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In the past week someone told me about the problems a friend of hers has been having with the church she was attending. The long and short of it was that the church, led by its pastor, treated this friend horribly, telling her family, including her children, that they were no longer welcome to worship at this church. This experience has wounded the family terribly, causing them to question their faith in Jesus Christ and the husband to declare that he is now an agnostic. There are many toxic churches out there. Toxic spirituality is so prevalent that there have been books written about “spiritual abuse.”
My experience has been the exact opposite. I had been raised Jewish (and still honor my Judaism), married a Catholic, and attended a variety of churches, mostly Catholic, but also including a Quaker meeting, without feeling a need to move on from my radical agnosticism. But soon after moving to Fairfax, Virginia, my wife and I began attending a very unusual Episcopalian Church, Truro Episcopal. The church can trace its origins to the decades before the American Revolution. Indeed, George Washington was a member when the church was located closer to Mount Vernon. When the church moved to Fairfax, it also acquired the home of William Gunnell, where in 1863, Confederate Colonel John Mosby famously carried out a raid far inside the Union lines and rode his horse up to the second story to capture Union General Edwin Stoughton. The Gunnell home is today used as an office.
When we first arrived in Fairfax we went to the local Catholic Church. The arrogance of the priest (actually a monsignor) turned all of us off so my wife asked someone at the Christian Book store nearby where she would advise us (a Catholic and a Jew) to go if we wanted a Bible-believing church. The owner recommended Truro, so the next Sunday, we went to the 9:00 service. I was immediately impressed by the good nature of everyone (they actually seemed very happy to be there) and by how well-behaved the children were. God decided to tease me, as the visiting minister was a Brit who represented the Anglican Church’s Outreach to the Jews.
My wife Mezzie never did things by half, so she arranged for us to participate in all the church’s activities that week. On Wednesday night we went to the teaching by the Rector, John Howe. He was a gifted teacher and over the next seven years I learned most of what I now know about the Bible from him. On Thursday we were visited by the Evangelism Committee (an airline pilot’s wife and a woman who looked like the Amsterdam’s Board of Tourism’s archetype Dutch middle-aged woman, all plump and rosy-cheeked). After we told them about ourselves, they didn’t plunge into a description of the church as we expected. Rather they asked us “Have you thought about accepting Jesus as our Lord and Savior?” What kind of question is that? We had a nice discussion, but Mezzie was already saved, and I told them I wasn’t interested.
On Friday we went to Prayer and Praise, whatever that was. John Howe sat on a stool in front of the church and played the guitar. There must have been other musicians there, but I don’t remember them. Before the service/hootenanny began, a lady sitting in front of us turned around and greeted us.
“You must be new here. I should warn you that this isn’t a typical Episcopalian service.”
I replied, “That’s OK. We’re not typical Episcopalians. I am Jewish and my wife is Catholic.”
Without missing a beat, she replied, “Have you ever thought about accepting Jesus as your Lord and Savior?”
“Not before last night.” She then introduced herself as John Howe’s wife, Karen Howe.
Karen Howe was right. Truro was not a typical Episcopalian church. After that night, Truro became the center of our life—Sunday morning worship, Monday night home group (more about that later), Wednesday night Bible teaching, and Friday night Prayer and Praise. The congregation was about one-third Episcopalian, one-third ex-Catholic, and one-third Evangelist Protestant. It was a window for me on a world I had not experienced before. Truro had altar calls which was new to me. Many of the congregation were military or retired military. One of my best friends was a graduate of the Naval Academy, and my home group leaders were ex-Army and ex-Marines. Most were politically conservative (in the traditional small “c” sense). Most were very well-read and smart. They loved all races (although the number of minorities who attended Truro was very small), and they supported many ministries to the poor and to third world countries.
Our first home group had anywhere from 15 to 30 attendees. We sat on the living room floor, sang a couple of worship songs, discussed a section of the Bible and shared our concerns and prayer needs. I became close to some of these people who modeled for me what it meant to be a Christian. They all had a peace I coveted and later found.
I came to love the Episcopalian liturgy (very much like the Catholic liturgy), the robes, the rituals and especially the music. If Prayer and Praise was the place to hear contemporary worship songs, the Sunday services featured more traditional and classical music. I sang in the choir, and the times I remember with great fondness are the times I sang with the choir Handel’s Messiah and Randall Thompson’s Alleluia. Truro also had wonderful retreats at the Episcopal center called Shrinemont, in Orkney Springs, West Virginia. I still remember a sermon series on the prayers God answers; these were the speaker said the introductory prayers in Paul’s letters to the Philippians, Ephesians, and Colossians.
It was the best church experience I ever had –the best teaching, the best music, and the best people. Over the next year I went to all that Truro had to offer and became good friends with many of the worshippers. They all watched me absorbing Truro’s brand of true Christianity and wondering what I believed. Did I believe that this Jesus they believed in was who they said he was? Was he my Lord?
We came to Truro in September and around December John Howe asked me to come speak to him. He said that he had been watching me try to make sense of all I was absorbing. He said that if I weren’t careful, I could go on thinking and not acting, never making the critical decision. Later, my dentist, who was a strong believer and who attended Truro gave me a Messianic Bible, which emphasized the prophesies of Jesus coming as a Messiah for the Jewish people.
I felt that Easter would be a good time for my decision. Easter week, the dentist and another member of the congregation asked me if I would allow them to wash my feet. I was aware that this act of humility was what Jesus did for his disciples at the Last Supper. I couldn’t refuse. One evening during Holy Week I went to the Dentist’s office, sat in the dental chair, and allowed my feet to be washed by these two lovely men.
The Howes came to our house for a Passover seder the Saturday before Easter and I told them I had at last decided to make Jesus my Lord and Savior, which I did the next morning at the Easter service. Lots of things led to my becoming a new creation –Mezzie’s prayers above all, the reading and studying I did that year, guided by C.S. Lewis and other great Christian apologists, the truths I saw in my daily Bible reading, the prayers of all my friends in the congregation, but surely an important factor was the Christian life I saw modeled in Truro and in the wonderful Christians I came to know there.
For that I am eternally grateful.