For Wilshire Baptist Church
I’m being bombarded this summer with emails from Classmates.com inviting me to join the excitement of the big class reunion in September. My first reaction was, “oops, they’ve got a bad mailing list because the reunion is for the class of ’78 and I graduated in ’77.” But then I looked closer and got the real scoop: yes, the class of ’78 is having their 40th reunion but they’re inviting the classes of ’77 and ’79 to the party because the kids in ’78 had friends ahead and behind them. Right? Yes and no.
Outside of clubs and extra-curricular activities, high school still is pretty much class/age separated. Last year was our 40th and I couldn’t go because I had another obligation, but even if I could have gone I probably would have passed because the “class of ’77” wasn’t my affinity group. There were more than 700 of us and that’s too many to create a close, cohesive group. My group was the band, which is why some years back when we had a band reunion that covered a span of years I gladly went. In the band, class and age were boundaries drawn with dotted lines. On fall nights on the football field and spring evenings on the concert stage, we weren’t members of a class. We were members of the Mighty Mustang Band. Our friendships and camaraderie were prompted by our shared circumstances: working together to be the best we could be.
I found the same was true in college once I got past the freshman foibles and academic prerequisites and dove into my major and extra-curriculars. And that paved the way to jobs and neighborhoods and every other piece of life where we are bound together by shared experience instead of start and end dates on the calendar. I guess that’s why when LeAnn and I first moved into our Embree neighborhood we were pressed into leading a new neighborhood association. We might have been “freshmen” on the street, but we had some experience to share from life lived on other streets.
Church is the same way; it’s more about shared experience than your year of birth or baptism or walking through the doors. Sometimes in new committee meetings or study groups at Wilshire we’ll be asked to introduce ourselves by telling our name and how long we’ve been there. If that can be translated as, “what class did you come in with?” then I’d say I’m in the class of 1990. But that’s meaningless because being at Wilshire for 28 years doesn’t mean I’ve achieved a higher level of spiritual foundation, Biblical knowledge or theological wisdom. I know some shortcuts through the building and the staff directory that newcomers may not know, but I’ve found no shortcuts to a richer faith or a more meaningful life by having spent more time at Wilshire.
I’m still looking for answers and I’ve found Wilshire to be a pretty good school for learning because we learn from each other. And if you’re new to Wilshire, you should know that we long timers need to know what you know. Your experiences and wisdom add to the whole of our experience and wisdom and that helps make us more whole as individuals and as a community.