Back to Bishop Seabury: in Tears as Usual?

We’ve been in and out of Groton, Connecticut a handful of times since we moved away in 1986. Every visit, though, has been timed around Sunday morning because I wanted to go “home” to the church that succoured me, taught me, and encouraged me through some of the more difficult times of my life.

Since leaving Bishop Seabury Episcopal Church to move west, I’d dreamt about worshipping there again. In those dreams, I’m always perplexed as I try to explain why I go to a different church now. Eventually I remember I live on the other side of the country and thus can’t make it.

What a relief I don’t have to feel guilty.

All the same, my heart sings when they say to me, “let’s go to the house of the Lord” in Groton.  I can hardly wait to see Bishop Seabury’s congregation once more.

But even when sitting in the pews, I don’t always see the other worshippers. Something about being with that body of Christ, the joy of being there, overwhelms me and I usually spend the entire service in tears.

I’m so happy to be back, I can’t control myself.

Such behavior makes no sense. I haven’t been a member in 26 years–since before the birth of my third child. Most of my military friends have moved; I recognize few people.

And yet, that church body was so important to me. I grew up, both as a person and as a Christian, during my six years there.

God puts the lonely in families and those early years of motherhood when I was a Navy wife left behind on patrol after patrol, I spent a lot of time feeling alone.

The church body reached out to me; took me in on a forsaken Thanksgiving, saved me more than once from housing disasters and loved my toddlers on days I could barely stand them anymore.

They grew my faith in countless challenging sermons, a weekly women’s Bible study, and in friendship outside of the building. They’re among my heroes–people who got me through wild times in one spiritual whole.

Thanks be to God.

The foundation was a firm faith based in prayer and relationship–to each other and to the real high priest of that church: Jesus.

The church body set an example to me of grace under pressure when the Episcopal Diocese strayed from solid Biblical truth. The church body remained in the diocese for one reason: to pray.

Things came to a head several years ago and their prayer ministry folded. They removed themselves from the Episcopal Church and became Bishop Seabury Anglican Church.

Three weeks ago by order of the Connecticut courts, they gave up their church to the Episcopal Diocese and now meet in the ball room of a Groton hotel.

It will be interesting to see if I sob my way through a service in a different location.

But the right Reverend Ronald Gauss said it best on August 5 when services were held for the last time in the church built debt-free by the sacrifices of the parishioners. “The church is the people, not the building.”

Thanks be to God.