I was two years old when the Presbyterian Church of America was formed and I, of course, didn’t know that my daddy had been approached to pastor a small group of families who were pulling out of the PCUSA to plant a church in this new fledgling denomination.  My entire life has been spent in the pews of PCA churches and while I spent a small stint of time in a Baptist church during college and an EPC church while living in GA, I never moved my membership from the denomination of my youth.

When we moved to Fort Collins it became clear very quickly that the small PCA church here was not a good fit for our unusual family. We visited around and Honey got a glint in his eye over a small Anglican church; we have been there ever since. This has not been an easy transition for me and I have felt like a traitor, martyr, and foreigner at different times over the past year; at times I have just felt foolish.

After sharing with the pastor (I still can’t call him priest) my latest faux pas this week, he mentioned with a laugh that I should write down some of my observations, struggles, and blunders and, while he was partly kidding, I thought I might do just that. While it will be good for a laugh or too from the uninvested reader, it might also be therapeutic and help me process the season of life we are in and the “foreign land” to which the Lord has called us. And maybe, just maybe, when my kids are grown and called to live in a small town in Iowa that only has churches with which they are unfamiliar, they will remember these stories and find aid and comfort as they attempt to love and worship amongst a different tribe.

Or, let’s be honest, it might just become the subject of many a family joke of which I will be the brunt as they age. Yeah – most likely that one.