A Beginning

Discovering the Sacramental World...

That is my topic and my goal. So let me begin by retracing where I have come from. (A very appropriate place for an Anglican who values the traditions of the Church).

I have been attending Church of the Resurrection for four years. Before coming to Rez, I never had the slightest idea what it meant to be sacramental. Heck, I'm the guy who, in 11th grade, when everyone was laughing at a shirt that said, "Have you hugged an Episcopalian lately?" I laughed along while thinking, "What's an Episcopal?"

Freshman year of college I came to Wheaton and began attending a local non-denominational church, mainly because it was where some of my friends went. Now, as I think of it, that church is very similar to the church I grew up in before moving overseas. So perhaps that was part of why I ended up there.

However, after taking just one or two CE classes and getting more involved, I realized I didn't really like that church. It didn't live up to what I wanted. I was idealistic and the church I was at was not ideal.

Sophomore year I decided to find a new church. I talked to Daryl Ellis, whom I much respected at the time and decided to tag along with him.

I have tried to capture what that first Sunday was like but it is difficult. It was so different and strange but at the same time intoxicating beautiful and good. I didn't understand the why's or how's of all the liturgy. But I did understand that there was something deep and full happening in the service.

I looked over and saw Ty Warner who was, at the time, just a strange face. But I saw him in worship before the Lord. On top of that though, I saw his beautiful daughter, Brynn, next to him. Then something amazing happened that I had never seen before. Ty reached down, picked up Brynn and put her on his shoulders. They then proceeded to worship the Lord together as he held her arms high in his arms and danced.

The glory of that single act of worship, combined with the deep sense of God's presence in a fuller way than I ever had experienced before caught me. The next week I checked out a different church, but already my heart was longing for that same experience that I had the week before at Rez. I didn't know it at the time, but I was longing for the Sanctuary of Transformation.

Sacramentalism was still foreign to me. Eucharist was good, but I didn't understand the difference. I was still the uninitiated. But I had "tasted and seen" and I yearned for more.