The Church in Room 409

I pretty much went to the Information Session on a dare. College was a dream long forgotten, but to appease a friend I thought I’d go and hear what they had to say. It was in the Library Board Room with 36 strangers that I first heard the word “cohort”. If anyone had told me that word would become central to my academic and spiritual development I probably would’ve laughed in their face.

I still remember the night of the first class. I threw up before I left home and, truthfully, almost turned around 3 times on the 2 mile ride from my house to the college. I kept thinking to myself, “What on earth am I doing?” I convinced myself to make it through the first course before I dropped out. I believed that if I could just go in, focus on the task and talk to NO ONE maybe, just maybe, I could make it for 5 weeks. I was unprepared for what would happen next.

My personality is best described as “all point and corners”. Miss Congeniality – I am not. Even so, my plan of sitting alone and pushing through this would be thwarted by several factors. I learned quickly that we’d be introducing ourselves in every course by telling the professor and our cohort something they didn’t know about us. As I sat trying to come up with a creative, yet violent, federal offense I might have been convicted of that would keep everyone away from me something began to happen in that room. People began to tell their stories. Some of them were wilder than the stuff I was trying to come up with to scare people away so I gave up on that option. These people were, well, all over the map.

Some of them described themselves as “lay pastors” with jobs in offices. Others told of coming to ACC by the leading of the Holy Spirit. Some told us they were relatively new believers. Others could recount breaking free from lives of addiction and sin. I’d love to tell you that I immediately embraced this motley crew of would be disciples, but I didn’t. I became even more convinced that I couldn’t be a part of this. I couldn’t be this real with people. Then I rationalized that maybe I could just coast my way through using my award winning personality and distance as my offensive weapons. Then the instructor dropped the bomb all of us would come to dread…group projects.

I thought I had died and gone to Hell. (I’m still not totally convinced there won’t be group projects in Hell, by the way.) Not only would we need to work together to present a project in EVERY STINKING CLASS to complete this degree, we had to use our so-called Strengths to do it. So much for staying under the radar and coasting my way through this degree. It appeared they were really going to make me get to know these people! And so it began.

Pretty soon new cohorts were formed and we found ourselves getting to know even more people (imagine my joy). We got moved from the Library Board Room to Room 409 in Hathcock. By then we were mixed up with Cohorts 1-3 all in the same group, all studying Bible. While the idea that we would be there to study Bible was somewhat unifying, there were as many Biblical/Church traditions represented in that room as there were people. We were like a box of Crayola crayons – even the similar backgrounds were shaded differently because of our personal experience. We were hippies and addicts, conservatives and liberals, black and white, young and old. I remember thinking, “Now the group projects will get REALLY interesting! I can’t wait to watch these poor professors deal with this group!” But deal with us they did, and they did it well.

I wish I could go back and remember exactly when I knew it was happening. For the life of me I can’t recall. All I know is, somewhere along the way, we began to be a community. Maybe it was how we began each Tuesday night with prayer. At first the requests would be pretty superficial, but you can’t spend 4 hours trapped in a room with someone every week without getting to know something about the rhythms of their life. I can remember praying for at-risk pregnancies and loved ones who were being deployed to Afghanistan. There were requests for sick family members and jobs that were lost. Then the requests became more personal. Tears were shed one evening as someone asked for prayer for a loved one who did not know the Lord. Another one of us asked for prayer as they were anticipating being reunited with a parent they hadn’t seen in years. Our marriages were in jeopardy. Our children were hurting. Our faith was rocked and we all became very attuned to one another’s lives.

Cell phone numbers were exchanged and if you were late, you were bound to get a call from someone asking if you’d broken down or if you were just stuck in traffic. And if you missed a class due to illness, you could expect your inbox to be full on Wednesday with emails from everyone wanting to know if you were okay. We were becoming more than a community – we were becoming family. As you can imagine, it was impossible to stay invisible in this group. They began to wear down my “points and corners” personality and get under my skin and into my heart.

As students of the Bible, we’ve studied some pretty heavy topics. (I think we are all still surprised we lived through Biblical Theology with Rodenbeck.) But amazingly, somewhere along the way we all lost the need to be correct in our own belief system and learned to listen and process the viewpoints of others. When our theology led one of us to a hard place in the road, we all found ourselves there and what’s more – not one of us was willing to leave another behind in confusion. We haven’t let each other quit when it got hard. We have forced one another out of confused isolation into family so that burdens could be shared among many shoulders.

Somewhere along the way, we became a church. More than mere members of a cohort, we’ve defined ourselves as a group of people called out to live under the authority of scripture. We identify with each other in certainty and confusion, in victory and in sorrow, through happiness and tears. We’ve become a group of disciples devoted to the teaching of God’s Word and to one another. There have been many “pastors” who’ve led us for five weeks at a time. They’ve become dear to us and part of our fellowship. They may have come to teach a class, but I think they realized that they actually joined a church too.

To answer the question, “What on earth was I doing?” I can say: Something NOT of this earth. Something that looks very different from the Kingdom of this World. Each Tuesday has been what I think church was meant to be. We’re a group of VERY different people who’ve become bound by Jesus Christ. Our variety doesn’t scare us. While we tease each other about our differences, we’d fiercely defend one another should a stranger try and do the same. Our love and devotion to Jesus Christ has bound us together in a way nothing else could. In Christ, we’ve been liberated to love one another the way we never could’ve outside Room 409.

I understand not every cohort has had this experience. For that matter, everyone within my cohort may not have had this experience. To that all I can say is: I’m so sorry. The Church in Room 409 has been one of the most precious gifts God has ever allowed me to experience. I could never have asked for or anticipated anything like it. God has used this church to grow and change me in many ways. The Church in Room 409 will stay in m heart and my prayers for years to come.