super sunday

it's a love story

For over a year, I would open my eyes on Sundays knowing we didn’t have a church to go to and not knowing what to do about it.

But also knowing I ached for something. The only word I had for what was missing was “church,” but the language is imperfect—there’s so much we can mean by “church,” and a lot of it is not what I mean at all and not at all what I missed.¹

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This Sunday is Super Bowl Sunday, a fact I have unapologetically never cared about before this year. But Taylor Swift’s boyfriend is playing in the Super Bowl, and I do care about Taylor Swift.

And, like the cans of corn and beans I woke up at 5AM to dump into a crockpot, a bunch of thoughts are stewing, something about Super Bowl and soup and Sundays and, yes, Taylor Swift.

Because a few months ago, I wrote in a still unpublished post² about this new church my family has since joined. And (not really surprising if you know me) this viral moment found its way into my writing about church of all things:

I’m a Swiftie watching Taylor leap into Travis Kelce’s arms, and I’m simultaneously believing in love again and fearing the next heartbreak.

Because, like Taylor, I am dramatic.³

And because, for me, embarking on a journey of finding a community of fellow Jesus followers to join has felt as fraught as finding love after a bad break up.

See above: I am dramatic.

But also I’m being very real here, and the instinct is to poke fun at myself to lessen the vulnerability of how much I mean what I just said. Even trying to imagine finding a new church had seemed so impossible, and now that it’s here, it feels fragile and new, a bubble threatening to burst, a good thing I don’t want to jinx.

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It’s Taylor Swift’s Super Bowl today, and it’s also “Soup-er Bowl” Sunday at New Creation Church, which is why I’m up early making soup to take and share.

My husband’s already on his way to run through a few songs with our worship leader because he’s going to play piano and lead with her today, and I feel my heart swelling with the joy of waking up to the day I used to wake up longing for.

Soon, my little boy will wake up too, and we’ll get ready to go to church. He’s excited about the omnipresent Shipley’s Sunday donuts. And he likes going to kids’ church where he dances to the fun songs, plays games, and learns about Jesus too.

We’ll pack up our crockpot of soup and a few cans of soup to donate, and we’ll walk into a room where we’re just starting to be known, starting to know others.

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That feeling of walking into a room of people who don’t know you yet, of starting over, was so daunting it seemed impossible for a while. It was a huge part of why we avoided this for so long.

To us, like some song we sang as kids, church is not a building. It’s also not a style or a statement or a vibe. It’s not (just)⁴ a pastor or a cool worship leader. It’s the people, all the people.

And when that’s what church means to you, it’s hard to start again. Because knowing who the people really are and being built into community with them takes time. And you can’t really find out how it’s going to turn out without taking steps into it that enmesh you in it before you actually know for sure what you’re even getting into.

But here we are, crockpot and lead sheets in hand, taking steps toward connection and steps toward engagement and steps toward knowing and being known.

And it’s scary as hell.

But I have it on good authority that today’s opening song is going to be “Love Story” by Taylor Swift.⁵

And I find myself thinking that’s the message this soup of words was bringing me to:

Baby, just say yes.

I can’t know how this is all gonna go.

I have hope—hope I couldn’t have fathomed a few months ago—that this could be home and it could be home for a long, long time.

But I don’t know yet. And I can’t make the decision for a long, long time from now anyway. I can only make the decision for now.

I run to capture the next horizon
But what you give me is here
I get no farther, and still I find you
I wanna be where my feet are
Centering Prayer

I can only see now, and I won’t ever know what may be if I don’t just say yes. If I don’t step out, if I don’t say hi, if I don’t open my heart, if I stay closed and guarded.

And, this, by the way, is not a message intended to tell anyone else it’s time to say “yes.” I know all too well⁶ why church has gotten complicated for so many of us, especially in my generation it seems. And maybe even most especially for those of us who weren’t casual attenders in the first place, we who could’ve never imagined years of churchless Sundays until we found ourselves there.

I have felt the unknown knowing of the Spirit in me saying “no” or “go” or “wait,” and I won’t try to convince you you’re hearing something different than you are. I’m not here to add my voice to the church-attendance-is-falling handwringers, and if you’re one of the many taking a break, I hope you find here a place of rest and understanding. And, if you’re longing like I’ve been longing, I pray for your yes to come in its time.

But this is my story. This is my yes.

Our family’s yes and our family’s now.

And I write because I need a place to put the gratitude welling up, to explore it and express it. This overwhelming gratitude for a simple Sunday morning, gratitude for waking up and realizing, even if it’s still new and even if I’m still hoping for a future I do not know, I’m living now what I hoped for before.

Praise be to God.

1. I wrote about this more here, a shocking amount of time ago, in July 2022.

2. Posting it soon… perhaps.

3. For those less initiated, this “‘Cause I am dramatic” is a classic Taylor quote.

4. After all, the pastor and worship leader are people too, you know, even if a lot of churches do their best to convince you otherwise.

5. New Creation has a tradition of opening each Sunday with a non-church song. Our pastor told us that it was inspired by a member who shared how alienating it is, when you didn’t grow up in church, not to recognize a single song everyone else seems to know. So, the opening song is a chance to help people feel more comfortable and at home. And it’s also the signal to come on in and get settled, long after the time the website says church will begin, because we (I just said we) are a people who like to mosey in the lobby with donuts, coffee, and a Lego table for the kids. And often, like today, it’s a happy testament to our (I just said our) quirky sense of humor that borders delightfully on the edge of irreverence.

6. Taylor Swift reference fully intended