My Childhood Church

You can never go home. Right?

At some point home becomes a distant memory - a moment in the past that can never be recreated. People move. Places change. Memories fade. You can't revisit the past, because the past no longer exists.

Unless you grew up in Springfield, MO.


Like I did.


People leave Springfield, but many stay. At least once every few years everyone returns - usually around the holidays or to bring their significant others or children to Silver Dollar City.

The town has changed. Kinda. Not really. Git n Go became Kum and Go - they still sell the standard gas station fare with the added horror/humor of the worst business name ever. Galloway Station is now Galloway Grill after a controversial and upsetting change of ownership, but it's essentially the exact same bar with the exact same decor and the exact same booze selection and the exact same atmosphere that breeds both bad choices and hella good times. Around fifty churches have built new structures or changed their name to something trendy like "The Flock" or "The Forrest" or "The Feeling" but it's still your typical Midwestern conservative Christian belief system just with a drummer and a coffee bar.

Memories. Springfield is full of hundreds of thousands of unfading memories. I've decided this must have something to do with the water.  People from Springfield have superhuman memory retaining ability until around their sixtieth year of life. There isn't a street in Springfield without a memory on it. Driving to church down Bennett, an insignificant side street, was like flipping through a yearbook. There resides my Elementary School where I was Student of the Month, count em, THREE times. The strange place we took our lawnmowers to get fixed. The magic arching tree I walked under on my way home from school that I liked to pretend had special dark powers. The house of Ben Carney - the god of my idolatry since third grade. The parking lot where my Nana pulled over and made us get out of the car so she could spank us and we all laughed so hard we nearly puked. The apartment complex we lived in until our dreamhouse was built where my Mom helped me practice for auditions tapping out tunes on our battery operated keyboard. The corner my dear friend Lacey peed on because she couldn't hold it a second longer even though we were a block away from our house.

These memories are so alive I can see them and feel them and smell them and taste them. It's overwhelming and quite frankly exhausting but at the same time comforting and heart warming.  That's Springfield in a nutshell. That's home in a nutshell.




I knew it was time to revisit the past. It was time to visit the church I grew up in - University Heights Baptist Church.

I woke up feeling nostalgic. Sitting on the recently redone floor in my mom's art studio which used to be my baby brother's bedroom I carefully applied make-up to my face while viewing The Muppet Christmas Carol on the tiny flat screen. Scrooge, brilliantly played by Michael Cain, slowly approached his old schoolhouse with bewilderment and joy. I knew I was soon headed for a similar experience - revisiting a past I turned my back on during a journey of reconnection.

Pulling into the church parking lot, much like Scrooge at his childhood schoolhouse, I was conscious of a thousand odors, each one connected with a thousand thoughts and hopes and joys and cares long, long forgotten. More memories returned - youth group football games in the field, Vacation Bible School lessons in a blue heat-box of a tent, and the night I slept in the parking lot after attending a party when my parents thought I was at a sleepover with girlfriends. Memories. 

I walked through the doors I had walked through hundreds of times before as a precocious hell-raising child, a youth group president, a nursery worker, Vacation Bible School teacher, chime ringer, and follower of Jesus. This time I walked through the doors as a guest - a guest in a strange familiar land.

Unnoticed I found a seat on the aisle. People turned to look at me, but no one recognized me at first. Still fighting off a nasty cold I was armed with a thermos of hot tea, a bag of cough drops and a wad of tissues. I took off my coat and settled in on the burgundy velvet pew cushion. I looked up at the stained glass Jesus and lambs window I used to admire in my childhood and the rich wood carvings at the front of the sanctuary. I grew up in a beautiful church.

When we were asked to stand and greet our neighbor, something we NEVER did when I attended in my youth, I declined to shake hands with the friendly silver-haired ladies who walked over to greet the young stranger sneezing alone in her pew. I wasn't there to spread illness. They greeted me as if it was my first ever visit and I didn't bother correcting them. I wanted to be an anonymous stranger revisiting her past in silence. And I was - at least during the service.

