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Some people profess to be cradle Lutherans. Others are cradle Episcopalians, Methodists, or Catholics. I’m a cradle church-hopper.

My mother is a practicing Roman Catholic and my father was raised in a Free Will Baptist family. It was important to my mom that her children grow up Roman Catholic, and so my younger sister and I received the sacraments in a small parish church down the street where we attended Mass each weekend.

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Dad, though, has been a professional singer for many years and has served various churches, wherever friends have asked him to sing. Eager to hear him sing whenever possible, I often went to church with him, too, even though that meant also going to Mass on Saturday evening or very early on Sunday. With Dad, I often went to Methodist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Congregational, and other churches. Particularly memorable were the days at his parents’ Baptist church, where he would sing hymn after hymn alongside his brothers and father, and I would dance around and eat the delectable food my grandma and her friends had prepared.

I felt love, joy, and peace — God’s presence — in each of these places. But at the same time, each place felt very different from the others. I spent most of my growing-up years intensely pondering these distinctions, especially between the Catholic and Baptist congregations, those represented by each side of my family. If God is in each of these churches, then really, what is the difference? Is the Roman Catholic God different from the American Baptist God? Or does the one God behave differently in each place? Does each church simply show a different side of this one God? Do our Jewish, Muslim, and Buddhist friends share parts of God, too?

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Visit the study page for ideas for discussion and further reflection.

But Ruth said, “Do not press me to leave you or to turn back from following you! Where you go, I will go; Where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God.” Ruth 1:16

This text from the book of Ruth, often read at weddings, inspires visions of commitment to persons and family. Ruth married into a family of a very different culture, which was undoubtedly difficult and confusing. I imagine she usually felt like an outsider. But over time, with the love of her supportive family and God, she was transformed.

This verse gives voice to how many of us feel after living in and with a culture or faith that is different from our own. Just as it did for Ruth, the loving embrace of our new family, regardless of how different they might have seemed at first, always changes us.

I cried the day I joined an ELCA congregation. I remember feeling an almost physical sensation of joy that now I was a part of this community that had raised me up and nurtured my faith. I thought of the professors, pastors, friends, and many others in the Lutheran world who had helped me navigate its unfamiliar ways and find my own place to stand in it. They had long before welcomed me as a sister, and now I was choosing the Lutheran church as my family of faith. It was a big day.

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