For most Christians, the church—the community of believers—provides a second home—in many cases an enhancement and enlargement of the family unit. Here an extended family of kindred spirits shares beliefs and values, style and tastes. Churches provide many members with a complete package that includes most of their friends and social life, schools for their children, norms for dress and decorum, and perhaps even diet and lifestyle. It is a package that provides most of the wants and needs of the members. Like a family, it is a closed system that innocents like children don’t have to leave. So for many Christian homes, the combination of family and church make up the social universe as well as the universe of ideas.

But as the universe of children grows to include school—particularly higher education—and later employment in the professions and careers of adulthood, the centrality of the church slips away. Education, work, and the complexities of human relationships interject new realities, new experiences that challenge the naïve security of childhood’s images of family and church.

In a very literal sense, I can’t go back home to my childhood church anymore because the church no longer exists. When membership dwindled, the Kansas Conference closed it and the congregation split in four ways—most members joined one of three neighboring congregations and the fourth group went to none.

But more profoundly, I can’t go back home to my childhood church because I am no longer a three-year-old. While I still know the words of "Jesus Loves Me," the dimensions of that love have changed for me. It is no longer love just like my parents had for me—it is even a greater love. And then, too, I now have to sing the second verse

Jesus loves me when I’m good
When I do the things I should
Jesus loves me when I’m bad
Even though it makes him sad

in the context of the tension between salvation by faith and salvation by works—which are at play in the deceptively simple lyrics.

I can’t go back home to my childhood church because I am no longer an eight-year-old who knew the Bible as just a wonderful collection of stories. As I matured in age and education, I realized that those stories had themes and messages that could be formulated into a theology—a coherent set of doctrines, a system of beliefs. Then I also learned that even within the community of my church there was not total agreement about the meaning of the stories of the Bible. What had once been so absolutely clear could never be so clear again.

I can’t go back home to my childhood church anymore because I now know fellow believers who are divorced. My ideals for family are no longer as absolute as they were as a child. I’d go so far today as to say that Kathy, the wife of Herman, my Sabbath School teacher, should have divorced him. There was common knowledge in the church that the bruises we saw on her face, arms, and legs came from his hands. Because I now know that once started spousal abuse does not stop, I can’t believe in the eternal contract of marriage as absolutely as I did at age thirteen.

I can’t go back home to my childhood church anymore because I now realize that politics, power, control, and personal ambition are at play in the church, even my local congregation. As a naïve child, I didn’t understand what went on behind the scenes—I just knew that my Aunt Rosa was no longer the leader of our Sabbath School and that she was angry and wouldn’t come to church anymore. I was sad because I was sure that she was a lost soul. Now I know about the behind-the-scenes maneuverings in denominational leadership elections and the resolutions advanced at major church administrative meetings.

I can’t go back home to my childhood church anymore because I now know about science—about continental drift, about cloning of mammals, about geology, about archaeology, about paleontology. I can never again read and understand the creation story of Genesis just like I did at age fourteen.

But there is still one frightening thought along these lines that I must also address. I can’t go back home to my childhood church anymore because now I am troubled by a saying of Christ that was once a great comfort: "Truly I tell you; unless you turn round and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of Heaven" (Matt. 18:3). I remember this text for the simple sweetness that it offered to me as a child. I remember the Harry Anderson illustration on the Sabbath School poster. The little children were sitting on his lap—on his unspoiled white robe.

But now recollection of that text, the visual imagery that comes with it, and my childish interpretation of its meaning bring fear where once there was comfort. It seems to ask the impossible. It seems that I am being told to forget my profession, to forget about my education. Am I being told by Christ to forget about science and take up the pre-scientific mind I had at age thirteen? Am I being told to forget about trying to find a systematic theology in the Scriptures—that I need to read the Bible as just a collection of short stories? Am I being told that marriage and divorce are clear-cut, black and white issues without any of the gray that I’ve come to see as an adult? This would be difficult—perhaps I can’t go to my church home again.

Just as there are self-help books, articles, support groups, and counselors to help us transition through the phases of our lives out of childhood into adulthood and even old age, Christ provides guidance to us. What I did not realize as a child was the context of the counsel to become like a child. The admonition is Christ’s response to his disciples, who have just asked a question about politics and power: "who is the greatest in the kingdom of Heaven?" (Matt. 18:1). The reference to children is one of the examples he uses to articulate again his upside-down kingdom—where the least is the greatest. Christ is calling his politically ambitious disciples to discover trust—the trust like that of little children. The kingdom of Heaven is about trust, not power.

Most importantly, Jesus then tells the story of the Good Shepherd who is more delighted by rescuing the one lamb that has strayed than in knowing that the ninety-nine are safe in the fold. All that is required is the trust and humility to accept the saving grace of the Good Shepherd—we will be rescued if we desire—if we are willing to surrender our control to his control. This is better than self-help books, magazines, or even support groups. We don’t have to go home again, we have a loving Savior Lord who will come and rescue us when we are lost. We don’t need to find the definitive answer to fine points of theology, we don’t need to solve all the issues in divorce, we don’t need to reconcile science and Scripture once and for all time. We don’t need to have all the right answers or even do everything perfectly to be scooped up into the loving arms of our Savior and Lord.

As mature thinking adults we can be saved by the Good Shepherd as long as we don’t run away and reject his offer. Like the lost sheep, he will find us and cradle us in his loving arms as he carries us home again—only this time the home will always be there and we can return again and again into eternity.

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