The Reverend David Pattee
Across the street from the university's music and speech center, Kent United Church of Christ is one of three churches clustered at the east end of KSU's campus. The post office gets us confused all the time, so it's not surprising when newcomers can't tell us apart. Still, I didn't know quite what to say, a few minutes before worship was to begin on a Sunday morning in September, when a freshman who wasn't sure he'd found the right church asked me, "What kind of Christians are you?"
Did he want to know if we were Protestants? Liberal? Welcoming? Was there some particular category by which he would know whether we were the "right" or the "wrong" Christians for him?
As the church was filling and the prelude music ending, I shared that we are people who recognize in Jesus Christ the fullness of who God is for us and what God calls us to be: loving, faithful and passionate for justice. I said that with Christians like us it's OK to explore questions and doubts, to think critically and have a sense of humor because God is alive, God is good, and God is still speaking. I told him that we are deeply committed to service, that our service begins with worship of the God from whom all blessings flow, and that it was time to get started!
This is the kind of Christians we are, or at least the kind we're trying to become... students, faculty and townspeople of different ages, cultures, capabilities and sexualities... working together to live into the Good News of Jesus Christ.
What kind of Christian would you like to be?