It had been more than 30 years since I was in a room full of Baptists. I walked into the conference for American Baptists thinking I’d give my talk, shake some hands, and be on my way. Instead, within hours I found myself pulled back into my first encounters with God and church as a 15-year-old, when I first walked into Rockville First Baptist so many years ago.
I am not sure if it was something about how people smiled, or the frequent references to scripture, or the thankfulness to the Lord for what he’s done. I left after a few years for so many of the reasons people leave churches and traditions—sermons that don’t meet the moment, beliefs trying desperately to seal themselves off from history or context, and, maybe most of all, disappointment in people who I thought would be there for me. So I wandered into nondenominational churches, some charismatic movements, and found myself among Methodists more often than not. Along with seminary and then doctoral work, I pulled a theology together that could make sense of the world for me. I had not given the Baptists of my youth much thought, frankly.
And then I found myself in a hotel full of them. These American Baptists were certainly not the Southern Baptists of my early Christian days, but there was still a deep sense of being home that I couldn’t quite put my finger on. But as the day went on and we worshiped and prayed, I felt the call and response, the expectation. It was the testimonies that made me realize what made this space feel like home. In every service, every prayer, every sermon there was an expectation of a testimony, an expectation that God was going to be present or turn things around or make a way out of no way.
