I have seen the influence and the impact of that moment.  I have seen the fruit of what happened. 

My parents were faithful.  They prayed every day and had done the Bible in a year several times.  They followed through on the vows they accepted on my behalf until I could accept and affirm them for myself.  Church, praying for meals, and discipleship moments were all very important.  I cannot remember a time in my life when I did not know the Lord’s prayer in some way.  To me, that was indicative of the Lord sowing seeds of faith even in a little one who did not fully understand what those words meant at the time.  

Every Sunday it was non-negotiable that we were going to church.  If I did not feel like it, it would be a response along the lines of, “I’m so sorry that you don’t feel like it.  We’re still going to go.”  A lot of people in my neighborhood went to our church, Holy Nativity Lutheran Church in New Hope, Minnesota.  It was a small little church that held worship at 9AM and then right after, at 10AM, there was a fellowship hour.  I would sprint down the hall from the sanctuary to the fellowship hall where there were always treats like donuts, coffee, and hot chocolate.  We would gather a couple tables together, and the adults would sit and chat while the kids would be running around and playing. 

Fellowship was not disconnected from the life of faith or of church.  It was very much integrated.  To miss fellowship hour was like you missed half of church.  While there was a prioritization of worshiping in Spirit and truth and hearing the gospel rightly proclaimed, it was also vital to go hear about each other’s lives. It was through this that I began to learn the value of fellowship from a very young age.  It was a time to ask questions, encourage one another, and have fun.  When I was in kindergarten, if not before, I remember saying to my parents, “Church is my favorite part of the week!”  It still is. 

My family had a lot of social connections to Calvary, another church in our area.  Calvary’s children’s ministry held a weekend event at Camp Wapogasset Luthern Bible Camp, which was colloquially known as Camp Wapo.  The summer between second and third grade was my first weekend experience at Camp Wapo.  It was referred to as “seeds weekend” because all the little second and third graders that attended were the seeds.  The camp also happened to be only 15 minutes away from a cabin my maternal grandparents had on Deer Lake in Wisconsin.  We went to my grandparent’s cabin first, had lunch and hung out, and then on Friday night it was time to head over. 

When we arrived at Camp Wapo, I was met by one of my counselors.  Everyone called him big Mike.  He was around college aged, probably around 6’2”-6’3” and had bright, ginger hair.  He had so much energy and was so welcoming.  He saw me with my parents as we looked at the roster and said in a loud, booming voice,” Oh, you’re Zach!  Welcome to Camp Wapo!”  It was a sense of being wholeheartedly embraced on my first big weekend away from my family.  

While I was there, I saw something that stood out about the counseling staff.  They were all from different walks of life.  The counselors were the “athletes”, “artists”, “nerds”, etc.  People that would normally not have a reason to be friends were coming together.  It was eye opening.  It was a moment of, “Wow. This is Christian faith in action.”  I saw unity around a common message.  The Gospel.  Camp Wapo was the first place where I began to see how church was so unifying. 

I found myself wanting to be just like those counselors.  I would recognize from moments like these that I needed people I could look up to as role models.  The counselors would be constantly screaming things like, “Hey! How are you doing?  Jesus loves you!”  We would play field games and then afterward all 100 plus kids would circle up and hold hands.  In the middle of the circle would be a counselor who would then shout, “Here at Wapo when we play together..” and then we jumped in and said together, “we pray together!”  It was all intertwined.  Playing together, praying together.  The counselor would then start a “repeat after me” type of prayer. “Dear God,” and then you had a whole soccer field of kids saying together, “Dear God.”  It went back and forth like that.  They basically got paid to be kind of crazy all weekend.

Seeing that the Christian faith was fun was another moment of inspiration for me.  Camp Wapo was a place where we could be joyful.  We would sing, play games, talk about Jesus, and get excited about dancing and doing motions to things like fun camp songs.  In other settings, my peers and I would not be acting that way.  We were at an age where we started to differentiate what was boyish and what was girlish.   I noticed at camp that my friends were not worried about looking girly or dumb.  We had license to be us.  It was a grace filled environment where there were no borders in the sense that people were not putting up walls.  People were not trying to be a certain way.  

Though I would not have been able to put my finger on what it was then, now, I would say that we were being who God created us to be.   It was just this gracious space of God.   The presence of Christ freed us up.  He took away shame.  He took away wounds and pain and allowed us to be joy filled in unity and connectedness to God, to our neighbors, and to ourselves. 

I would say that some of my earliest years were really a gentle unfolding and a slow evolving product of environment and showing up repeatedly.  I think the Lord honored that my parents were faithful about that.  By being present, those words of God were written on my heart.  It is what I would call a faith filled beginning or a grace filled beginning.

After camp, my parents decided to start attending Calvary.  Probably the most influential decade of my early faith journey would be at that church.