Full Circle

Walking down the steps of the old country farm house, I saw the white stone walls. A cold basement, low ceilings, the perfect place for our worship.

We pointed our projector at a wide stretch of wall and our small group sat in a semi-circle as our service began.

We opened in prayer, then sang- only my guitar and our half dozen voices echoing off the walls. It magnified in such a small space- a glorious chorus. We read responsively a David Psalm. How sweet- how ripe- an ancient act of worship.
Then I spoke, we shared, we prayed- ending with "Everyday"- a song of daily surrender, daily devotion, daily communion, daily faith, renewal each morning like the rising of the sun.

It was there, in that basement, that I really thought about what a church IS... a what a church SHOULD BE.

There, in that basement, we were an underground church. I thought about the early church, hiding in catacombs from the Romans. I thought of the Christians being fed to the lions in the Coliseum. I thought about the hidden church in China, hiding in basements from persecution… even today. There we were, in the basement, a perfect stage to share our faith, our emerging mission to create a culture of worship, a tradition of sharing the Spirit, sharing our lives.

And ultimately, the circle comes complete, as I recall my fondest memories as a child. My grandfather had a woodshop in his basement. Down those steps he would take me, and we would make beautiful things out of trash. He never called himself an artist, just a pragmatic Iowa farmer. But his work was beautiful. And though he was unchurched, there was something so glorious about the devotional crosses that he made from olds and ends, drift wood and scraps. They sang like a David Psalm, to the nature of Jesus’ awesome sacrifice on a rugged-hewn cross. Those crosses were just neat to look at to me at the time, but the love he should me, that was formative. From my grandfather I learned about Jesus’ love, selfless, total, eternal. My grandfather- the whittling pastor of that basement church of two.

Little did I know, but he was teaching me about the resurrection- new life from the discarded, beauty from broken.

So God bless the basements of the world. May we all find that same feeling. Amen.