Pastor Eric: On Love

In October, Pastor Julie preached the sermon series Faith, Hope, and Love: These Three. Conrad Johnson, Clayton Carmon, and Pastor Eric shared their testimonies on faith, hope, and love, respectively.

Pastor Eric spoke on the love he felt from FBCDC in his recent discernment process. You can read his words below.


Pastor Eric: On Love

Sunday, October 27, 2024

When it’s time to print the worship guide, and Associate Pastor Eric still hasn’t found someone to give a testimony on love, it’s likely that the Senior Pastor Julie will say to Associate Pastor Eric, “How about you give a testimony on what Love looked like in your recent discernment process.”

And so, here we are. Lesson learned.

For those of you who are visiting today, or have encountered our church in recent months, you need some background. The story is that my plans at the end of July were to move South and begin a new ministry in a new place with a new congregation.

That decision came after a long discernment process that started almost one year ago and continued into the Spring. And this summer, I began the process of saying goodbye to this congregation, and was preparing to pack my bags and move to a place I genuinely believe God had called me.

As moving day drew near, I began to have anxiety about some parts of the move. Other parts weren’t working out. And, one of those still small voices got louder and louder until it felt like it was screaming, “Your work and your time in DC at at First Baptist DC are not done.” The more I tried to resist that voice, the more it persisted. And so, after another period of listening, I made the decision to stay in DC.

I’m still not sure I understand why one path felt like the right one last spring, and then like the wrong one at the end of the summer. I’m also not sure I fully understand the work of the Holy Spirit in this process.

But, the two feelings I have understood on both sides of my discernment process have been guilt and shame. Guilt – the feeling that I’ve done something wrong. Shame – the feeling that I am flawed and unworthy. These feelings are familiar, constant, companions in my life. They rear their head daily.

In this case, I felt guilt and shame that I would even consider playing what felt like discernment roulette with this and another congregation. I had guilt and shame knowing that my seemingly fickle nature would create confusion, chaos, and grief. And, if I’m honest I still have a twinge of guilt that the choir threw me a good-bye lunch and that I still haven’t returned the good-bye gift card to Home Depot.

Shortly after my “I’m staying” announcement was released, someone texted and said, “It’s nice to know that ministers are humans too…” And, indeed we are. Other emails, texts, and statements followed from this congregation, and they sounded like this: “I hope this decision is the right one for you. Do you have peace? Is this what you wanted? Our family loves you and only wants the best for you. I know what it’s like to make hard decisions. I’ve been there before. Can I do anything for you? How can we support you?”

On both sides of my discernment processes - when the narrative was leaving, and when the narrative was staying – this faith community (YOU!) responded with the character that I have known to be true of you from the very beginning. It’s the character that is at the heart of the mission statement we’re considering – to become a loving community.

That’s important – even for someone like me – a minister for whom one of the most difficult lessons in life is learning how to love myself and perhaps more importantly, how to trust God’s love for me.

I’m not saying that to make you feel sorry for me. I’m saying it because it’s honest, and because I think you can probably relate. None of us does a great job loving ourselves. And, that’s why faith communities like this one are so important.

One of my favorite writers, Anne Lamott, says, “I just want to hear from my church that I'm loved and chosen and welcome, no matter what a mess I've made of things, or how defective I still feel sometimes. I just want to hear that it will get better, although maybe not tomorrow right after lunch. I want to hear that [this community] and God will never leave me alone.”

And so, every Sunday I show up, sometimes to say, but always to hear the words: “No matter who you are, and no matter where you find yourself on the journey of life and faith, you are loved.” You are loved. Those are the words I needed to hear this spring and summer. They are the words I need to hear today.

And I remained in this place because I can bear witness that you mean them. That you live them. So there. And, thank you, thank you, thank you. I love you, too.

Katie Stewart

“Welcome Home”
by Katie Stewart (shared in worship on Easter, 2020)

In her poem, “The Summer Day,” Mary Oliver asks, “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life.”

Even, and maybe especially, in these scary times, I’ll tell you what I want to do.  I want to hope recklessly.  I want to hope with abandon.  I want a soft and open heart that is willing to risk great hurt.

I want this because I believe this is the doorway into abundance and because I believe this is the heart of our mother and father God for her children.

My husband and I were recently talking about the story of the prodigal son.  The son who was welcomed home with abundance and abandon after causing his father great hurt.  And my husband asked – what if he leaves again?  What if he had never come back?  

Would the father keep welcoming him home again and again?  Would his father ever stop hoping for his return?  Would the hurt become too much?  I couldn’t say I’d blame him.