Other than the handshaking at the beginning, very little else had changed at UHBC. The choir entered in the same bright royal blue robes they wore fifteen years ago. Me and the hundred plus people around me sang hymns with bright cheerful voices. We prayed. We gave money. The choir sang and we offered our reverent silence in return for their beautiful singing. The children came down for the children's sermons I attended during my young years and I couldn't help but wonder how many of them would be like Andrew, a fellow youth grouper from way back, who was at church that morning with his wife and daughter lighting the Advent candles and how many of those children would turn out like me - choosing a non-church path for their adulthood.

As service continued I sat soaked in memories - passing notes with my friends during the sermon, getting baptized in the giant Jesus tub, sneaking in the sanctuary and making out with my boyfriend under the pews during Wednesday night activities,  waiting for my Nana after choir rehearsal, playing hide and go seek in the sanctuary during youth group lock ins....so many memories.

Drapped in nostalgia I found myself playing MASH as the sermon carried on - a game my friends and I always played when the sermons got too boring.

Just like in my youth, I have no idea what Sunday's sermon was about. BUT I married Ryan Gosling and we live in a shack in St. Louis with our 48 children.


As the service was concluding I could see children planning their exit strategy for the refreshment table just as I once did. Sure enough the second the organist played the closing song little feet were dodging gray hair and walking canes to get to the table of donuts and lemonade drink.

I too was anxious to get to the refreshment table as I desperately wanted to see if those red and yellow lemonade drinks were still in use. I felt immediately warm inside when I saw they indeed were.

lemonade drink.

However, my journey to the refreshment table wasn't the mad dash I was use to as a child, because I was stopped by several faces who had finally recognized me.


First up was Mary Jo, the grandmother of one of best church friends Alicia. Her face lit up when she recognized me in a way that filled my heart with joy. She threw her arms around me and called me "My Sarah".

John and Cathy, two of my family's closest friends who I see quite often and know about my church journey, came over to say hello and offer hugs and "Merry Christmas".

Slowly others started to recognize me and offered hugs and hellos. A girl I was never very kind to during my youth group years because it took me a very long time to recognize that differences are what make people interesting and should be celebrated instead of shamed came up and greeted me with warmth and friendship. I didn't know how to apologize for being a closed minded self-righteous idiot as a child and it didn't seem like the right moment to try so I smiled and asked her about her life and treated her with the respect I should have always treated her with and carried on greeting the members of my childhood church family.

the prayer room. 

Many people were confused and hurt when I left the church. People were worried about me. There were rumors that I was a pregnant drug addict atheist lesbian. No one could understand why I would leave the church after being such a celebrated member of the family unless I had fallen into Satan's grasp. I couldn't deal with their questions and closed-minded puzzled looks. I wrote them all off as stupid and intolerant and cut off all church relationships without a word.

You would have never known this on Sunday. It was like visiting family - a family that didn't always approve of your choices, but loved you no matter what. A family that understood I was just there for a brief visit and wouldn't be moving back in.


After donuts and lemonade drink and a quick catch up I decided to take a tour of the church.

Still there. Just as I remember, except the key is in plain view. 

I found the old art supply closet I used to break in to for yarn-bombing supplies. I had to walk in and see what there was to offer.

Pretty nice haul UHBC. I could do a lot of damage with this. 

I walked down the hall of classrooms. The old choir room where we would sing:

I AM A C
I AM A C-H
I AM A C-H-R-I-S-T-I-A-N


Further down the hall I passed the classroom where my Nana would lead us in GAs and remembered all the times I shared with my friends and grandmother in that small space.

It looks really different now. 

The giant painting of Jesus that always kind of freaked me out.

Then, after taking it all in and spending an hour or so with the memories of my days as a regular church attender, I left.

Such pretty wood doors.

There's a reason Ebenezer Scrooge is visited by the Ghost of Christmas Past, because remembering where you've been and who you've been is not only important but often very helpful.



When I was sixteen I left the church in anger and confusion and fifteen years later I returned in love and understanding.


My recent beliefs about church and church people have been based on my experience of LEAVING the church until this year of church visits. Returning to UHBC felt good because I needed to remember all the things I loved about church and all the reasons it became so important to me and the amazing people I got to know during the many years I attended.

I grew up in a church. Then, this year, during this journey, I once again grew up in a church - just lots of different ones.


I see things through a different lens now. A bigger open-minded less angry less judgmental more inclusive lens. And that's thanks to church - the churches I've visited recently and the church of my childhood- University Heights Baptist Church.

Two more church visits left. Just. Two.