But, here’s the thing – deep in my soul – I believe our mother and father God continue to welcome us home.  I believe the father in Jesus’ story would do the same – would continue to joyfully welcome his son home again and again – never losing hope for his return.  And I don’t believe that the father’s heart would break any less each time his son left – or leap with any less joy each time he sees a glimpse of his son on the horizon, headed towards home.  I can’t help but believe this father would keep hoping recklessly.

A couple of years ago, during a rough season – I heard this song by Joy Williams – certain at the time, that it was about this story – the prodigal son – and it goes like this:

Hello, I've been waiting for you
I didn't know if you'd recognize my voice
Cause I've been whispering your name again and again
I've been imagining this day and I'll never be the same

Welcome home
Welcome home
It's so good to see your face
Welcome home

We dance and sometimes only fall
We sing even when there are no words
And I hope love lifts you up again and again
And if you ever lose your way, let me be the first to say

Welcome home
Welcome home
It's so good to see your face
Welcome home

Come inside from the cold and rest your weary soul
You belong, you are loved, you are wanted
You're not alone
I've missed you so

Welcome home
Welcome home
Without you here, it's not the same
And I've been waiting here
Welcome home

I’ve since learned that she wrote these words to the son in her womb – after several heart-breaking miscarriages.  Hoping recklessly and with abandon to welcome home this new life.  As my husband and I are welcoming home our baby girl this summer, during this fearful time, these words have new meaning to us.

In this season, I want to hope recklessly, maybe not unlike Mary Magdalene, who, while she was looking for the body of her crucified Jesus at the tomb, was called by an angel to “remember what he told you, that he would rise again.”  And then, Mary was able remember, deep in her soul, that her crucified Jesus, is now the risen Christ.  In Luke’s account, she never saw the risen Christ with her eyes, but that deep soul remembering was more than enough to tell the story and to live in its hope.  

And, I believe, that our mother and father God, continue to hope recklessly for us.   Whether these are the words of a new mother, a faithful father, or a risen Christ – I believe they are sung over us – “You belong, you are loved, you are wanted, you are not alone.  I’ve missed you so.  Welcome home.”

Josh Owen

Testimony of Joshua Owen

For the majority of my life I have been an atheist. Church was something that my school forced me to go to and God was simply a concept that my father made fun of. For me, as Nietzsche said, God was dead. 

But looking back over the years, God never really went away. Through books and testimony he kept appearing or I would be taken aback that people I respected turned out to be Christians, like Francis Collins – the head of the NIH. But I didn’t really take notice as I was a scientist. I was working hard to try and have my own lab and achieve something with my life here on Earth. But then as time passes, and the progress you think you deserve does not come… what then? I remember I started to become so angry and frustrated that I could almost rage at the sea. Why was nothing the way it should be? Why was this application rejected? Why was this not working? And finally what is the point of it all? But in all these questions I had put myself at the very center of the universe and I couldn’t understand why it wouldn’t turn around me. I was losing sleep, becoming depressed and really couldn’t stand my life even though to an observer there really seemed to be nothing wrong.

But, I love to read. Usually on pretty much anything and as my life and values fell apart around me I decided to read the bible. If anything it is a key text in history so one should read it and I was fully ready for it to be a long, pointless, well written book about a tyrant in the sky. But it was nothing like that. It was confusing, contradictory, beautiful and most of all thought provoking. I couldn’t get questions and ideas out of my head. I was amazed by Ecclesiastes, Job, the Book of Judges which were nothing like I expected. At about this time I met Mary-Ann, a biologist working in a lab near me and knowing she was a Christian I inquired with her about God and told her that I was reading the Bible. We talked and she invited me to a church in Oxford called Saint Aldates which dates back a thousand years. In that church I saw kindness, love, friendliness and care for the community; actions that I had talked about but that the church actually did. It is a hard thing to realise that everything you believed in and based your life on was wrong. But evidence kept coming. I found my hero Newton was a Christian, Pascal too and Rousseau used to read the Bible every night. The Renaissance painters used to pray frequently and incredible things in history have been achieved by people of faith. The History of my country, Britain, is steeped in faith. 

I realized I am not the center of the universe and I am not owed anything. I am a sinner who fails and makes mistakes over and over again. But there is so much more to this world than wealth and achievement and if you value yourself by those things you will never be fulfilled. So I kept going to church and I kept spending time with Mary-Ann and in time I was baptised and we fell in love and married. I am not a professor at a prestigious university or a world famous scientist but I am happy, I have purpose, I am loved by God and all my worries and troubles are as nothing compared to the suffering that a carpenter in Jerusalem did for me 2000 years ago. And he didn’t do it just for me, he did if for the whole world. As an atheist I had solutions to the world’s problems which were simple, reasonable and wrong. Now I know I don’t know the answers, but I know that there is a God above me, greater and more profound than I can comprehend and I know that through God this world has meaning.